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Welcome, welcome to Wharton Moneyball.
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Welcome to a full hour of sports analytics
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here on the Wharton Podcast Network.
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This is Cade Massey hosting this week, along
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with what should be the whole crew at
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some point.
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We've got three quarters of the crew in
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here at the moment.
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Shane Jensen from his usual perch in Philadelphia.
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Otty Weiner on the road as Otty is
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often on the road.
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In this case, he's being a road warrior,
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showing up after having traveled 36 straight hours.
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Otty Weiner, we're expecting nothing but clear, focused,
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intellectual horsepower after 36 hours of travel as
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usual.
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We are gonna- I will do my
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best, Cade.
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Eric Bradlow is gonna roll in.
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Speaking of traveling, Eric also traveling, but we
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think we're gonna get him for part of
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the show.
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We'll take him whenever he arrives.
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We're gonna run our usual format today.
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We'll do an interview in the first half
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of the show.
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We'll roll into an open topics, open lines,
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in the second half of the show.
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We have back on the show, a frequent
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guest, Ben Alomar.
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Ben formerly of ESPN.
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He's also about as good as it gets
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when it comes to the world of basketball
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analytics.
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Ben even has his own book.
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If you wanna jump into sports analytics rights
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and teaches on sports analytics, his book is
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Sports Analytics, A Guide for Managers, Coaches and
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Other Decision Makers.
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But I would recommend it even to fans
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who wanna get up to speed on sports
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analytics.
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Ben is based here with me in Austin,
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Texas.
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He plays around at the University of Texas
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as well as with other jobs that we'll
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leave silent for the time being.
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Ben, welcome aboard.
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Great, thanks for having me back.
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Really appreciate it.
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Glad to have you, glad to have you.
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We are freshly into the third of four
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rounds of NBA playoffs.
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We started the Western last night.
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I think we're starting the Eastern tonight, maybe.
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Is that right?
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We've got San Antonio and Oklahoma City had
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a doozy of a game one last night.
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Cleveland, New York gonna go off soon.
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Kind of a bruiser of an East Coast
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final.
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But we gotta hear a little bit of
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your thoughts on the NBA in general, but
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especially coming out of these two high powered
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teams and especially Oklahoma City last night.
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And Wimby continues to emerge into what people
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thought he might be, I suppose.
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He was absolutely incredible last night.
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I mean, both ends of the court.
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I think according to ESPN's net points metric,
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he had one of the top 1%
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defensive games ever in their data set.
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That sounds good, that sounds good.
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Yeah, that's pretty good.
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And his three point shot from near the
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half court to keep them alive in the
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first overtime, just absolutely incredible.
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His impact on the last end of the
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game and the two overtime periods, truly amazing
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performance by him.
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Ben, can you tell us a little bit
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about that defensive metric?
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Do you know enough about it to talk
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about it?
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Like that's obviously a tough thing to, it's
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different than people scoring efficiency or whatever.
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What can you tell us about that defensive
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metric?
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Yeah, so this is Dean Oliver's, future Hall
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of Famer Dean Oliver's metric every time, every
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time.
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And basically what it does is it takes
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a look at the amount of credit, when
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something happens, how do we split that credit
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between all the players involved in it?
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So when we know that Wemby was, when
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he's guarding somebody and we know the outcome
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of that possession, let's try and split that
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up between Wemby, the shooter, the defense, the
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rest of the defense, all that kind of
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stuff.
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And sort of add all that impact up
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to get for a total net points created
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number for the entire game or season, what
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have you.
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So does it consider things like proximity or
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is it just on, does it some notion
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of who's guarding who?
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It is based on sort of the identified
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matchup that is happening at that time.
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So they have, Dean's got the player tracking
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data to identify who they think is guarding
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which player.
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An imperfect metric measurement for sure, but it
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is absolutely part of how it works.
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Does it capture, Rick, one more follow up,
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and then we're going to jump to you.
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Does it capture just, I suppose it captures
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attempts to score that are not successful, but
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also the absence of attempts to score?
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Because one of the things that happens around
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Wemby is people are scared to shoot.
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Well, and yeah, absolutely.
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And that sort of kept them alive in
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the end of regulation.
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I think it was where, you know, Shea
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is driving.
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They have exactly what they would want.
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Shea's driving into the paint and Wemby is
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there.
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So he decides to kick it out and
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they missed the shot.
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Like, yeah.
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So I think that piece is not part
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of this metric.
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Something actually has to affirmatively happen to measure
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in this context.
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But absolutely.
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So it's underestimating.
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It was the top 1% ever, and
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it underestimates the impact.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, plausibly that is not a trivial,
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I mean, we're not sliding Dean or the
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analytics at all.
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We know that this is one of the
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challenges with analytics is that we don't capture
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well what doesn't happen, and yet that can
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be a big part of the game.
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That's a big part of the big man's
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defensive game.
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Particularly for Wemby, because you can see like
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with the Timberwolves we're doing in the second
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round, just couldn't, wouldn't take any shots anywhere
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near him.
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And that's, yeah, we missed that.
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Okay, Adi.
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Yeah, so what you're describing is a metric
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that measures the defensive contribution on a game
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basis by kind of looking at the individual
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matchups.
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The standard way we measure defense would be
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some sort of adjusted, regression adjusted plus minus,
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which probably works pretty well on the season
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level because all that stuff that Cade's talking
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about that isn't measured gets captured by that
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in aggregate.
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So I guess my, if there's a question
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at all here, it would be, are they
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complimentary?
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Or are they ultimately, if you had one,
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would you rather have the tracking based matchup
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version or the regularized, what we call wrap
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them?
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Some people put Bs in front of it,
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easy and regression adjusted plus minus or something
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of nature.
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Yeah, I think it's a question, a little
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bit of what you're trying to use the
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metric for.
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I think they can work in different contexts
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really well, for example, like to measure impact
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in a game.
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Yeah, I absolutely want the matchup level.
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And I think that looking at sort of
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an adjusted plus minus defensive metric, again, once
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you have enough sample size and so you
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feel confident it's a good estimate, then that
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tells you something.
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And then the sort of matchup base helps
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explain some of the why.
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And then you can see if there's, what
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else of the why that is forming the
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defense, the adjusted plus minus metric, what are
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we not capturing in that matchup based metric?
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And I think that's, seeing those differences really
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is always really interesting and trying to dive
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into those.
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But I just think that, I mean, Wemby's
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Rapham numbers are sick.
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I mean, it's not like, it's very transparent
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what he does to the defense.
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So what's your sense of what, how much
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data is required before these good plus minus?
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This is basically a plus minus.
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You're talking about a very fancy plus minus,
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but hockey was the first with plus minus
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as far as I know back in the
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day.
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It was like the stat in hockey, but
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the guys in hockey told me, those are
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so noisy.
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You need like years of data before plus
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minus means something.
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Presumably with the Bayesian and the regularize and
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all that, you can get to something stable
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quicker, but how much, I've always been kind
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of cautious about plus minus because of how
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much data is required.
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How much until you're confident, Adi?
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So I'll just comment.
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I mean, there's a lot more scoring in
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basketball.
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So you have way, way, way, way, way.
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It's like not comparable.
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Magnitude of 10 basically scoring level.
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Yeah, so the real issue is diversity.
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So it only works if you have a
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variance, right?
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So if Wemby always played with one other
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player who was equally good or better, not
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really, but then you just couldn't, you would
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have what we call an identity viability problem.
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So the adjusted plus minus is there to
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disentangle the confounders.
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And that's only possible if you have variance.
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And if variance only happens when in weird
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situations where the game's over or whatever it
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is, garbage time or whatever, then you're not
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really getting a full accurate picture and you're
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just essentially biased.
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But I think with basketball, with a little
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variance, players coming in and out, and I
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don't think you'd be wrong if you'd attribute
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most of the main effect of suppressing defense
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to Wemby, but you have to have some
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control group.
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You have to have him not playing so
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you can see what happens.
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And that's part of it.
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But I think it probably converges pretty, I
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wouldn't say quickly, but I think by the
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end of the season, it probably works.
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So I'll fire off an email and try
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to get a better answer from people who
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actually do this for a living.
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Also, I think contribute a little bit more.
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I think the subset, I mean, maybe Ben,
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you've got thoughts on this.
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I think the player substitution mechanism in basketball
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is a little bit more random.
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Like in hockey, they go, like they come
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in in lines, where there's a sign, they're
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basically, you can have a whole game where
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two players are basically hitting the ice and
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off the ice at the same time.
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Whereas with fouling and with like everything else,
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I mean, obviously you're not gonna have two
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centers on at the same time.
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There's certain correlations in there, but I don't
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know.
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Do you kind of think of it as
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a relatively randomized process or a high, you
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know, at least there's, I feel like the
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process contributes to a lot of the variation
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that Adi is talking about.
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Yeah, you definitely have more variance in the
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NBA.
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And I think you're particularly with, when you
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focus on players like Wemby, you know, particularly
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this season, like he missed games due to
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injury or, you know, otherwise, I think you
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can have some trouble when you talk, Adi
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mentioned sort of garbage time with, you know,
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the Spurs and the Thunder this year, like
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Wemby didn't play a lot in late, you
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know, a ton of minutes because he didn't
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need to.
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And so there's a little bit of, you
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know, a question about how impactful that those
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things are.
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You know, Shea's the same way on Pro
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KC, just didn't have to play a ton
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in the fourth quarters a lot.
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So, you know, there's load management questions.
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So you get a lot of variance, but
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the question is, you know, sort of those
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late game time is how valuable is that
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in terms of really measuring true impact.
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I just want to observe that bigger picture
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about OKC and Ben, your history of OKC
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goes back and you've got some real roots
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in OKC if I have it correct.
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But, you know, last year, rewind a year
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to Presti and the Thunder winning their first
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championship and having that young roster and all
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those additional picks.
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And everyone's like, oh my God, how many
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championships are the Thunder gonna win?
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And they still are pretty high expectation for
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championships.
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But I don't think anybody would have anticipated
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that only one year later, they may not
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make the championship round.
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I mean, it's amazing how little we saw
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that, how few people saw that happening because
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it just, they seemed inevitable for a while
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after what happened last year, given what they
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had on their roster and their draft capital.
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Yeah, I think, you know, San Antonio is
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I think surprised a lot of folks because
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I think a couple of things, Wemby sort
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of accelerated, you know, and took this jump
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forward that I don't think everybody was expecting.
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I mean, unanimous defensive player of the year,
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you know, everybody thought he was gonna be
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great and nobody's surprised he's the best player
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of the year.
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But the level which he's able to control
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really both ends of the court now and
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where teams are like really sometimes just giving
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up trying to get into the paint if
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he's there is another level.
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And their young, other young guys have just
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been, Harper during the playoffs has just been
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tremendous.
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Cass just, again, continues to develop and become
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a really, really good player.
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So that young core accelerated faster than I
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think a lot of folks were expecting.
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And so they've been, you know, truly had
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a great season.
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You know, it'll be interesting to see how
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this, I mean, this is the series everybody's
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been looking for since about mid-season.
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Like, yeah, this is gonna be it.
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This is essentially the teams.
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I don't think people believe nobody's gonna win
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other than these two teams.
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So, yeah, it's a good, really great start
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to a great series.
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Are you breaking the Knicks heart this early?
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I mean, come on.
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Is that what you're- I mean, like,
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look, if they get there, they got a
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chance.
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You know, everybody's got a chance.
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You know.
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So let's, one, welcome Eric into the show.
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Eric just landed on the West Coast and
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made his way into the show.
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So glad to have you, Eric.
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Ben, let's do jump to the East.
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Ben, I assume he was talking about the
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OKC and San Antonio series?
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Absolutely.
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He is, and we're gonna change gears now
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and talk about the East, because he's been
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very interesting to us in Philadelphia, especially.
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One, the Sixers got past the Celtics, and
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not only that, but in a game seven,
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which doesn't seem to happen very often.
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But then they dropped the second round, and
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with it, we lose our favorite executive in
00:13:55
basketball with Darryl Morris.
00:13:57
So let's hear a first basketball talk.
00:14:00
You've got some thoughts on what we saw
00:14:02
over the first couple of rounds in the
00:14:03
East, and then I am curious to hear
00:14:06
your thoughts on Darryl before we wrap up.
00:14:08
Sure.
00:14:09
Yeah, I mean, I think the Celtics series
00:14:14
with the Sixers was interesting, because going in,
00:14:18
sort of, rewinding to earlier in the season,
00:14:22
the Celtics were surprising everybody.
00:14:25
Jaylen Brown was playing well, though plus minus
00:14:28
maybe not quite as strong as the box
00:14:31
score metrics.
00:14:33
But the team was succeeding and playing really
00:14:35
well, and they were gonna add Tatum back,
00:14:38
and Tatum came back and was great right
00:14:41
away.
00:14:42
And so they became the prohibitive favorite to
00:14:44
win the East, even though they weren't gonna
00:14:47
be the number one seed.
00:14:50
And then, again, they find that against the
00:14:54
Sixers, they had this great game one, then
00:14:57
they start to often lose game two.
00:15:01
That's the Celtics' recent history.
00:15:03
And they never really got control of the
00:15:05
series again after that.
00:15:06
And then the game seven, they just had
00:15:10
a bad shooting night, and sometimes it's hard
00:15:14
to overcome that.
00:15:16
So it was a tough one for the
00:15:20
Celtics to sit down.
00:15:21
Again, they were missing Tatum in game seven,
00:15:23
so they were not full strength.
00:15:26
And the Sixers were just, overall, just not
00:15:30
quite good enough.
00:15:32
I think the Knicks really, they changed their
00:15:35
offense to really put Cat in a position
00:15:39
to run the offense and be a distributor
00:15:43
and really control the offense and allow Brunson
00:15:46
to go off and shoot whatever he wanted.
00:15:50
They couldn't really, they couldn't match.
00:15:54
And Anubi was just fantastic in that series
00:15:57
as well.
00:15:58
Eric wants to jump in, our local Eastern
00:16:01
Conference basketball aficionado.
00:16:04
So Ben, what I think about, and I'm
00:16:07
gonna make a statement you just say right
00:16:08
or wrong.
00:16:09
Towards winning a championship, I think the Sixers
00:16:13
are in the worst position of any team
00:16:15
in the NBA.
00:16:16
And let me say why.
00:16:17
They can't get past the second round.
00:16:20
They have $150 million in contracts to imbued
00:16:24
George and Maxie.
00:16:27
And so what do you do from here?
00:16:32
Have you heard of the- Winning a
00:16:34
championship, I didn't say they were the worst
00:16:35
team.
00:16:35
I said, if the goal is to win
00:16:37
a championship, how do they get there in
00:16:40
less than the next five years?
00:16:42
I mean, they have pieces to absolutely build
00:16:45
a championship roster.
00:16:47
Like, they absolutely can do it.
00:16:50
They're in a much better position than a
00:16:52
lot of these teams.
00:16:53
I mean, there's the Kings.
00:16:54
Like, I mean, these teams exist that are
00:16:57
just not good.
00:16:59
And the Sixers, they're a good team.
00:17:02
They just won a playoff series.
00:17:04
They have two young, really strong, good guards.
00:17:10
And B, you have to decide, can you
00:17:14
get something of value if you move him?
00:17:16
Or do you move him and just say,
00:17:18
all right, we don't believe we can build
00:17:20
around him and having him come in and
00:17:23
out isn't productive.
00:17:25
Can you move on from him?
00:17:27
Do you get any value from, I don't
00:17:29
know.
00:17:29
All George, same way.
00:17:30
Like, I don't really know what you can
00:17:33
get of value, but you have good, strong
00:17:35
pieces that are proven to be effective in
00:17:38
the playoffs that are on the team.
00:17:41
And it's hard to say we're in a
00:17:42
worse position to go try and win a
00:17:44
championship when you've got that already on your
00:17:48
team.
00:17:49
There are teams that really don't have any
00:17:51
of that, which much worse positions.
00:17:55
So from that angle, let's talk about Maury.
00:18:00
So Maury ran the Rockets for a while
00:18:03
and now he's run the Sixers for a
00:18:05
while.
00:18:06
And as so often happens around the world
00:18:08
of sports, people will say, I'll take Moneyball
00:18:11
seriously when they win a championship.
00:18:14
Now, Presti's won a championship.
00:18:17
And Harry Roseman's pretty close to Moneyball.
00:18:20
They've won a championship.
00:18:22
Hadn't happened in hockey yet, technically, but here
00:18:24
comes Tulski in the Eastern Conference Finals.
00:18:28
So we'll see.
00:18:29
But Darryl has that.
00:18:32
He suffers from not having that championship.
00:18:34
What is your assessment of Harris and ownership
00:18:38
letting him go?
00:18:39
And what's your assessment of what he accomplished
00:18:41
and didn't accomplish in Philadelphia?
00:18:43
Yeah, I mean, look, Darryl is really one
00:18:47
of the best executives in the NBA.
00:18:51
I mean, when you think about the teams,
00:18:53
a lot of folks associate analytics with Sam
00:19:00
Hickey in the process and you gotta lose
00:19:02
to get the draft picks.
00:19:03
And so that's the way it's gonna be.
00:19:06
And that's, tanking has been effective for certain
00:19:10
teams to get that, and that's fine.
00:19:12
But Darryl has taken a different approach.
00:19:14
Darryl's approach is, I wanna win every year.
00:19:16
I wanna put a competitive team on the
00:19:18
floor every single season.
00:19:20
And nowhere was that more evident was when
00:19:25
he was in Houston and the Rock, the
00:19:27
Warriors were clearly the dominant team.
00:19:31
And they're like, everybody assumed that we're gonna
00:19:34
be going back to the finals and we're
00:19:37
winning another championship, all this.
00:19:39
And Steph was at the height of his
00:19:41
powers and all that.
00:19:42
And Darryl said, no, I'm going to put
00:19:44
together a team to challenge them.
00:19:46
We may not, and so he had Harden,
00:19:49
he had Chris Paul and you went after
00:19:51
it.
00:19:52
And if Chris Paul doesn't pull a hamstring
00:19:54
in that series, he probably beats them and
00:19:58
they go on to be in the finals,
00:20:00
which they would probably have won, given the
00:20:03
strengths of the team.
00:20:03
So I think that it's unfortunate, it's bad,
00:20:07
unlucky things do happen.
00:20:10
I mean, you go, you can point to
00:20:13
moments in time and all the time that
00:20:16
could have happened, almost got there.
00:20:20
And it's recognition that there's so much luck
00:20:23
in the outcome of sports, particularly when it
00:20:25
comes to winning a championship.
00:20:26
You can't win a championship without luck.
00:20:29
I think Habershaw goes through this great exercise
00:20:32
every year, puts an asterisk on the championship
00:20:35
and the NBA championship and goes through why
00:20:37
there should be an asterisk on the championship.
00:20:40
I love it.
00:20:41
You go through every single championship and how
00:20:43
they got lucky to win.
00:20:46
And just happened, Darrell just hasn't gotten that
00:20:49
lucky.
00:20:50
He's put teams together, certainly been good enough.
00:20:52
And he puts teams together to earnestly try
00:20:56
and compete every single year, which is, I
00:20:59
think from a fan's perspective, something that you
00:21:03
would love, particularly if you've been suffering through
00:21:06
some of these other tankathons in Utah or
00:21:10
Washington.
00:21:14
To have that as a goal to say,
00:21:16
I'm not going to tank, even if I
00:21:18
think it might help long-term, I'm going
00:21:20
to put together a team and win now.
00:21:23
It reminds me of something that Darrell said
00:21:25
after Hinckley lost his position with the Sixers.
00:21:28
He said something to the effect of, it
00:21:30
was like Sam took the fans and the
00:21:34
ownership on a long walk into the forest,
00:21:36
promising them this great picnic down the road,
00:21:40
but he didn't.
00:21:40
He didn't leave them enough little treats along
00:21:42
the way.
00:21:43
And what you're saying is Darrell believed in,
00:21:45
yes, we're aiming for the long-term, but
00:21:47
we're going to keep it competitive and entertaining
00:21:49
and enjoyable along the way.
00:21:51
But I think it also shows, Cade, which
00:21:52
you've talked about a lot, is the massive
00:21:54
uncertainty in the draft.
00:21:56
You can have a bunch of top picks
00:21:59
and Embiid worked out.
00:22:01
Obviously, Ben Simmons did not work out as
00:22:03
well.
00:22:03
Markel Fultz did not work out as well.
00:22:06
And you can say, well, if I had
00:22:08
known, I would have stayed with Tatum and
00:22:09
the Sacramento pick.
00:22:10
Yeah, well, okay, if I had known.
00:22:12
I think it highlights the fact that there
00:22:14
is still uncertainty in the NBA, even in
00:22:16
the NBA draft.
00:22:19
Can I, I want to jump in and
00:22:21
ask a question about it that really highlights
00:22:23
exactly this issue.
00:22:24
So this year's draft, I think there's pretty
00:22:27
clear what the obvious, considered a very deep
00:22:30
draft, at least at the top, but there's
00:22:34
a statistical versus visual comparison that is making
00:22:38
the rounds.
00:22:39
Boozer is, Cameron Boozer, has got the best
00:22:42
stats.
00:22:43
It just, and it's like, when you talk
00:22:45
about Rapham numbers, like on and off the
00:22:47
court, adjusted plus minus, it's just sick.
00:22:50
Yet he's not considered to be the number
00:22:53
one or even number two pick this year
00:22:55
because of eye test, I think.
00:22:58
I mean, or something like that.
00:23:00
I mean, maybe you can explain to me,
00:23:02
are we really having head-to-head here
00:23:04
between the numbers people and the eye people
00:23:06
who are going to end up making the
00:23:08
decisions, as we all know?
00:23:10
Yeah, I mean, I think that they're often
00:23:14
those pairings that go way far back.
00:23:17
You know, you have Durant, Oden, and there
00:23:21
you had, you know, a lot of folks,
00:23:26
you know, obviously the Trailblazers went with Oden,
00:23:28
number one overall pick, and left Durant for
00:23:31
Seattle.
00:23:33
The numbers were really clear that Durant was
00:23:35
the guy and people wanted to try and
00:23:37
sort of massage away Oden's lack of productivity
00:23:40
for a variety of reasons.
00:23:42
In terms of, you know, this current class,
00:23:45
like what, and I haven't really dug into
00:23:49
it yet in terms of projections and everything,
00:23:52
but in terms of, you know, playing really
00:23:55
well at the college level is not the
00:23:56
same thing as being great at the NBA
00:23:58
level.
00:23:58
Like, you know, we've seen plenty of guys
00:24:00
who are good at college level and cannot
00:24:03
make it, you know, at the next level.
00:24:06
So instead of, you know, trying to look
00:24:10
at the actual skill levels of different players
00:24:12
and then projecting those out and how they,
00:24:14
you know, can be put together and impact
00:24:18
actual NBA performance in the future, like that's
00:24:20
what we really need to do in terms
00:24:23
of understanding whether this really is a numbers
00:24:25
versus an eye test kind of situation.
00:24:28
Again, I haven't done that exercise yet, so
00:24:30
I can't comment for sure that that's where
00:24:32
we're at, but I mean, there are more
00:24:34
and more, just from the, you know, there's
00:24:37
a growing sense of folks that are actually
00:24:39
pushing Boozer even farther down now than even
00:24:43
the third pick.
00:24:44
So it'll be interesting to see how that
00:24:46
plays out.
00:24:47
Super interesting, because you're saying it's not just,
00:24:50
maybe Adi, you said numbers versus eye test,
00:24:54
and I think Ben's saying, look, it's not
00:24:56
necessarily production.
00:24:58
Maybe the better way of thinking about what
00:24:59
you said first, Adi, is production.
00:25:01
And in college football, we talk about production
00:25:02
stats or whatever.
00:25:05
Eye test is historically kind of a pejorative
00:25:07
way of like old school scouting.
00:25:10
And what I'm hearing from Ben is, real
00:25:12
quickly, what I think I'm hearing from Ben
00:25:13
is identifying the feature that's gonna generalize to
00:25:17
the NBA, the skill, the trait, or whatever.
00:25:20
It's almost a feature building process, and it's
00:25:25
not necessarily, stats in college won't necessarily translate,
00:25:29
but we think we know the traits, and
00:25:31
so can, but those aren't observed directly.
00:25:33
It's like we have to infer them.
00:25:35
So do I have that, am I thinking
00:25:36
about that right, Ben?
00:25:37
Yeah, I mean, that's what Ben's saying.
00:25:41
Go ahead, Ben.
00:25:41
Sorry, one of the really great examples I
00:25:45
like to point to you about is Hashim
00:25:46
Tabid years ago, who was just a dominant
00:25:50
defensive force at UConn, and everybody loved him.
00:25:55
Everybody wanted him, we wanted him in OKC,
00:25:58
quite honestly.
00:25:58
We tried, like the numbers loved him, the
00:26:00
scouts loved him, it was great.
00:26:02
And it just didn't translate to the NBA
00:26:04
level because there was a, there's something that
00:26:08
we, that I have tried to measure at
00:26:12
times in terms of sort of basketball intelligence,
00:26:15
basketball IQ that was missing that doesn't, that
00:26:21
you really need at the next level to
00:26:24
survive.
00:26:25
You can't just do it on the fact
00:26:26
that you're dominant physically, whether athletically or size
00:26:29
-wise.
00:26:30
Like that doesn't, if that's how you, if
00:26:32
that's what you're relying on to be productive
00:26:35
in college, which you can be, then you're
00:26:37
not gonna survive in the NBA.
00:26:40
Adi and Eric both wanna jump in.
00:26:42
Yeah, so I just wanted to say, I
00:26:43
mean, you're talking about latent variables that have
00:26:46
a better story, actually have a story, to
00:26:49
be quite honest, but are yet very hard
00:26:51
to pin down and measure and we don't
00:26:54
even know how they will predict versus something
00:26:55
which has no story whatsoever.
00:26:58
It's just a bunch of, it's like adjusted
00:27:00
plus minus stats that you have track record
00:27:03
on how they do and you can make
00:27:06
forecasts and that basically you're dealing with a
00:27:10
particular, this, I think Boozer in particular, I
00:27:12
think he really is the standout.
00:27:15
I mean, not just in one area or
00:27:18
one, he just sticks out.
00:27:20
He's only played one year in college, but
00:27:22
he just was unbelievable.
00:27:23
He comes from a legacy.
00:27:25
His father was a professional basketball player.
00:27:27
I think in some level, maybe his father
00:27:29
hurts him because he was not a superstar.
00:27:31
He was only merely very good.
00:27:33
Let me tell a quick story.
00:27:35
I've never told this story before and I've
00:27:38
never thought about it before, but it's like
00:27:39
this is so appropriate.
00:27:41
I was at Duke in the early 2000s.
00:27:43
It was my first faculty position.
00:27:44
There was a grad student there named Ken
00:27:46
Catanella who'd been, I'm sure, cross paths with
00:27:49
at some point.
00:27:50
Ken was an NBA.
00:27:51
He had played college basketball, small college basketball,
00:27:53
played in Europe some professionally.
00:27:55
And when he got to Duke as an
00:27:57
NBA, he talked his way onto Coach K's
00:28:00
staff in some kind of assistant capacity.
00:28:02
He was, as far as I know, I
00:28:04
believe this to be true, the first full
00:28:06
-time analyst that Coach K ever had at
00:28:08
Duke.
00:28:09
And while he was there, we started playing
00:28:11
with numbers.
00:28:12
So this is like, I think he might've
00:28:14
been class of 04.
00:28:15
So this is 2002, 2003, something like that.
00:28:18
So we pulled together and this is very
00:28:20
early.
00:28:20
And I'm not a basketball guy.
00:28:22
We're like, well, let's do some plus minus.
00:28:23
And we were really raw basic plus minus.
00:28:26
So this was not the B regressed, regularized
00:28:29
oddy.
00:28:31
But I can tell you that Boozer was
00:28:33
on that team.
00:28:34
Boozer's dad, Carlos Boozer was on that team.
00:28:36
And he was not considered the top player
00:28:38
on that team.
00:28:39
And Sheldon Whitehead, am I making that name
00:28:41
up?
00:28:41
There was another big guy they had, Sheldon
00:28:44
something.
00:28:45
I think Sheldon Whitehead is the senator from
00:28:47
Rhode Island.
00:28:49
Like I said, like I said, I am
00:28:52
not a basketball guy.
00:28:54
So Sheldon, I forget Sheldon's last name.
00:28:56
He was considered the bigger force at the
00:28:58
time.
00:28:58
And they had some other, they had some
00:29:00
smaller players as well.
00:29:01
Anyway, we run some basic plus minus numbers
00:29:03
and we're like, well, are these right?
00:29:05
Because Boozer kind of jumps out.
00:29:07
And it's like, what are we doing here
00:29:10
that's right or wrong?
00:29:10
Because we didn't expect Boozer to be the
00:29:13
one that was head and shoulders above.
00:29:15
And two things about that.
00:29:17
One, we were not expecting Boozer to be
00:29:17
the one that was head and shoulders above.
00:29:18
And two, Boozer's the one who went on
00:29:19
to have the better professional career than his
00:29:21
fellow big man that he was playing college
00:29:22
ball with.
00:29:23
Sheldon Williams, by the way.
00:29:24
Sheldon Williams, there you go.
00:29:25
Sheldon Williams, thank you, Eric, very much.
00:29:27
Yeah, just to follow up with that, Boozer
00:29:28
was drafted in the second round and had
00:29:31
a high first round career.
00:29:33
Yeah, no, he had a perfectly good, an
00:29:36
NBA career, which says something.
00:29:38
And the other thing about that, I love
00:29:40
about that story is that it's models at
00:29:42
its best.
00:29:43
Models at their best see around the corner.
00:29:45
They see the future a little bit better.
00:29:47
They tell you something you didn't necessarily know.
00:29:49
And we definitely had that experience with that
00:29:50
early rough stuff.
00:29:52
Catanella, Catanella went on to a long time
00:29:55
NBA career.
00:29:56
He was an executive NBA for many years.
00:29:58
NBA, NBA teams, super interesting, super good guy.
00:30:02
Okay, fellas, we're gonna need to wrap up
00:30:04
and let Ben go.
00:30:05
Ben, always a pleasure having you.
00:30:08
Very enlightening.
00:30:09
Give us something.
00:30:11
We've played one game in this Western Conference
00:30:13
Finals.
00:30:14
We play at least three more, maybe six
00:30:16
more.
00:30:17
What do you think is one thing we're
00:30:18
gonna be saying at the end of the
00:30:20
Western Conference Finals that we're not saying right
00:30:23
now?
00:30:23
It's easy to overreact to one game, right?
00:30:25
So what do you think might occur between
00:30:27
now and the end of this saying that
00:30:28
we're not anticipating properly?
00:30:30
I think first I'm gonna lose a lot
00:30:32
more sleep because I think the games are
00:30:34
gonna, I think we're gonna go seven.
00:30:35
I think we're gonna go long and I
00:30:37
think it's gonna be great for that.
00:30:39
But I think that we're, I think the
00:30:42
question is, Wemby had this historic defensive performance
00:30:47
and offensive, his overall, I mean, it was
00:30:51
Wilt-like numbers, crazy.
00:30:53
Can he keep that up?
00:30:56
That's the question.
00:30:57
Can he perform at that level?
00:30:58
Because they absolutely needed him to win that
00:31:02
game because they were about to lose that
00:31:03
game and then he makes two plays at
00:31:06
the end of regulation, keeps him alive and
00:31:08
then dominates in both overtime periods.
00:31:09
So that's a lot of minutes he hasn't
00:31:14
played, he doesn't normally play that many minutes.
00:31:16
Let's see if he can keep that up.
00:31:18
If he can, then they could actually dethrone
00:31:21
the Thunder.
00:31:22
But that seems like what it's gonna take
00:31:25
for them to do that.
00:31:26
Ben's here, I'll make a statement just in
00:31:27
five seconds.
00:31:28
I think we'll be talking about that SGA
00:31:31
is not that great a two-time MVP.
00:31:36
I think he's gonna have a lot of
00:31:38
trouble against the athletes.
00:31:40
I do, I think he had a bad
00:31:42
night last night and I think Dylan Harper
00:31:45
and D'Aaron Fox when he comes back
00:31:47
and Vassell, I don't think, I think SGA's
00:31:51
gonna have some trouble in this series.
00:31:54
I get to make a prediction, that's my
00:31:56
prediction, that's what I'm talking about.
00:31:58
That's fair, they got the guys to run
00:32:00
at him for sure.
00:32:02
My question's gonna be in what ways OKC
00:32:05
adapts because this is the thing about high
00:32:08
-end basketball in these seven-game series is
00:32:10
that one team will adapt to the other
00:32:11
and so they are very smart.
00:32:13
This is what they're doing and there'll be
00:32:15
some at least attempt to adapt to what
00:32:17
they experienced in game one.
00:32:19
That the qualification is, look, they played them
00:32:20
in the regular season.
00:32:22
It's not like this was brand new information.
00:32:24
OK, team, why don't we let Ben go?
00:32:27
Again, Ben Alomar, longtime friend of the show,
00:32:29
former ESPN and basketball analyst, basketball author, Ben
00:32:34
Alomar.
00:32:35
Thanks for joining us, Ben.
00:32:35
Come back and join us after the break.
00:32:38
Welcome back.
00:32:40
Welcome back to Wharton Moneyball.
00:32:43
Welcome back to a full hour of sports
00:32:44
analytics here on the Wharton Podcast Network.
00:32:48
We are rolling into the second half of
00:32:50
the show.
00:32:52
Shane Jensen is here, Adi Weiner's here.
00:32:53
This is Kate Massey.
00:32:54
Eric Bradlow flew in for a bit.
00:32:57
We'll see if we get him back for
00:32:58
part of the second half of the show.
00:33:00
We are recording on Tuesday afternoon as we
00:33:02
typically do.
00:33:03
Show will go up early Wednesday.
00:33:05
Just off the line with Ben Alomar.
00:33:08
Ben's based down in here in Austin with
00:33:10
me.
00:33:11
He's a former ESPN guy.
00:33:12
Fun little perspective on the NBA.
00:33:15
I need that.
00:33:15
I need that expert perspective on the NBA.
00:33:18
We're gonna go open lines in this half,
00:33:20
and we are gonna get Eric Bradlow back,
00:33:22
which is awesome.
00:33:23
We'll do a little catch your eye, what
00:33:26
caught your eye.
00:33:26
But before we do that, a quick shout
00:33:28
out, big thank you to Stephanie Lanasa and
00:33:31
her family.
00:33:32
Stephanie's a Wharton 2000 grad.
00:33:35
They made a generous gift to Wasabi after
00:33:38
listening to the podcast.
00:33:40
It's kind.
00:33:40
We appreciate it.
00:33:41
Helps us do the work, not just the
00:33:43
show, but the work we do with students
00:33:44
around school.
00:33:46
Also wanna note that the Lanasas have a
00:33:48
son, Ajax, one of their children, Ajax.
00:33:51
He is committed to play golf at UCLA.
00:33:54
Not this next year.
00:33:55
He's got one more year of high school,
00:33:56
but beginning in 2027, be golfing at UCLA.
00:33:59
You know, this is the time of year
00:34:01
where the NCAA tournament's about to start.
00:34:04
Great shout out, Kate.
00:34:05
I think maybe a lot of our listeners
00:34:06
don't know that everything that we do at
00:34:08
Wharton AI and Analytics, but also obviously Wasabi,
00:34:12
is fully funded through philanthropy, corporate partners, and
00:34:15
foundations.
00:34:15
And without that type of support, the show
00:34:18
doesn't exist.
00:34:19
All the things that you and Adi and
00:34:21
everyone is running at Wharton don't exist.
00:34:24
So very much appreciated.
00:34:27
Stephanie Lanasa and Ajax, their son.
00:34:30
Look forward to talking about college golf in
00:34:31
the future.
00:34:31
All right, guys, why don't we open it
00:34:33
up?
00:34:34
Lots of things going on.
00:34:36
Let's do a couple of rounds of what
00:34:38
caught your eye.
00:34:38
I'm curious where you will take us.
00:34:40
Why don't we start with our friend in
00:34:41
Israel on 36 hours travel, no sleep, before
00:34:45
he nods off mid half hour.
00:34:47
Adi, what do you got?
00:34:48
I'm happy to do so.
00:34:49
I'm actually gonna bring up, I'm gonna mix
00:34:51
two things.
00:34:52
So I wanna talk about hotness, because it's
00:34:54
caught my eye.
00:34:56
The hotness is the Philadelphia Phillies, who had
00:35:00
lost 10 games in a row, got a
00:35:01
new manager, and now look like a different
00:35:03
team.
00:35:05
So that just, that's one data point.
00:35:06
The second data point is the Yankees, who
00:35:08
look incredible for the first 45, 40 games
00:35:11
of the season, now look just, I would
00:35:14
say lost, and have lost, they've lost the
00:35:18
majority of the games they've played this last
00:35:20
week.
00:35:21
So that leads me to, what is this
00:35:22
thing called hotness?
00:35:24
And the reason why it caught me on
00:35:25
my eye in particular is that I was
00:35:28
revisiting an old result, the old paper of
00:35:31
Gilewicz, Tversky, and Vallone, which is the classic
00:35:36
paper called the hot hand fallacy.
00:35:39
And I wanted to kind of figure out,
00:35:41
well, what do people think?
00:35:42
Where is the academic literature on hot hands?
00:35:45
I don't know if you know, but myself
00:35:47
and your now former department chair, or soon
00:35:49
to be former department chair, Dylan Small, we
00:35:51
have a paper on the hot hand.
00:35:54
We have a paper that shows that the
00:35:56
Gilewicz and Tversky and Vallone paper actually uses
00:35:59
a very low power statistic to detect the
00:36:02
hot hand.
00:36:03
So we created a much more powerful one.
00:36:06
And so we reanalyzed their data and a
00:36:08
lot of other data sets and showed that
00:36:10
there is a hot hand.
00:36:11
It's not a massive effect size, but now
00:36:15
that paper's now 10 plus years old.
00:36:18
And that led to, yeah.
00:36:20
So I'll just, I'll comment because my old
00:36:24
professor from Stanford, Joe Romano, and one of
00:36:26
his students, they revisited that data as well.
00:36:30
And they actually did something which I had
00:36:32
noticed with one of my students when he
00:36:34
was an undergraduate and we never published it,
00:36:36
was that in that paper, there was hotness
00:36:38
when analyzed correctly, but it could be attributed
00:36:40
almost entirely to one particular player who was
00:36:45
absurdly hot.
00:36:46
So absurdly hot that if you put him
00:36:49
in, you have a statistically significant hotness.
00:36:51
If you take him out, you don't.
00:36:53
And so it's fascinating because there are so
00:36:56
many takes on the hot hand and some
00:36:58
are underpowered as you point out.
00:37:00
I'm gonna say something that you will appreciate
00:37:02
about this whole research stream because the work
00:37:04
that you guys have done in sports and
00:37:07
methodology.
00:37:08
So what we did, Adi, you'll, and Shane,
00:37:10
Kate, you guys will all appreciate this.
00:37:12
We took this exact measure that we created
00:37:14
for sports and just applied it to purchasing
00:37:16
behavior in marketing and video consumption in marketing.
00:37:20
So do people start binge consuming content?
00:37:23
Do people have hyper state dependence where they
00:37:26
start buying products at a hyper rate?
00:37:29
So we literally took exactly the metric that
00:37:32
we created for sports and directly applied it
00:37:35
to marketing.
00:37:36
And actually, it's now up to my second
00:37:39
most cited paper.
00:37:40
We didn't call it hotness, we called it
00:37:42
clumpiness because I didn't wanna have a positive
00:37:45
or negative valence, but this is a paper,
00:37:47
well, you guys remember, your former PhD student
00:37:50
in stat, Yao Zhang, worked with Dylan and
00:37:52
I on this work.
00:37:53
And it was revisiting the Gilevich and Vallone,
00:37:58
Tversky paper, and then it was revisiting customer
00:38:01
lifetime value work, which a lot of it
00:38:03
assumes that people buy at a constant rate,
00:38:06
which is not true.
00:38:07
And so there's actually a very active literature
00:38:10
on it, Adi, it's kind of rebirthed.
00:38:12
So this also helps us understand Eric's love
00:38:15
of momentum, I suppose, on this show.
00:38:17
So, and I just wanna note that, I
00:38:20
mean, there were a couple of economists, statisticians
00:38:24
who were, I got a lot of attention
00:38:26
for challenging the methodology of Tversky et al.
00:38:31
And is it Tversky or Gilevich, first author
00:38:33
on that?
00:38:34
Gilevich.
00:38:34
I should know that and I don't.
00:38:36
Okay, so it's Tom Gilevich.
00:38:38
So there's, we had that, one of those
00:38:39
co-authors on the show.
00:38:41
I have to add the behavioral element here
00:38:43
at the end before we let go.
00:38:45
I like what Eric said, he found a
00:38:47
hot hand, but it's a very small effect.
00:38:49
The behavioral claim would be, no matter what
00:38:53
our size is actually there, the belief is
00:38:57
much larger than the actuality.
00:38:59
That's the behavioral piece of it that I
00:39:00
would add on top of these things.
00:39:02
So I guess what I'm kind of saying
00:39:04
is that we see like what the Phillies
00:39:05
have done.
00:39:06
It's very hard to explain that without some
00:39:08
kind of hotness, right?
00:39:10
I mean, obviously you can explain it, but
00:39:13
it's hard to.
00:39:14
And if you go back to the marketing,
00:39:15
as all my children would say, they call
00:39:18
me Abba.
00:39:18
When Abba's in a spending mood, they know
00:39:20
it's time to get on that gravy train.
00:39:22
I get in that zone.
00:39:24
I've never been on that train.
00:39:25
I've never seen an Abbi spending motor.
00:39:27
No, it's extremely rare.
00:39:29
But when that thing ticks on, it's like,
00:39:33
what happens?
00:39:33
It's like a new person.
00:39:35
So Adi, just because you brought this topic
00:39:36
up, I'll be a business person just for
00:39:38
a second, because we're also a business show
00:39:39
a little bit.
00:39:40
So what we also address in the paper
00:39:43
is, should you encourage people to binge consume
00:39:46
or develop a hot hand when it comes
00:39:48
to spending?
00:39:48
And so we actually studied that.
00:39:51
What we did was, we had an in
00:39:53
-sample period where we ran an experiment.
00:39:56
We would encourage people to hyper buy, and
00:39:58
then we measured their customer lifetime value over
00:40:01
a subsequent six months out of sample period.
00:40:04
And so a separate paper we wrote was
00:40:06
in, you know, our big quant marketing journal,
00:40:09
Marketing Science, which is, should you try to
00:40:12
make your customers binge consume and clumpy?
00:40:15
And is it good for economic value in
00:40:17
the long run?
00:40:18
It turns out it is, by the way.
00:40:20
But that was purely an experiment run on
00:40:23
top of this metric that we created, as
00:40:26
opposed to the lower power ones.
00:40:27
And then we showed that there's actually business
00:40:29
value to encourage people to go into the
00:40:32
ABBA, Weiner, hot state.
00:40:36
I'm pretty sure that whoever runs DraftKings and
00:40:39
FanDuels read your paper, Eric.
00:40:44
Because, yeah, it's an ad blitz, let's just
00:40:47
say, happening for any of us watching live
00:40:49
sports out there right now.
00:40:50
Right.
00:40:51
Well, Shane, while you got it, why don't
00:40:53
you carry on?
00:40:53
What caught your eye in the world of
00:40:54
sports the last week?
00:40:55
Well, I guess this kind of relates to
00:40:57
the kind of momentum hotness sort of theme.
00:41:00
I mean, I'm really intrigued, obviously, for the
00:41:02
upcoming round for the NHL playoffs, and specifically
00:41:05
here in the East with the hurricanes, you
00:41:09
know, going into an 11-day break, basically,
00:41:12
as hot as a playoff team can be,
00:41:15
8-0, but then having 11 days off
00:41:18
while Montreal and Buffalo battled it out.
00:41:22
And, obviously, rest and all that is a
00:41:23
great thing.
00:41:24
And, you know, if I could be on
00:41:27
either team, I'd probably rather prefer to be
00:41:30
in Carolina's situation.
00:41:31
But it does add a bit, kind of
00:41:33
like, you know, to the extent that there's
00:41:35
a temporal momentum, whatever you want to call
00:41:39
it, to what was going on with the
00:41:43
hurricanes before this big break.
00:41:44
Has that dissipated, or are they going to
00:41:47
keep going?
00:41:47
I guess that's kind of the question on
00:41:48
my mind.
00:41:49
Let me ask you a follow-up question
00:41:50
to that, Shane.
00:41:51
So what would you have to observe to
00:41:54
say that maybe the break was too long?
00:41:57
Because let's just say, for example, the Hurricanes
00:41:59
win four games to three.
00:42:01
Well, maybe that's what it would have been
00:42:03
anyway.
00:42:04
Like, how do you look at the counterfactual
00:42:06
in this case?
00:42:07
I think if they get blown out in
00:42:09
four, you might say, wow.
00:42:10
I mean, I'm not saying statistical evidence, but
00:42:12
what would be a narrative that you would
00:42:14
have to see to say that- I
00:42:15
think I'd have to see some kind of
00:42:17
like, not just like, not even, them losing
00:42:22
the series, I suppose, in a blowout would
00:42:25
be pretty, some evidence.
00:42:27
But, like, you'd want to kind of look,
00:42:28
I think, at the underlying sort of measurables
00:42:32
and sort of see, you know, pop possession,
00:42:35
like all these kind of other things, and
00:42:37
see if they're really kind of lagging on,
00:42:40
to the extent that those are sort of
00:42:41
like some kind of, I think that's where
00:42:44
you'd really, I think, see the compelling evidence
00:42:46
for like some kind of like, you know,
00:42:48
rust kind of story.
00:42:50
That's an interesting question.
00:42:51
Like, what reflects rust in hockey?
00:42:54
That's interesting.
00:42:54
I would also add, they have to, for
00:42:56
that story to hold, they have to lose
00:42:58
game one.
00:43:00
That 100% have to lose game one.
00:43:02
No, you have to.
00:43:02
And really, you probably ought to lose more
00:43:04
than one if that story's going to hold.
00:43:06
But Mark, they had, you know, Mark Messier
00:43:08
is an analyst on ESPN, and they had
00:43:10
him on after the game last night.
00:43:12
And he talked about exactly this issue.
00:43:14
He said, back in the 80s, they had
00:43:16
some kind of playoff round against the Flyers.
00:43:21
And he said, they had, they, his team,
00:43:23
I don't know if this was the Oilers
00:43:24
or the Rangers.
00:43:24
When did you say?
00:43:25
Oilers.
00:43:26
That'd be the Oilers.
00:43:27
Yeah, the Oilers.
00:43:28
I mean, this was the finals.
00:43:30
He had a 10 game break before the
00:43:32
finals against the Flyers.
00:43:32
Yeah, I think, because if it was like
00:43:34
an 87-88, they actually, I think, for
00:43:36
at least a four game, for the current
00:43:38
hockey structure, they have the record.
00:43:41
They went 16-2, I think, in that
00:43:43
playoff round.
00:43:43
Of course, they had swept everybody.
00:43:45
They just waited.
00:43:46
Basically, they'd gone through whoever was out in
00:43:48
the West and were just waiting for the
00:43:49
Flyers in the final.
00:43:50
So Messier said last night, he's like, look,
00:43:53
you come back and you feel a little
00:43:54
cement-legged, but you get a 10 day
00:43:57
break in the middle of the season, and
00:43:59
that, all season long, you never get that
00:44:01
break.
00:44:01
It's like an entirely new season.
00:44:03
He was, you could tell in the way
00:44:05
he was talking about it, he said flat
00:44:06
out, he said the Canadians are up against
00:44:08
it.
00:44:08
This is a big, and this was after,
00:44:10
of course, talking flatteringly about the two teams
00:44:12
that had just played, because it was clear
00:44:14
to him.
00:44:15
I think it's clear to Messier that it's
00:44:16
like, this is a big disadvantage, which is
00:44:18
the way we talked about it last week
00:44:20
as well.
00:44:21
I mean, look, it's not even only just
00:44:22
about this series.
00:44:23
They're already a big favorite in this series.
00:44:25
That break is gonna help them in the
00:44:26
finals if they make the finals.
00:44:28
I mean, they got better rest than the
00:44:29
Avs did if the Avs make it through.
00:44:32
A quick lamentation for the Sabres.
00:44:34
That was a great series.
00:44:36
It was game seven, overtime, that's just the
00:44:39
best thing in hockey.
00:44:41
And it was the second series clenching game
00:44:44
that I watched where it feels like the
00:44:46
team that won got outplayed.
00:44:47
And they had this overtime goal.
00:44:49
This was the Flyers against the Pens, overtime
00:44:51
goal in game six.
00:44:52
Freaking Canadians against the Sabres, overtime goal again.
00:44:55
I mean, the Sabres had pounded them for
00:44:57
at least the last two periods of regulation.
00:45:01
They got outplayed probably in overtime itself.
00:45:03
That hot gold tender, man.
00:45:04
I think to the extent that we've got
00:45:06
a hot gold tender to this playoff, it's
00:45:09
the one in Montreal.
00:45:11
Well, shout out to Sam Ventura, our friend
00:45:13
from Carnegie Mellon who runs R&D for
00:45:15
the Sabres.
00:45:16
And by any lights, that's a great season.
00:45:19
Second round, and they seem like they're back.
00:45:22
They have a young team.
00:45:23
There's just kids out there for that team.
00:45:25
I think I saw, I heard that Montreal
00:45:27
and Buffalo actually are the two youngest teams
00:45:29
in the league.
00:45:31
Pretty incredible that they were playing.
00:45:32
They look like it on the ice.
00:45:33
It looks like I'm watching my nephews, baby
00:45:35
nephews out there playing hockey.
00:45:37
All right, Eric, what do you got?
00:45:39
So I was thinking about golf and I
00:45:42
was thinking about Aaron Rye winning the PGA,
00:45:44
but I thought about it more broadly.
00:45:46
Like, name me a sport where the 40
00:45:50
-something-ranked player in the world wins the
00:45:53
title.
00:45:53
So in basketball, I know there's not 40
00:45:57
-something teams, but there's no chance next season,
00:46:02
for example, like the Sacramento Kings are winning.
00:46:04
In tennis, the 40-something-ranked player is
00:46:08
not winning the French Open.
00:46:10
The 40-something-ranked horse is not winning
00:46:13
the Belmont.
00:46:14
So I started to think, this is why
00:46:16
I love golf, because you go into these
00:46:20
tournaments and it could be 50, 60, 70
00:46:24
guys that could win the tournament and that's
00:46:27
the wonderful thing.
00:46:28
And it gets part of the momentum.
00:46:29
I thought where Adi was gonna go with
00:46:31
his momentum story earlier, when baseball too, in
00:46:35
golf, you've talked about this, Kate, you get
00:46:37
locked in.
00:46:38
And if you get locked in for one
00:46:42
weekend, you can win a major.
00:46:45
And Danny Willett won the Masters.
00:46:47
I mean, who the, Danny Willett?
00:46:48
Danny Willett won the Masters.
00:46:51
And I'm just saying, you get these situations
00:46:53
where it can happen.
00:46:55
And that's what I thought about, is again,
00:46:57
what other sport could the 40-something-ranked
00:47:00
player not only win, but one by three
00:47:03
strokes?
00:47:04
I just, that was what caught my eye.
00:47:06
Eric, let me just follow up with that.
00:47:08
Does it make Scheffler's performance over the last
00:47:10
couple of years even more impressive?
00:47:11
Does it make it even more impressive when
00:47:13
one guy does so well over a long
00:47:15
period of time?
00:47:16
Because that shouldn't happen, right?
00:47:18
That shouldn't happen in what you just described.
00:47:19
Well, two other things, and I know Adi
00:47:21
wants to jump in, two other things.
00:47:23
So Scheffler is an interesting situation because, and
00:47:27
this isn't a bad thing I'm about to
00:47:28
say, his wins and loss record when he's
00:47:31
in contention is starting, he's young, he's 29,
00:47:34
is starting to look more and more like
00:47:36
Nicklaus than it is Woods.
00:47:38
And let me say why I'm saying that.
00:47:40
People know Jack Nicklaus has the record for
00:47:42
18 majors, right?
00:47:43
He won 18, that's the all-time record.
00:47:46
Do you know how many seconds Nicklaus has?
00:47:48
Also all-time record.
00:47:50
19 or 20.
00:47:52
And Tiger Woods has 15 wins, two, three?
00:47:58
Like Tiger Woods is in contention.
00:48:01
Tiger Woods wins, you guys know this stat.
00:48:03
He's like leading after three rounds.
00:48:05
He's like 54-2 in his career.
00:48:08
Jack Nicklaus doesn't have that record.
00:48:10
I'm starting to see it.
00:48:11
This is not a problem.
00:48:12
I'd rather be Scottie Scheffler than any other
00:48:15
golfer right now.
00:48:15
Even than Roy McIlroy.
00:48:17
I'm not saying McIlroy doesn't have a better
00:48:18
accomplished record right now.
00:48:21
Scottie Scheffler had a bad week as far
00:48:24
as I'm concerned.
00:48:24
What, he ended up 15th?
00:48:26
I mean, that's as bad as he can
00:48:27
play.
00:48:28
As bad as he can play.
00:48:29
He missed six putts.
00:48:30
I saw him miss six putts, six feet
00:48:32
or less.
00:48:32
He makes those putts, he's in it.
00:48:35
So, and the worst he can play, he's
00:48:37
top 15.
00:48:38
That's the worst he can play.
00:48:42
Yeah, so my comment is that one of
00:48:44
the things that the reason why this happens
00:48:46
is in, if you divide a golf performance
00:48:50
into three components, so it's almost like the
00:48:52
four factors for golf.
00:48:53
You have the tee shot, you have the
00:48:54
approach shot, and you have your putting.
00:48:55
And you sort of Z-score your performance
00:48:57
and your strokes gained it.
00:48:59
Your strokes gained your Z-scores on each
00:49:01
of those components.
00:49:02
And you ask, well, what we've talked about
00:49:04
since the show a lot, the tee shots
00:49:06
and the approach shots, the players are really
00:49:09
different.
00:49:10
They are quantifiably very, very different.
00:49:12
Their skill levels are vast and they're important.
00:49:17
And in putting, they're very, very compressed.
00:49:20
But if you tried to, if you had
00:49:22
only one of those to predict who wins
00:49:23
the tournament, which one would you want?
00:49:27
If you only could pick one, which one
00:49:29
would you?
00:49:29
It's putting.
00:49:30
It's putting, it's putting.
00:49:32
And so that's, and that's the component that
00:49:35
has the least amount of skill or skill
00:49:37
variation.
00:49:38
I mean, I don't want to say it's
00:49:39
not skill.
00:49:40
I can't do it.
00:49:40
You guys can't do it.
00:49:41
Skill of variation is the thing that determines
00:49:45
the outcome so frequently.
00:49:47
And so you get this 40th person because
00:49:49
of that peculiarity of golf.
00:49:52
Interesting, all right.
00:49:54
Let me give you one and then we'll
00:49:56
do another round and I'll pass on the
00:49:57
second round since I've been kibitzing on that.
00:49:59
But I'm gonna come back to hockey.
00:50:00
I was thinking about this last night and
00:50:02
this is something to put up against y
00:50:04
'all.
00:50:04
Y'all react to this.
00:50:06
It feels to me like hockey is in
00:50:08
some sense the most exciting sport.
00:50:10
And I was trying to operationalize it in
00:50:12
my head last night.
00:50:15
You know, there's not much scoring as Adi
00:50:17
referred earlier.
00:50:19
And so the win probability change from a
00:50:23
score is pretty high relative to other sports.
00:50:27
Certainly huge compared to basketball.
00:50:29
It's probably, I'm curious, it's probably a little
00:50:31
bit higher than baseball but scoring is comparable
00:50:34
to baseball.
00:50:35
It's probably a little lower than soccer.
00:50:37
Soccer's even bigger.
00:50:39
It's gotta be higher than NFL.
00:50:41
So the win probability change when a goal
00:50:44
occurs is big.
00:50:46
But here's the thing.
00:50:48
That combined with the fact that the trajectory
00:50:52
from zero chance of a goal to a
00:50:56
goal happens faster than it has to be
00:51:00
any other sport.
00:51:01
Like maybe with a pitcher and a home
00:51:04
run, that's the closest thing to it.
00:51:06
But a guy can go from the far
00:51:08
end of the ice where there's no chance
00:51:11
that a goal's about to happen to being
00:51:13
high goal expectancy.
00:51:14
Well, at least, you know, at least goal
00:51:16
region in just seconds.
00:51:18
And it goes back and forth like this
00:51:20
all the time.
00:51:20
You go from like utterly risk of a
00:51:23
goal happening which is gonna lead to this
00:51:25
big change in win probability to no risk
00:51:27
and negative risk.
00:51:28
The other team with the high risk of
00:51:30
win probability.
00:51:32
I think that vacillation, that vacillation is.
00:51:34
Yeah, when Montreal was up two nothing in
00:51:36
the game last night, early on, what was
00:51:39
the win probability?
00:51:40
I'm just interested.
00:51:40
Like in the first period up to, was
00:51:42
it like 80%?
00:51:43
I doubt it would have been 80, but
00:51:45
especially.
00:51:47
Yeah, 80 would be an upper bound on
00:51:48
what I would probably put that probability at.
00:51:50
You know?
00:51:51
Yeah, but.
00:51:52
Sure, 70s, 75.
00:51:54
Yeah, between 60 and 80, certainly.
00:51:56
Between 60 and 80.
00:51:57
Yeah, and that's this extremeness.
00:51:58
And you know, and then once it's two
00:52:00
to one, well, then all of a sudden,
00:52:02
you know, it's, I don't know, 55, 60
00:52:05
% maybe.
00:52:06
And then when it's two to two, you
00:52:07
know, I'm a momentum guy, I'd say, well,
00:52:08
the Buffalo's more likely to win.
00:52:10
But do y'all buy my operationalization of,
00:52:13
that's a, can we think about, can we
00:52:15
compare sports that way?
00:52:16
Yeah.
00:52:17
And ask about something about the volatility of
00:52:21
win probability.
00:52:23
It just seems more compressed.
00:52:25
Higher frequency.
00:52:25
Divided by time.
00:52:26
I think it's like a derivative.
00:52:27
By time.
00:52:27
Right.
00:52:27
By time.
00:52:29
The instantaneous change in win probability is probably
00:52:33
highest in hockey, or potentially highest.
00:52:36
Something like that.
00:52:36
Something like that.
00:52:37
I would think, Cade, that if I was,
00:52:39
you know, starting a sports network, or thinking
00:52:43
about this, and I was thinking about fan
00:52:45
experience, the metric you just created is probably
00:52:48
one that would be very interesting to look
00:52:51
at, and probably generates a lot of excitement.
00:52:55
Well, the qualifier on it is that you
00:52:58
probably don't get huge jumps because goals don't
00:53:00
happen with very high probability.
00:53:03
So we're talking about, it's moving around like
00:53:05
this, but it's going on both sides of
00:53:07
the, it's going on both sides of the
00:53:09
0.5 line with high frequency.
00:53:12
Okay.
00:53:12
Let's do another quick round.
00:53:14
Let's go back around to Shane.
00:53:15
Or no, Adi started us off.
00:53:19
Okay.
00:53:20
If you haven't been watching whatever local sports
00:53:23
you have.
00:53:24
I haven't, but I don't have any quick
00:53:26
takes.
00:53:27
I have a question for you.
00:53:28
Yeah, sure.
00:53:30
Don Mattingly.
00:53:32
Did we know he was going to be
00:53:33
a success?
00:53:34
Tell me about his managerial background.
00:53:35
I mean, I don't think about Don Mattingly
00:53:37
since he's been a player, but I'm sure
00:53:38
I'm just out of it.
00:53:39
No, he is an accomplished manager, and not
00:53:42
only, obviously, an accomplished player, and an accomplished
00:53:45
manager.
00:53:46
I think what, just connecting on this point
00:53:49
is, and in managerial prowess in general in
00:53:52
baseball, it's something that I have a hard
00:53:55
time understanding how much it's valued.
00:53:58
I mean, we've talked about this because it's,
00:54:00
in some level, the set of strategic moves
00:54:03
that you get to make as a manager
00:54:05
in baseball is so much smaller than the
00:54:07
things that you get to do in other
00:54:09
sports, particularly sports like hockey and basketball.
00:54:13
You have all these combinations that you get
00:54:15
to decide upon, and when people come out,
00:54:18
and all that changing of players, and strategically,
00:54:21
you have the manager in soccer manages what
00:54:25
kind of team that they want to build,
00:54:27
and the whole team is built around that,
00:54:29
is built around that manager's understanding of the
00:54:32
strategic design.
00:54:34
Baseball's like, really, what are you really doing?
00:54:36
In the old days, you had more to
00:54:37
do because they also were, in some level,
00:54:40
very involved in player acquisition and termination decisions,
00:54:43
but here, we just don't see it, yet
00:54:45
somehow, just, you see this mattingly effect, and
00:54:49
I'm probably, if you had to ask me
00:54:51
where I stand on it, I'm essentially saying,
00:54:54
very, very minor factor.
00:54:56
This is due to other factors, of which,
00:55:00
a big helping of which is luck and
00:55:02
regression to the mean.
00:55:03
The Phillies were a good team, and that
00:55:05
someone asked me what's the mattingly effect, and
00:55:07
my first response is, clearly, it's regression to
00:55:10
the mean.
00:55:10
When you make the change when you are
00:55:12
at the worst, that's when things were so
00:55:15
horrible, and so unexpectedly horrible, that you made
00:55:18
the change then, and then, therefore, my prediction
00:55:21
for the Phillies in their next two weeks
00:55:22
after the managerial change was going to be
00:55:25
much higher, simply because of the cherry-picking,
00:55:29
the tragedy, the moment.
00:55:32
It said you had the paired comparison, the
00:55:34
Red Sox fired their manager in about the
00:55:36
same time and have gotten no better.
00:55:39
No, they weren't as bad.
00:55:41
They didn't, did they have a 10-game
00:55:44
win?
00:55:45
Losing streak?
00:55:45
I don't think so.
00:55:46
Also, I feel like you were only talking
00:55:48
about the manager in terms of on-field
00:55:50
strategic decision-making contribution, not the behind-the
00:55:54
-scenes, getting the player to play their best,
00:55:57
and that one, I think managers can have
00:56:00
a big effect there.
00:56:01
It's fascinating, though, because Rob Thompson, who was
00:56:05
the one fired, came in and did that
00:56:07
exact thing to the same team, basically, like
00:56:10
three-whatever years ago, and somehow, so I
00:56:14
kind of feel like the refresh often works,
00:56:16
but it's weird to me.
00:56:18
Doesn't that just suggest that you need an
00:56:20
occasional refresh, that manager-player relations kind of
00:56:23
gets stale?
00:56:24
Adi and I are waiting for Aaron Boone,
00:56:26
but Adi, just quickly.
00:56:27
Yes, we are waiting for him.
00:56:28
Just quickly, by the way, let's pretend, this
00:56:31
is probably an overestimate, but just pretending that
00:56:33
the Phillies were a 600 team to start
00:56:35
the season, that's probably an overestimate, but just
00:56:37
roughly.
00:56:38
I just did the calculation.
00:56:40
They've gone 18 and four under Mattingly.
00:56:42
There's a 1.13% chance that they
00:56:44
would do that as a 600 team, straight
00:56:47
from a binomial tail probability, so it's rare,
00:56:51
and we have to give something to it,
00:56:54
but it's not like you would never see
00:56:56
a team go this, like, this is a
00:56:59
rare stretch, but it's not a rare, rare,
00:57:02
rare stretch.
00:57:04
Yeah, but the 10-game-in-a-row
00:57:05
stretch is incredible.
00:57:06
To put them back-to-back, and you
00:57:08
get something that's really worth noting.
00:57:10
To lose 10 in a row and then
00:57:11
to go 18 and four, that's a little
00:57:13
different.
00:57:14
0.6 to the 10th is really small.
00:57:18
Shane, last word on Mattingly and your Phillies?
00:57:22
Well, I'll keep it with the Phillies.
00:57:23
I just kind of saw that actually, just
00:57:27
for the, because we're fascinated with the ABS,
00:57:30
I saw that Bryce Harper actually lost a
00:57:32
challenge in the statistically worst possible situation.
00:57:37
So the context was, bases empty, zero-zero
00:57:41
count, two outs in the first inning, and
00:57:44
so it's like, and it just kind of
00:57:46
fascinated me like, I like, I mean, it
00:57:48
makes sense that that would be the worst
00:57:49
possible combination.
00:57:50
I just, I feel like we're not tracking,
00:57:52
you know, obviously the hitters or whatever are
00:57:56
making their decision based on whether they really
00:57:58
thought it was in the zone or not.
00:58:00
I wonder if there is any kind of
00:58:03
learning for context that can actually be there.
00:58:05
Well, I actually think, I actually studied this
00:58:07
a little bit.
00:58:07
I'm not sure you were on when I
00:58:08
gave my results about the tracking, about the
00:58:11
ABS, the tapping.
00:58:14
The, we are, the people, the analysts are
00:58:16
tracking basically what I call run expectancy flip.
00:58:20
And what you're pointing out here is that
00:58:21
the run expectancy flip was so small here,
00:58:23
even at stake, so little was at stake,
00:58:26
that the future loss because of the expected
00:58:29
value given how early in the game is,
00:58:31
that's the piece that people are not tracking
00:58:33
properly.
00:58:34
I think what's happening is that hitters like
00:58:36
Harper are given essentially the green light.
00:58:39
And that's the way they're dealing with it.
00:58:41
And hitters like, you know, Jazz Chisholm are
00:58:45
being told, you don't ever challenge.
00:58:47
Because you see him, you watch him hit.
00:58:50
He's like, he's like, oh, at this point,
00:58:51
you know, what the hell's going on in
00:58:53
my head?
00:58:53
I feel like Jazz is the opposite side
00:58:54
of the spectrum from Angel Hernandez or something
00:58:56
like that.
00:58:57
But shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't the- They have
00:58:59
the same amount of judgment.
00:59:01
Shouldn't the clubs, at the very minimum, you
00:59:04
could tell, you could imagine telling a batter
00:59:05
as they leave the undead circle, you have
00:59:08
the green light or you have a red
00:59:09
light?
00:59:10
Absolutely.
00:59:10
It's like, it's just a game situation at
00:59:13
the batter, at the at-bat level, it
00:59:16
should be real clear that a guy can
00:59:17
do it or can't do it, right?
00:59:19
Absolutely.
00:59:20
My suspicion is that someone like Harper is
00:59:23
given the green light to do whatever he
00:59:24
wants.
00:59:25
But he shouldn't be given the green light.
00:59:25
Even Harper shouldn't have the green light at
00:59:26
that moment.
00:59:27
But it's not surprising that Bryce Harper is
00:59:29
the one that makes that decision.
00:59:30
Especially Bryce Harper playing like he's been playing.
00:59:32
He's on top of the world, he runs
00:59:33
the world.
00:59:33
Let me do whatever I want to do
00:59:34
kind of thing.
00:59:35
There needs to be a check on that.
00:59:37
Okay, that was Shane's second one.
00:59:40
Eric Bradlow.
00:59:40
Just quickly, I know we're heading up on
00:59:42
time here.
00:59:43
All right, very sad moment for me today
00:59:45
because you guys know how much I love
00:59:46
tennis.
00:59:47
Al Geras has already said, he just announced
00:59:49
today he's not playing the entire grass court
00:59:52
season.
00:59:53
So he's out of Wimbledon, he's out of
00:59:55
Queens Club.
00:59:56
So he's not playing, obviously the French, he's
00:59:58
not playing Wimbledon.
01:00:00
I'm gonna start, I'm doing this, I don't
01:00:01
care what anyone says, I'm putting Aceros next
01:00:04
to Sinner's season now.
01:00:07
He's now broken the record for the most
01:00:09
Masters 1000 wins in a row.
01:00:11
Broke Djokovic's record 36 in a row.
01:00:14
And he's won five straight Masters events.
01:00:17
He's now the only, the second player, shockingly,
01:00:19
to win all the Masters 1000.
01:00:20
I never realized that Federer and Nadal, neither
01:00:22
of them won them all.
01:00:24
How many are there?
01:00:25
There's eight.
01:00:27
And Sinner's won them all now at age
01:00:29
24.
01:00:31
Eric, real quickly, give us the eight Master
01:00:34
1000s tournaments.
01:00:35
Oh, I don't know them all.
01:00:37
I mean, I could tell you there's a
01:00:38
couple in the clay court season.
01:00:39
The Italian Open was just one of them.
01:00:43
There's one in Spain that takes place.
01:00:46
Like Indian Wells is one of them.
01:00:48
You know, basically, every surface has, like, call
01:00:52
it two of them.
01:00:53
They have the Grand Slam, which you might
01:00:54
as well call the 2000 tournament, that is
01:00:56
the number of points.
01:00:57
And then there's like two of each other
01:00:59
type.
01:00:59
There's the Grand Slam, there's two hard court
01:01:00
ones, there's two grass ones, there's two clay
01:01:03
ones.
01:01:04
And they're geographically distributed as well.
01:01:06
Like, how many are in the States?
01:01:08
I would say two or three of them.
01:01:11
Oh, you know what?
01:01:12
Cincinnati, I think, is one of them, is
01:01:14
one of the, Indian Wells.
01:01:16
There might be three in the States, maybe
01:01:17
one in Australia, two or three in Europe,
01:01:20
something like that.
01:01:23
Look, Sinner would have to play.
01:01:28
It's not even his B game.
01:01:30
He has, I mean, I don't, I mean,
01:01:33
injury could do it, obviously.
01:01:35
Akra has got injured, but if Sinner's healthy,
01:01:39
this is going to end up being one
01:01:40
of the greatest seasons in the history of
01:01:43
tennis, by far.
01:01:45
I mean, it is.
01:01:46
He can't win the Grand Slam this year
01:01:48
because he didn't win the Australian, but he
01:01:51
may win every other tournament that he plays.
01:01:54
So I'm just sad from a fan's perspective.
01:01:57
And I don't want to have to put
01:01:58
an asterisk next to his name.
01:02:00
But if he cleans up, if Akra doesn't
01:02:01
play the rest of the season and Sinner
01:02:03
cleans up three Grand Slams, and now he's
01:02:05
at seven and Akra is at seven, I'm
01:02:07
not feeling good about it.
01:02:10
It's not that qualified.
01:02:11
All right, you've been giving us a bit
01:02:14
of a heads up on that one for
01:02:15
a couple of weeks now.
01:02:16
So it's coming to home to roost at
01:02:18
this point.
01:02:19
All right, guys, why don't we let it
01:02:20
wrap there?
01:02:21
We'll get Adi off to bed.
01:02:22
Thanks for making it in here.
01:02:23
And to you, Eric, on your travel, sliding
01:02:26
in here.
01:02:26
And many thanks to Shane Jensen, who has
01:02:28
just left away.
01:02:29
Big thanks to the debut production performance of
01:02:33
Jacob Grodnick and his team, the Grod Squad
01:02:35
on the engineering platform for us this time
01:02:40
and presumably going forward for a while.
01:02:42
So glad to have these guys in.
01:02:44
Thanks to Deep Patel for making this whole
01:02:45
thing run.
01:02:46
Thanks to you guys for listening.
01:02:48
Oh, and thanks to Marissa Reyna, our producer.
01:02:50
Thanks to you guys for listening.
01:02:51
Come back and join us next time.
01:02:52
Between now and then, enjoy your sports.
