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XiaNaphryz · Jun 6, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlgISa9Giw

The video goes over various factors that contribute - sample size such as number of games in a season (16 in the NFL vs 162 in MLB), how many players are involved in a particular sport (i.e. 5 on the court in basketball vs 9 on the field in baseball), how possession is distributed across the course of a game, opportunities in a game to showcase skill (a top player in basketball can be on the court a much larger percentage of a game than a top hockey player, though in some cases like football it could be a spectrum - the quarterback is involved in all the offensive plays, but another position may not have as many opportunities in a game to impact a game).

A statistical analysis of luck vs skill in sports.

In his book, The Success Equation, Michael Mauboussin places sports on the skill-luck continuum by using a statistical technique earlier demonstrated by sports data analysts. He found that season standings for the NBA reflect skill levels more so than the seasons of other major team sports, with NHL hockey being the sport closest to the luck side of the continuum. In this video we explore the characteristics of the sports that either enhance or diminish the influence of luck on the results, and we'll walk through the method for calculating the contribution of luck.

Sources:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A07FR4W/?tag=neogaf0e-20
sportchart.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/athlete-sizes-update
insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/true_talent_levels_for_sports_leagues
blog.philbirnbaum.com/2013/01/luck-vs-talent-in-nhl-standings.html
harvardsportsanalysis.org/2013/09/undeserving-champions-examining-variance-in-the-postseason

crimzonflame · Jun 6, 2017

So skill includes bad officiating?

Raysoul · Jun 6, 2017

Can't watch the video, but did they consider "Tanking" in their formula?

flkraven · Jun 6, 2017

If they just changed how they give out points in the NHL for overtime losses I'm sure that would move the needle. Either no points for a shootout/overtime loss, or some combination where you get more points for a regulation win.

KHarvey16 · Jun 6, 2017

That seems to match my general observations about basketball at least. Individual's can have an enormous impact there unlike any other pro team sport.

Yaboosh · Jun 6, 2017

It doesn't seem like they are taking parity into account.

It seems like with their equation if you had a perfectly balanced league it would look completely random and involve all luck and no skill.

The Albatross · Jun 6, 2017

Formula takes into account opportunities to score in a game, scores, opportunities to score in a season; number of players in a game, physical variance between players, and then some other factors.

Seems all pretty arbitrary to me. The NFL is on the higher luck side because there's only 16 games, so not enough opportunity for skill to weed out luck, according to the argument. Hockey, despite 82 games, is penalized for having few possessions, few scoring opportunities, high distribution of skill on and off the ice unlike basketball where skilled players may play nearly an entire game and may be "on the ball" at almost every offensive and defensive possession. Tennis, swimming, and running topped out on skill because they were more individualistic sports, especially running and swimming, where you're essentially racing against the clock with few other factors.

I think that American football is tough to judge because it's effectively a very different game for almost every position. While that can be said for basketball to an extent, between say a point guard and a center, it's less so than football, where the skill and objective in being a offensive linemen is completely different than the skill and talent of being a wide receiver or, to a greater extreme, a punter.

All in all this seemed very arbitrary to me.

Trey · Jun 6, 2017

Bad bounces or breaks are way more of a thing in hockey than any other sport so at least in that respect the logic checks out.

Sho_Nuff82 · Jun 6, 2017

crimzonflame said:
So skill includes bad officiating?

Weak bait.

It generally reflects how one errant deflection in 60 minutes of action can completely change the course of a soccer or hockey match, whereas the games with higher scoring opportunities require a more sustained effort for an underdog to win.

Taken another way, if you completely blow two defensive assignments in basketball (by say, tripping over your shoelaces), your team either picks up two needless fouls or maybe gives up 4-6 points...which they can make up in just one minute of outplaying the opponent out of 48, based on current scoring rates.

Making a similar mistake in baseball, hockey, or American football can put you down two scores, which can be an insurmountable lead or take half a game to make up for.

FinKL · Jun 6, 2017

That's a cool video. I thought about the NFL being pretty random when I was younger, I mean there are a lot of fluke plays that can happen that can throw the game, but NBA is pretty consistent as you have to work for each shot/possession. I believe that chart is right imo, obviously the 1v1's are skill based, but the team based ones lean towards a little more in luck.

Now to figure out where the MOBAs and Fighting Games are on the scale lol

peteykirch · Jun 6, 2017

I think NHL and MLB are two of the more luck driven sports.

NHL because of how much the ice surface can affect play, plus the random bounces off the boards.

MLB because of the bounces of ground balls and the randomness of how umpires call balls and strikes.

Staccat0 · Jun 6, 2017

Hockey is such a crazy sport to talk about skill wise becuase it's like taking a perfectly cromulent sport and then going "eh fuck it. Also they are on ice skates the whole time. I dunno"

Brinbe · Jun 6, 2017

This doesn't need a big-ass study to see. A low seed in the NHL could always have a legit shot of winning compared to the same in the NBA. Just different types of sports.

Tyguy · Jun 6, 2017

I think because Hockey is a low scoring sport a fluke play that results in a goal can be much more difficult to overcome vs a fluke basket, missed call, ect. Teams can overcome double digit deficits in the NBA seemingly much easier than a 2 goal deficit in Hockey.

spyder_ur · Jun 6, 2017

Makes sense to me, and it's something I've long thought. The NHL playoffs seem like more or less a crapshoot.

I'm a bit surprised that soccer doesn't align a bit closer to hockey, given the similar nature of scoring and the larger team size. I'm guessing that the slower moving nature of the sport, longer run time and less goal scoring overall account for that.

I don't really get including tennis at all since it's an individual sport.

Tyguy · Jun 6, 2017

Brinbe said:
This doesn't need a big-ass study to see. A low seed in the NHL could always have a legit shot of winning compared to the same in the NBA. Just different types of sports.

Were at a point in basketball now where almost nobody has a shot beating one team because the team that set the NBA regular season wins record added the second best overall player in the game without giving up anything that was replaceable.

It's a shame really. Kevin Durant was in a situation where he could legitimately challenge the warriors like how LeBron beat them. Instead he just joins them to stack the deck and take out the warriors top competition in the west(Durant's former team).

Widdle Puppy · Jun 6, 2017

The thing I don't like about the NBA is how all the talent gets scooped up by a few teams and then it seems like the entire season isn't even worth watching. Even the playoffs feel like they are entirely hype and that the title was always bound to go to one or two teams. Maybe luck in the sport makes it a bit more interesting. NBA is just about a couple of top players and their skills, never the team.

XiaNaphryz · Jun 6, 2017

spyder_ur said:
I don't really get including tennis at all since it's an individual sport.

From the video, tennis was used as an example of individual sports to contrast with the team ones. It's point in the graph is meant to represent other individual sports like swimming, track, etc.

Earthstrike · Jun 6, 2017

Welp, this is stupid. Luck is things that are out of control of the team. For all intents and purposes, within the NHL and NBA, very few things are out of control of them. What may be different, is a "formula" that represents a team's overall skill. And that formula may beweighted more heavily to having star players in basketball, than it is in hockey. That doesn't make hockey more luck driven. They both take equal amounts of skill.

Sir Alemeth · Jun 6, 2017

And here I thought the Giants were just having bad luck.

Tyguy · Jun 6, 2017

Widdle Puppy said:
The thing I don't like about the NBA is how all the talent gets scooped up by a few teams and then it seems like the entire season isn't even worth watching. Even the playoffs feel like they are entirely hype and that the title was always bound to go to one or two teams. Maybe luck in the sport makes it a bit more interesting. NBA is just about a couple of top players and their skills, never the team.

We have ESPN to blame for bidding against themselves which caused the salary cap to jump over 35 % in one off season. And Kevin Durant to blame for wanting everything to come easy.

Neo C. · Jun 6, 2017

The only thing that suprises me is that the Premier League is more on the skill side than NHL. Football/Soccer is a very low score game and good teams can be beaten or at least tied with parking the bus.

Sho_Nuff82 · Jun 6, 2017

Just looked it up, the average NFL team has 12 possessions per game. The best NFL teams only score about 40-50% of their possessions. One additional terrible offensive play could decrease that teams scoring efficiency 17-32% for the day.

Gotdatmoney · Jun 6, 2017

Earthstrike said:
Welp, this is stupid. Luck is things that are out of control of the team. For all intents and purposes, within the NHL and NBA, very few things are out of control of them. What may be different, is a "formula" that represents a team's overall skill. And that formula may beweighted more heavily to having star players in basketball, than it is in hockey. That doesn't make hockey more luck driven. They both take equal amounts of skill.

Imo it's not that hockey is more luck driven. It's that basketball doesn't punish you as hard for mistakes because of how scoring and team distribution works. 1 mistake in hockey can legitimately cost you a game. 1 mistake in basketball isn't going to be the reason why you lose.

spyder_ur said:
I'm a bit surprised that soccer doesn't align a bit closer to hockey, given the similar nature of scoring and the larger team size. I'm guessing that the slower moving nature of the sport, longer run time and less goal scoring overall account for that.

Soccer and hockey are extremely different. Just possession alone can tell you half the story in a soccer game. The only thing similar is you can be royally fucked by a single mistake in soccer similarly to hockey.

Amory · Jun 6, 2017

The NBA is rough. There's really only 2 teams going into every season that have a chance of winning a championship, barring significant injuries.

And as a result, tanking is running rampant. No point in trying to win at all today when you have the Warriors to face. May as well plan for 5 years out.

excelsiorlef · Jun 6, 2017

NHL is also the only big sport that seeks to neutralize their star players.

JABEE · Jun 6, 2017

With football, the ball ain't round. That's science.

Tyguy · Jun 6, 2017

Sho_Nuff82 said:
Just looked it up, the average NFL team has 12 possessions per game. The best NFL teams only score about 40-50% of their possessions. One additional terrible offensive play could decrease that teams scoring efficiency 17-32% for the day.

Yeah the nba has over 90 possessions in a game. The pacers finished at 15 of 30 for orating scoring at 1.08 points per possession.

There is a much larger margin of error in basketball because not scoring on one or two possessions isn't the end of the world.

The Elite · Jun 6, 2017

Amory said:
The NBA is rough. There's really only 2 teams going into every season that have a chance of winning a championship, barring significant injuries.

.

It's what makes it so dull for me. I try to support the Raptors but it's hard to get excited about the game when you know your team is going to run into a roadblock at some point. Without having one of those rare elites on your team you know there is no championship at the end of the season.

Tyguy · Jun 6, 2017

Amory said:
The NBA is rough. There's really only 2 teams going into every season that have a chance of winning a championship, barring significant injuries.

And as a result, tanking is running rampant. No point in trying to win at all today when you have the Warriors to face. May as well plan for 5 years out.

Exactly, it's worse than it's ever been by a long shot. Barring the cavs or spurs adding a significant player without giving up anything that is replaceable in the process these next 4-5 seasons will be the warriors running rampant. Or as you said, injury. If KD wasn't such a coward you would have 4 teams in the mix instead of 1. Which is a hell of a lot better than the product we have now.

TheRagnCajun · Jun 6, 2017

I thought this was really interesting, but I'm not sure I follow how being forced to field more players lowers the variance of skill. Skill should be the sum of the whole team roster should it not?

PBY · Jun 6, 2017

This is supremely obvious no?

XiaNaphryz · Jun 6, 2017

Tyguy said:
Exactly, it's worse than it's ever been by a long shot. Barring the cavs or spurs adding a significant player without giving up anything that is replaceable in the process these next 4-5 seasons will be the warriors running rampant. Or as you said, injury. If KD wasn't such a coward you would have 4 teams in the mix instead of 1. Which is a hell of a lot better than the product we have now.

As I mentioned in the NBA threads, can we please drop the garbage KD hot take spam? Enough is enough, we don't need every thread that touches upon basketball to drum up endless posts about this.

Enduin · Jun 6, 2017

Watched this yesterday. Pretty interesting. Decent reasoning for why I find Hockey to be the most entertaining and interesting sport to watch while I find Basketball to be the most god awful and boring thing in all sports. Fun to play, terrible to watch.

Gotdatmoney · Jun 6, 2017

XiaNaphryz said:
As I mentioned in the NBA threads, can we please drop the garbage KD hot take spam? Enough is enough, we don't need every thread that touches upon basketball to drum up endless posts about this.

In regards to the luck vs skill factor in sports KD going to the best team is entirely relevant though. It emphasizes how much 1 player can impact a basketball game in a way that minimizes luck. I get it's annoying but I also dont get how this isn't relevant.

You cant do this in hockey for example.

Tyguy · Jun 6, 2017

XiaNaphryz said:
As I mentioned in the NBA threads, can we please drop the garbage KD hot take spam? Enough is enough, we don't need every thread that touches upon basketball to drum up endless posts about this.

It's not a hot take though. It's been almost a year since he joined the team and everything everybody complained about is coming to fruition.

LeBron just put up an all time finals performance. 13-18 from the field ,11 rebounds, 14 assists and a few steals. The cavs lost by over 20. The warriors are 14-0 in the playoffs and have won something like 28 straight games.

There is a problem in the NBA and Kevin Durant bears a lot of it's responsibility. Decimating one contender to pile on to another and the league to allow it to happen by not applying cap smoothing.

KHarvey16 · Jun 6, 2017

peteykirch said:
I think NHL and MLB are two of the more luck driven sports.

NHL because of how much the ice surface can affect play, plus the random bounces off the boards.

MLB because of the bounces of ground balls and the randomness of how umpires call balls and strikes.

MLB has a ton of games and that works to almost nullify uncommonly bad umpires. They're usually fine. And bounces are not often a problem for fielders. Once in awhile they'll commit an error but there's usually less than a couple per game for all 18+ players.

Clearos · Jun 6, 2017

Thanks for the post. Friends had a similar conversation last night...minus the math....and details.

We just dumbed it down to the less players needed on the court the more impact a single top tier player is.

XiaNaphryz · Jun 6, 2017

Gotdatmoney said:
In regards to the luck vs skill factor in sports KD going to the best team is entirely relevant though.

Tyguy said:
It's not a hot take though. It's been almost a year since he joined the team and everything everybody complained about is coming to fruition.

Discussion about the situation != calling players a bitch/coward/loser/etc. That's what I mean.

Talk about the situation in regards to free agency rules, salary cap structure, player union agreements, etc. That's relevant. The other sort of hot take garbage whining? Not really, and may people are tired of it flooding anything remotely NBA-related. If you can't handle that, then don't post.

Sho_Nuff82 · Jun 6, 2017

Proteus said:
It's what makes it so dull for me. I try to support the Raptors but it's hard to get excited about the game when you know your team is going to run into a roadblock at some point. Without having one of those rare elites on your team you know there is no championship at the end of the season.

The 2004 Pistons (5 very good starters and no real HoF talent) and the 1994 Rockets/2011 Mavericks (one HoF player surrounded by a bunch of solid role players) are exceptions, but yes, generally the NBA has been dominated by teams with multiple high-end players for 3-5 year stretches at a time. Notably, after two Finals appearances, the Pistons were upset in the ECF two years in a row by inferior superstar-led teams (Heat and Cavs) in 2006 and 2007. The Mavs blew up their team of role-players in an attempt to build a super-team and Cuban couldn't get anyone to sign on, wasting Dirk's prime.

Chris R · Jun 6, 2017

Makes sense, Avs just weren't lucky last season

L Thammy · Jun 6, 2017

Leafs just need a lucky streak.

Gotdatmoney · Jun 6, 2017

XiaNaphryz said:
Discussion about the situation != calling players a bitch/coward/loser/etc. That's what I mean.

Talk about the situation in regards to free agency rules, salary cap structure, player union agreements, etc. That's relevant. The other sort of whining? Not really. If you can't handle that, then don't post.

Okay that's fine if this is just about insulting players. But I don't see how the whining doesn't directly link to these other issues. If the players dont want to team up this isn't an issue. So I think it's fair to address that if the players want to team up to win championships and it's to the detriment of the viewers then yeah, fans should want to cripple the mobility of players then.

This finals is a foregone conclusion but what has been set up is the precedent that to compete for the title in basketball its advantageous for all the best players to take paycuts and join one squad and with the cap value right now its easier for players to swallow $20m/yr instead of $30/yr.

I don't see what changes you can make to the salary cap structure to change that. I have no idea how you would even address free agency given players dont wanna be stuck in shit situations with little mobility. This isnt me complaining about KD, dude can do w/e the fuck he wants. But the precedent has been set in a huge way now.

Ed-Silver · Jun 6, 2017

Amory said:
The NBA is rough. There's really only 2 teams going into every season that have a chance of winning a championship, barring significant injuries.

And as a result, tanking is running rampant. No point in trying to win at all today when you have the Warriors to face. May as well plan for 5 years out.

Trust the process!

J2 Cool · Jun 6, 2017

This is why Im not as big of a hockey fan. I followed the Blackhawks, being a Chicago fan, for one of their cups. And although I got into it quite a bit, stuff like pucks bouncing off skates and stuff just kind of made me feel weird about it, and came to the conclusion its one of the more random/lucky sports.

And just plain hustle seems to be an equation it making things happen. Not necessarily precision/skillfull hustling either. Although I'd argue NFL is less about luck at the top, than the MLB. The fact that the Patriots have been right there for 16 years, says as much. If you don't have a good quarterback...... good luck. Baseball has much more turn over.

XiaNaphryz · Jun 6, 2017

Gotdatmoney said:
Okay that's fine if this is just about insulting players. But I don't see how the whining doesn't directly link to these other issues.

The issue is that the whining/insulting posts have flooded the NBA threads all year and lots of people are tired about it. Why is this hard to comprehend? Talk about the situation without throwing around random insults, that's all.

Gotdatmoney · Jun 6, 2017

XiaNaphryz said:
The issue is that the whining/insulting posts have flooded the NBA threads all year and lots of people are tired about it. Why is this hard to comprehend? Talk about the situation without throwing around random insults, that's all.

Okay that's fine. No where did I throw an insult or bitch about so we are on the same page.

Tyguy · Jun 6, 2017

XiaNaphryz said:
Discussion about the situation != calling players a bitch/coward/loser/etc. That's what I mean.

Talk about the situation in regards to free agency rules, salary cap structure, player union agreements, etc. That's relevant. The other sort of hot take garbage whining? Not really, and may people are tired of it flooding anything remotely NBA-related. If you can't handle that, then don't post.

Even though I believe what he did was anti competitive or cowardice. I'll certainly refrain from mentioning him being coward. It's just that his one single move put a strangle hold on the nba. It's not like he was coming from NBA Siberia. This years MVP was his teammate with quality role-players. What he did was unprecedented and it angers me as a fan of the sport.

I'm new here, so I haven't seen the NBA discussion here. I am however quite versed on the sport.

LJ11 · Jun 6, 2017

Brinbe said:
This doesn't need a big-ass study to see. A low seed in the NHL could always have a legit shot of winning compared to the same in the NBA. Just different types of sports.

You know the funny thing about the NHL is that the low seeds in recent years, Kings & Preds, have been advance stat kings, so even though they entered near the bottom, the advance stats loved them. But yeah, you can catch some bounces in the NHL. Kings went 4-1 against the Rangers, but the metrics were all on the Rangers side.

Tom Penny · Jun 6, 2017

NBA has been proven to be the most predictable of the 4 majors. I thought that was pretty obvIous. Two teams in NBA history have won a title at worse than the 4 seed. Last one was the 6 seed 1995 rockets.. Before that it was in the 60's.

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