Sooo, John Hollinger Predicts...

abeer3 wrote:if hollinger's calculator predicted steve nash and pau gasol's injury problems, he's better than i thought!

Eeeeeerie.

JGC wrote:

abeer3 wrote:if hollinger's calculator predicted steve nash and pau gasol's injury problems, he's better than i thought!

Well, it's not going to predict that Nash would suffer a fibula injury. But he factored in the team's age and minutes and made the assumption that it is likely that injuries/health would negatively impact this team.

A lot of folks here were in denial about it, but most reasonable people would say that that is a safe assumption.

Where he got it right, and we got it wrong, is in how injuries would impact our record and seeding.

sorry, i don't buy it. nash had been fine for years. he had a freak injury. gasol had been fine for years, up to and including this very summer. if hollinger claims he saw those coming, he's lying. he worried about dwight's back (sensible), and projected low minutes for nash and kobe--not no minutes. at no point does he explain his low ranking based on the likelihood of injury.

if the lakers put up a record, with their big 4 intact, similar to what hollinger predicted %wise, i'll give him credit. he doesn't get credit for predicting a low win total and then having divine intervention make it so.

JGC wrote:

Showtime.Revival.05 wrote:

snackdaddy wrote:For all the people who said just give it time, I wonder how many of those are still thinking it will take time? Or how many are realized this whole experiment is turning out to be an epic fail?

I have a feeling the train we all knew was coming after Kobe retires has arrived sooner than we thought. I don't see Howard resigning with a team that won't be a contender. So its possible Kobe's final year will be on a team similar to the one he started with after Shaq left.

If I'm the coach of that team, I just let him finish his last year shooting every chance he gets to try and move up the all time scoring chart. They might only win 25 or 30, but fans will come to watch Kobe score 35 every game.

yeaaaaah that's jumping the gun a bit don't you think?

22 games into the season with a grand total of 2 games played with all of our big 4 together. and those two games were with a less healthy dwight than we have now. with mike brown as coach.

for the record im one of those who is still thinking it will take time

What does that mean, just curious. As in, it's just a matter of time before this team becomes an elite contender? Or, it's just a matter of time before we know for sure whether this team is or is not an elite contender?

the latter. im not saying we'll dominate all competition but we should at least evaluate the entire team playing together before we commit to a 30-52 season and letting "Kobe score 35 every game"

abeer3 wrote:

JGC wrote:

abeer3 wrote:if hollinger's calculator predicted steve nash and pau gasol's injury problems, he's better than i thought!

Well, it's not going to predict that Nash would suffer a fibula injury. But he factored in the team's age and minutes and made the assumption that it is likely that injuries/health would negatively impact this team.

A lot of folks here were in denial about it, but most reasonable people would say that that is a safe assumption.

Where he got it right, and we got it wrong, is in how injuries would impact our record and seeding.

sorry, i don't buy it. nash had been fine for years. he had a freak injury. gasol had been fine for years, up to and including this very summer. if hollinger claims he saw those coming, he's lying. he worried about dwight's back (sensible), and projected low minutes for nash and kobe--not no minutes. at no point does he explain his low ranking based on the likelihood of injury.

if the lakers put up a record, with their big 4 intact, similar to what hollinger predicted %wise, i'll give him credit. he doesn't get credit for predicting a low win total and then having divine intervention make it so.

What do you mean you don't buy it? All he said was that the team is old, and because they are old, there will likely be some injuries we'll have to deal with and so we'll need to reduce their minutes. Doesn't that sound pretty reasonable?

I love how people keep saying "freak injury" to players who have no major injury history yet seem to be absolutely dumb founded when they occur when these players near freaking FORTY years of age. Haha.

Clearly, he didn't foresee such a major injury to Nash and thus his prediction of the 4th seed which sounds, well, optimistic at best right now.

I mean it's a guessing game and you have to make a lot of assumptions when you're making predictions like this. His assumptions were that we are an older team, lack of potency on the bench, and chemistry. All 3 of those things were and still are issues for this team that as he said will likely keep us from taking a top seed in the West. You don't want to give him credit because the health concerns we ALL had about this team going in were worse than expected?

Are you too then, going to take credit away from the people who thought his prediction of 4th seed was a pessimistically bad one?

Showtime.Revival.05 wrote:

JGC wrote:

Showtime.Revival.05 wrote:

snackdaddy wrote:For all the people who said just give it time, I wonder how many of those are still thinking it will take time? Or how many are realized this whole experiment is turning out to be an epic fail?

I have a feeling the train we all knew was coming after Kobe retires has arrived sooner than we thought. I don't see Howard resigning with a team that won't be a contender. So its possible Kobe's final year will be on a team similar to the one he started with after Shaq left.

If I'm the coach of that team, I just let him finish his last year shooting every chance he gets to try and move up the all time scoring chart. They might only win 25 or 30, but fans will come to watch Kobe score 35 every game.

yeaaaaah that's jumping the gun a bit don't you think?

22 games into the season with a grand total of 2 games played with all of our big 4 together. and those two games were with a less healthy dwight than we have now. with mike brown as coach.

for the record im one of those who is still thinking it will take time

What does that mean, just curious. As in, it's just a matter of time before this team becomes an elite contender? Or, it's just a matter of time before we know for sure whether this team is or is not an elite contender?

the latter. im not saying we'll dominate all competition but we should at least evaluate the entire team playing together before we commit to a 30-52 season and letting "Kobe score 35 every game"

Well, I'm not sure he said we should do that. I got the sense he was saying it was possible that the window has closed. And IF it has closed, that he would propose just getting Kobe up the scoring chart.

I'm not a proponent of that, at all, but just saying. I think it would tarnish Kobe's legacy if he were to do anything but give his best effort to get the Lakers organization some Ws.

hollinger has a crush on teams like denver and portland

i think in the past he has a knack for ranking them high as his darkhorse

JGC wrote:What do you mean you don't buy it? All he said was that the team is old, and because they are old, there will likely be some injuries we'll have to deal with and so we'll need to reduce their minutes. Doesn't that sound pretty reasonable?

i mean exactly that. his prediction was based on having players available for fewer minutes, not having players unavailable. if nash were playing 25 mpg right now, i'd take it and bet they'd have won a few more games, maybe several more.

if you're not right for the right reasons, then you were wrong, imo. if i predict the heat won't win the title because they have no inside presence, and then lebron james gets hurt in the playoffs...was i right?

I love how people keep saying "freak injury" to players who have no major injury history yet seem to be absolutely dumb founded when they occur when these players near freaking FORTY years of age. Haha.

sure. stress fractures based on collisions should be expected among older players. that's why hollinger predicted it, right? if it was his back issue acting up or some sort of wear and tear (like kobe's recurrent knee problems), age would be a more plausible explanation.

Clearly, he didn't foresee such a major injury to Nash and thus his prediction of the 4th seed which sounds, well, optimistic at best right now.

season's only a quarter over, and none of the top teams in the west have had a single significant injury. even steph curry's been an iron man! i'll join the prediction game: at least one of them will, and it will hurt them despite their super fantastic benches.

I mean it's a guessing game and you have to make a lot of assumptions when you're making predictions like this. His assumptions were that we are an older team, lack of potency on the bench, and chemistry. All 3 of those things were and still are issues for this team that as he said will likely keep us from taking a top seed in the West. You don't want to give him credit because the health concerns we ALL had about this team going in were worse than expected?

it is a guessing game. we can't know how big those issues would be until we actually see the team on the floor. darius morris wasn't supposed to be playing. hell, chris duhon wasn't supposed to be playing, and he's the starter. the primary bench players were to be blake, hill, jamison, and meeks. the latter three have played pretty well overall (especially since the coaching change). enough that i'd argue if nash and blake were here, the bench wouldn't be considered such a sore spot.

i could easily argue that those claiming the lakers had a weak bench were wrong. the problem is that they're playing their end of the bench players heavy minutes. the only team that doesn't struggle when doing that is SA.

Are you too then, going to take credit away from the people who thought his prediction of 4th seed was a pessimistically bad one?

again, we'll talk after the team gets to play 20 games with its intended rotation like their competitors have. if they're not looking better than a 4 seed at that point, you can celebrate hollinger's predictive powers. right now, that's ridiculous.

halekulani wrote:hollinger has a crush on teams like denver and portland

i think in the past he has a knack for ranking them high as his darkhorse

yeah, he kept picking utah in the dwill/boozer years. there's the way things are, and the way you really want them to be. hollinger has a history of letting the latter dominate his qualitative predictions (and actually influence the structure of his quantitative predictions, for that matter).

in any case, he's been as or more wrong than your average geek on the street.

abeer3 wrote:

JGC wrote:What do you mean you don't buy it? All he said was that the team is old, and because they are old, there will likely be some injuries we'll have to deal with and so we'll need to reduce their minutes. Doesn't that sound pretty reasonable?

i mean exactly that. his prediction was based on having players available for fewer minutes, not having players unavailable. if nash were playing 25 mpg right now, i'd take it and bet they'd have won a few more games, maybe several more.

if you're not right for the right reasons, then you were wrong, imo. if i predict the heat won't win the title because they have no inside presence, and then lebron james gets hurt in the playoffs...was i right?

That isn't true. Hollinger said that Dwight was coming back from a back injury and could miss games. Then he added that Bryant and Nash are also, not spring chickens. Then he said one way to avoid the injury bug was to reduce their minutes. But the point was that there were health concerns coming in. Sure, he didn't specifically say that Nash's fibula was a concern but I'm not sure why you would hold that against him. The paragraph about health was specifically about Dwight's back and the age/miles of Kobe/Nash. The mention of having players available for fewer minutes was a suggestion for mitigating the risk of injury that's why it was written in the same paragraph and, directly after, the mention of Dwight's back injury.

Part of the reason he listed us as 4th seed is because of the injury risk to D12, and, to the two older players he mentioned in Kobe and Nash. I mean, you're right, no one predicted Nash to be out this long but that's why we're doing worse than 4th seed right now, right? As you said, had we had Nash we would likely have won a few of the games we lost and that would probably put us right in 4th seed pace.

If you summarize his article, you will see 3 themes: Health, Bench, Chemistry. Those are the reasons he gave for his 4th seed prediction. Health has been worse than originally predicted and that's why we're doing worse than he predicted. Pretty simple.

abeer3 wrote:

I love how people keep saying "freak injury" to players who have no major injury history yet seem to be absolutely dumb founded when they occur when these players near freaking FORTY years of age. Haha.

sure. stress fractures based on collisions should be expected among older players. that's why hollinger predicted it, right? if it was his back issue acting up or some sort of wear and tear (like kobe's recurrent knee problems), age would be a more plausible explanation.

With age, ALL injury types are more likely generally speaking. That was his point. I'm not sure why you would expect him to specifically say "stress fracture" -- that wouldn't make any sense.

abeer3 wrote:

Clearly, he didn't foresee such a major injury to Nash and thus his prediction of the 4th seed which sounds, well, optimistic at best right now.

season's only a quarter over, and none of the top teams in the west have had a single significant injury. even steph curry's been an iron man! i'll join the prediction game: at least one of them will, and it will hurt them despite their super fantastic benches.

Well, that's not true. Dallas is a 7th seed, is over .500 right now and hasn't had Dirk all year. But I'm not sure what your point is here. He said 4th assuming Nash plays all year. Nash isn't playing basically at all. And right now we're pacing for 11th place in the West. So 4th doesn't sound too crazy had we had Nash this whole time right?

abeer3 wrote:

I mean it's a guessing game and you have to make a lot of assumptions when you're making predictions like this. His assumptions were that we are an older team, lack of potency on the bench, and chemistry. All 3 of those things were and still are issues for this team that as he said will likely keep us from taking a top seed in the West. You don't want to give him credit because the health concerns we ALL had about this team going in were worse than expected?

it is a guessing game. we can't know how big those issues would be until we actually see the team on the floor. darius morris wasn't supposed to be playing. hell, chris duhon wasn't supposed to be playing, and he's the starter. the primary bench players were to be blake, hill, jamison, and meeks. the latter three have played pretty well overall (especially since the coaching change). enough that i'd argue if nash and blake were here, the bench wouldn't be considered such a sore spot.

i could easily argue that those claiming the lakers had a weak bench were wrong. the problem is that they're playing their end of the bench players heavy minutes. the only team that doesn't struggle when doing that is SA.

Well, I'm not sure how anything you have said changes Hollinger's claim that the bench would be a liability for us. It's either been a liability or it hasn't. You can make the argument that IF Nash and Blake were here it wouldn't be considered a sore spot but to use your words "we don't know that until we actually see them on the floor" right?

So far, all we do know is that the bench hasn't helped us win games and so it has been a liability, and maybe exposed further by the rash of injuries, but just because the injuries occurred, doesn't make the original statement wrong.

abeer3 wrote:

Are you too then, going to take credit away from the people who thought his prediction of 4th seed was a pessimistically bad one?

again, we'll talk after the team gets to play 20 games with its intended rotation like their competitors have. if they're not looking better than a 4 seed at that point, you and hollinger can crow about your predictive powers. right now, that's ridiculous.

Even if they are looking better than a 4 seed later, which, on paper I'd expect us to do over the course of time, that again doesn't make the prediction wrong. He never said we'd never play better than a 4 seed. In fact, he said we'd be a beast come playoff time. His points were that there is a good chance we'd have to weather the injury bug, that our bench would be a liability, and that we'd need time to develop chemistry and net-net, that would result in a 4th seed finish. What that means, or should at least tell you, is that IF injuries are a non-factor, then it would be reasonable to finish higher, and if injuries (or bench or chemistry) become a bigger factor than originally expected, then it reasonable we'd finish lower.

But I agree.