Greg Johnson of the LA Times states in today’s edition that Seriously, Money Isn’t Everything (the article is free to read, but you do have to register first). Johnson observes that although playoff teams like the Yankees and Mets rank towards the top in baseball’s payroll rankings, other playoff teams …
As the following posts indicate, Dirk Nowitzki and The Dallas Mavericks were discussed in some detail last June. Yglesias and the Least Valuable MVP Myth and Measurement after Game Three of the NBA Finals Thoughts After Game Four: The Dallas Mavericks Story Four Thoughts on Game Five Given these previous …
I posted the following last June. Unfortunately I made the mistake of giving it the title: What Wins Produced Says and What it Doesn’t Say. Apparently, you can’t use the word “Doesn’t” in the title. Now when I link to this story the link won’t work. So I am re-posting so that in the future when …
Yesterday I completed the analysis of every team in the Eastern Conference with a posting on the Washington Wizards. In the course of reviewing the Wizards in 2005-06 I made what I thought was a fairly obvious observation – Gilbert Arenas is a very good player, but not one of …
An average team will win half its games. Obviously this implies that per 48 minutes the average team wins 0.500 games. Given the nature of basketball, this in turn implies that an average player will produce 0.100 wins per 48 minutes played. So if we observe a team where every …
A few days ago I noted a quote from Richard Peddie (President and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., which owns both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors): “I’m really trying to read different books to get more perspective. I joke that I’ve read all the …
In August I received an advanced copy of the latest book by Andrew Zimbalist. For those who regularly read this forum you might ask “Zimbalist wrote another book already?” In 2005 Andrew Zimbalist and Stefan Szymanski published National Pastime – How Americans Plays Baseball and the Rest of the World …
Originally Posted at The Sports Economist On page 10 of the October 2nd issue of Business Week is a brief article by Peter Coy entitled “Freakonomics vs. Moneyball.” Coy addresses an exchange between Steven Levitt – co-author of Freakonomics – and Raymond Sauer – Clemson economics professor and resident chief …
Malcolm Gladwell’s review of The Wages of Wins focused primarily on the story we told with respect to Allen Iverson. Specifically, we argue “The Answer” is not quite as good as people believe, a point expanded upon in this forum last July. Our view of Allen Iverson led people to …
The cover story of the October issue of PROFIT magazine examines “How Canada’s Top Achievers Attain Peak Performance.” The author of the article, Kara Kurylllowicz, “asked some of Canada’s brightest lights in business, sports, media and the arts to share the techniques and resources they use to achieve peak performance.” …