One of our favorite staples of ESPN is when one of their number crunchers spends a bunch of time on a hypothetical question, then arrives at conclusions that a four-year-old who eats paste could have just as easily made. Case in point: John Hollinger’s NBA playoff odds, posted recently and explained thusly:

Hollinger’s NBA Playoff Odds are based on the Hollinger Power Rankings, designed by ESPN.com’s John Hollinger. The Hollinger Power Rankings are a measure of each team’s performance in the season so far. Based on those rankings, each day the computer plays out the remainder of the season 5,000 times to see the potential range of projected outcomes. The results reveal the most likely win-loss record for each team — and how likely it is for each team to make the playoffs, win the NBA title, win the lottery, and so on.

Based on this supercomputer wizardry, Hollinger has concluded that your Timberwolves — known somewhat affectionately here as the McLovins — have a … wait for it … 0.0 percent chance of making the playoffs this year. Brilliant! He pegs them for 19 wins, which also sounds just about right. But wait, there’s more: We love the “worst-case scenario” by which the McLovins would win a whopping 8 games (thus breaking the NBA record for futility).

Questions:

1) Can they break the record?

2) Do you want them to do it?

3) How much time do you think Hollinger spent to create a formula that tells you the exact same thing you see with your eyes?

4) Does 0.0 percent sound too high?

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 11:37 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.