We are now halfway through, down from sixteen teams to four. Each contest to eliminate a team is a best of seven series and twelve of these series have already been played.
ESPN carries the games in the early rounds and the championship is aired by ABC. On their website, they ask a group of experts for predictions about each series. I have taken those predictions so far and graded the experts on how well they foretold the actual result.
Here's the grading system for those who are interested.
1. Predicting the correct team is worth 7 points. Predicting the wrong team is worth 0 points.
2. In each series, the experts also say how long the series will last. Four games is the shortest and seven the longest.
3. If an expert predicted the winner correctly, it is possible to get 0, 1, 2 or 3 extra points depending on the predicted length and the actual length of the series.
Gets the series length precisely: 3 extra points for a total of 10, a perfect prediction.
Predicts either one game too many or one game too few: 2 extra points for a total of 9
Predicts either two games too many or two games too few: 1 extra point for a total of 8
Predicts either three games too many or three games too few: 0 extra points for a total of 7
4. Close but no cigar points: If an expert predicts a seven game series and the series goes seven games but the team predicted to win actually loses, the expert gets 5 points total for getting everything but the last game's result correct.
List of experts: Abbott, Adande, Arnovitz, Barry, Elhassan, Ford, Gutierrez, Haberstroh, Legler, Palmer, Pelton, Stein, Wallace, Windhorst
Results of the twelve series so far and the right-wrong record of the experts:
Conference Quarterfinals
Heat-Bucks: Heat wins, Experts 14 right, 0 wrong
Pacers-Hawks: Pacers win, Experts 13 right, 1 wrong
*******Nets-Bulls: Bulls win, Experts 9 right, 7 wrong
Knicks-Celtics: Knicks win, Experts 14 right, 0 wrong
Thunder-Rockets: Thunder wins, Experts 14 right, 0 wrong
Spurs-Lakers: Spurs win, Experts 13 right, 1 wrong
**************Nuggets-Warriors: Warriors win, Experts 0 right, 14 wrong
*********Clippers-Grizzlies: Grizzlies win, Experts 5 right, 9 wrong
Conference Semifinals
Heat-Bulls: Heat wins, Experts 14 right, 0 wrong
Thunder-Grizzlies: Grizzlies win, Experts 13 right, 1 wrong
Spurs-Warriors: Spurs win, Experts 14 right, 0 wrong
***********Knicks-Pacers: Pacers win, Experts 3 right, 11 wrong
The asterisks indicate the difficult series to predict. Not a single expert went out on a limb to predict the Warriors beating the Nuggets, so no one has a spotless record. The Nets and Bulls went to seven games and the experts were nearly evenly divided. In the other two tough series to predict, the Grizzlies were seriously underrated and the Pacers were ridiculously underrated.
Expert ratings after twelve series
Name: points out of 120 possible (percentage correct)
Legler: 106 (88%)
Ford: 100 (83%)
Haberstroh: 88 (73%)
Elhassan: 86 (72%)
Wallace: 85 (71%)
Barry: 84 (70%)
Arnovitz: 83 (69%)
Pelton: 83 (69%)
Adande: 82 (68%)
Abbott: 81 (68%)
Palmer: 81 (68%)
Stein: 79 (66%)
Gutierrez: 78 (65%)
Windhorst: 77 (64%)
I want to give Tim Legler and Chad Ford props for doing so well in the first two rounds, because as of this morning, they have not given predictions for either of the next two rounds and the first game of Spurs-Grizzlies starts in less than an hour. There are more than 14 experts total working at ESPN, but I only grade those that make a call on all series contested. If both of them are removed, I may change my grading system to include all predictions, even those by people with only a few. If I don't do that, all the experts will look like students struggling to avoid a C- grade or worse. Prediction is hard, but it isn't that hard.
Our old buddy "East Coast bias" has reared its ugly head yet again, at least in the cases of the Knicks and Warriors. From here in the Midwest, the Knicks looked way too inconsistent without Amar'e Stoudamire to get past the steady Pacers. Meanwhile, injuries to key Denver players should've been good for at least one two votes for the Warriors.
ReplyDeleteShows what I know about predicting the predictions. :-)
Hello, Abu, nice to hear from you. I do not consider myself an expert at the NBA, more like a part-time fan. Both the other "tough" first round match-ups were 4th seed vs. 5th seed, so it is not surprising to see major differences of opinion.
DeleteIn the Conference finals, the experts are completely convinced the Heat will win, while there is not a consensus about the Spurs and Grizzlies. Our two B students are missing class late in the term. Legler's has no picks and Ford has only chimed in on the Eastern contest. Maybe Legler's picks will be posted later, but making a prediction after the first game of the series has been finished feels like cheating to me.