Quote Originally Posted by MUAlphaBangura View Post
Thanks. Appreciate that. Are you becoming that defensive about your position that anybody that disagrees with it is "idiotic and ignorant"? Stats tell you what has happened in the past so you can work on your game to try to improve. It guarantees nothing pertaining to future success. Too many other factors involved. How do you measure if players buy into the stats and adjust their games accordingly? How do you measure your teams or your opponents toughness? How do you measure your teams or your opponents willingness to do whatever it takes to win? How do you measure how kids handle pressure at any point in a game, beginning, middle or end? How do you measure if a kid has that intangible where he just knows how to win?

I think most of us find your statistical analysis has merit and is useful. We just don't think it is the end-all be-all to the extent you do. Hopefully you can live with that. Obviously, you are struggling with it.
I'm sick and tired of how any attempt to understand something is immediately attacked. I absolutely hate how people are so intolerant of intelligence and the search for knowledge and understanding. If it makes me a bad person that the derision of knowledge absolutely disgusts me, then I'm guilty.

If you want to believe that basketball is just a bunch of guys randomly throwing the ball in the air and hoping it falls in the right direction, I guess that's your prerogative, but I firmly, completely believe that there is a quantifiable difference between Markus Howard's and Duane Wilson's ability to shoot the ball from three (for example) and anyone trying to say otherwise is positively a moron.

What people call intangibles are things we just haven't figured out how to measure yet.