You contradict yourself in your second paragraph, as well. The relative value of weights and measures is completely subjective. No person can say that a missed shot is worth -0.68 points to his team and not -0.67 points. That’s called an “interpretation,” which is the opposite of objective.

That’s my reason WHY. I wasn’t arguing the accuracy so much as the absurdity of the claim that the system is unbiased. As for its accuracy, I don’t believe it’s perfectly accurate. I think that’s obvious in the overrating of David Lee (how can a guy be labeled a winner when he loses more than 50 games), Lamar Odom, Zach Randolph, Jason Kidd, Kevin Love, Samuel Dalembert, Andre Igoudala, Gerald Wallace, Marcus Camby, Joakim Noah… etc. Are you really going to tell me that any one of those guys is more valuable or “produces more wins” than Dirk? Marcus Camby is a great player, but he’s not the sixth best player in the league. All of those guys above (except no-pass Randolph and Samuel Dalembert) are great players (Love may not be yet, but he will develop into a great player), but they’re not top 30 in the league with the possible exception of Iggy. Those ratings indicate severe flaws in this system, and I don’t see why anyone would argue anything to the contrary. Do you REALLY beleive Gerald Wallace is the fifth best player in the NBA? Really?
3) This is a good point, but I don’t think it’s applicable in the realm of statistics, especially not advanced metrics in basketball. Real quickly, the statistic I care most about is winning, which is what wins produced is supposed to be about. But I don’t think true winners lose the way some of these guys have lost on this list. I like this system. I’m not saying, nor have I ever said this is a terrible system. It’s good. But Berri tries to pass this off as objective and unbiased, and that’s a total farce. It’s a good system. It’s very reasonable. It makes sense, mostly. But it’s NOT unbiased.
4) Google “did Columbus’ contemporaries beleive the earth was flat,” and you might be surprised by what you find. I skimmed through the first 10 results and each one of them reports the same thing: the contemporaries of Columbus did not believe the earth was flat. His whole campaign for money didn’t hinge on the spherical nature of the earth, it was the estimated distance of his voyage that had caused Portugal (and even Spain, initially) to reject his proposal to sail to Asia.

2) No it isn't subjective. To win a game, you need to score more points than your opponent. Breaking that down, you need to:

i. Shoot efficiently

ii. Defend well.

iii. Maintain possession

iv. Gather possession (rebound, steal, force turnovers).

All that can be measured, and the relative value of each determined, e.g. what is a missed shot worth, relative to a rebound? David Berri did that, and WP48 is the result.

You can disregard this all you want, but you need a reason WHY. What is the flaw in WP48 that makes it wrong? Is it incomplete? Your argument proceeds with no evidence, and refutes nothing. It is very much like saying "Everyone knows the world is flat so your idea that we can sail around the world is wrong".

3) The point he was trying to make, that was lost a little in the bile, is that we cant discard ideas that don;t fit our world view. If anything, we need to embrace these.

4) Most people DID believe the world was flat, and you are only talking about Europe in your refutal, and a very specific moment in time.

2) Judgment of basketball is subjective unless you're looking at the only thing that really matters (the W-L columns). Saying that winning all 82 games in the regular season is ideal is an objective statement. Determining how best to win those 82 games is completely subjective. If it wasn't, someone would have figured out how to do it by now. But the whole point of this convo is to talk about advanced metrics, and that is what I was arguing is subjective. I think you're losing focus. And again, stop with the insults. It's flattering that you find this worthwhile, but you're really not advancing this conversation.

3) I don't have a political agenda, and I don't get why you feel the need to bring that in. Since you ask, I read dozens of scientific journal entries every year, and I have yet to find one scientific research study that does not form its conclusion based off its hypothesis. They all do it. Some of them are right, mind you. But they all do it, no matter which side of the political fence they're on.

4) Most people didn't believe the earth was flat. That's a myth. Columbus wasn't an outcast for thinking so. It's obvious just from looking at the stars from two different points that are significantly far apart that the earth isn't flat. Btw, the oldest account of a round earth that I'm aware of was found in the Bible, in the book of Job, which was possibly written in the neighborhood of 8000 years ago. Other civilizations, such as the Egyptians had a great understanding of the stars. The ancient Greeks identified the poles and meridians. So, that was a bad and misinformed example, but I get what you're saying. Maybe you should get your facts straight first, though, before you insult me.

You know nothing about me, but I enjoy reading your guesses.

1) Chris Paul, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan: Just a few players knowledgeable NBA people might consider for top five. Gerald Wallace, Jason Kidd, Carlos Boozer, Rajon Rondo: A few more worthy of consideration for those who value production over the sniff test for greatness. Oh, and what significant basketball corners do you lurk in?

2) Basketball is neither totally objective nor subjective, and arguing for either is moronic. Grow up.

3) Are you the guy who redacts scientific data from environmental reports because they don't fit your political agenda?

4) The Sun revolves around the Earth–which is flat, by the way. Conventional wisdom, before subjected to fact and reason. To argue that we can't KNOW anything about basketball suggests you belong to a snake-handling church, or something equally intellectual.

And you won't argue anymore? You aren't arguing NOW; you're making pronouncements based on prejudices, and you can't even be goaded into examining your rigid preconceptions. Enjoy your next tent revival or NASCAR autograph show, mouth-breather; I've wasted enough time on you.

2) Mistake on my part. I was typing pretty quickly and meant to say subjective, but my mind got ahead of my typing and I ended up writing objective. Subjective was clearly my meaning, anyways, if you had an inkling of intelligence or reading comprehension.

3) Absolutely true. That's the point of statistics. Like I said, statistics was designed to explain what we see.

4) Absolutely true again. The five best players on the planet are those listed above. Conventional thinking tells us that, and it's true. Conventional thinking tells us Jordan is the greatest of all time, Bill Russell was a true team player and a winner, Magic and Bird were the greatest of the '80s, etc etc etc. Our instincts on the subjective matter of basketball are not incorrect.

I appreciate you taking the time to attempt to insult me, but I really don't get why you try. I told you the reasoning behind the development of statistical methods. I offered evidence to support my claim. I established the subjective nature of the game of basketball, and thus the need to bring "conventional thinking" into the process of statistical analysis. You offered no support for your claims against my own and criticized me for what was actually your own elementary reading mistake.

I won't argue with you further on the topic, but I hope that in future encounters in your life, you will realize that you don't have all the answers. One thing I do know an awful lot about is statistics, and I know enough to say that Berri's methods of analysis are not unbiased, and they should not be given credit as such. His method is subjective, and he has subjectively chosen weights and measures. I think he has selected most measures correctly, but obviously there is a big flaw in his system.

I recommend you check out Khandor's Sports Blog; it's the refuge of some of the net's most die-hard fruitcakes, and you'll feel right at home there. Like you, the author is unwavering in his innate knowledge of what is 'true' is basketball–and lots of other subjects, I'm sure–and he also lets no troubling facts dissuade him. You said:

1) It's obvious who the best players are;

2) Basketball is totally objective;

3) We can strive to make our models fit our perception of the game, and greatness;

4) Conventional thinking is obviously right.

And now I realize you said them completely unselfconsciously. In essence: "Your model contradicts my faith (as in 'belief without evidence or reason'), therefore it must be wrong."

I should not have called you an idiot; that was way too simplistic. You are, in fact, a fatuous pedant, and arrogant for no discernible reason. You have taken your casual observations and half-baked theories and installed them as gospel, and from that platform you attack any dissent as if your opinion was etched in stone by a finger of fire. You should trade in your PC for a pulpit; you'd still be a kook, but you'd influence a smaller circle of sheep.

As far as basketball goes, I’m not wrong. If you want to hear why, go ahead and keep reading. Basketball statisticians do not account for every single stat they could possibly account for. For instance, who keeps track of the pass before the pass (aka the guy who sets up an assist)? Who keeps track of good screens and bad screens set? Who keeps track of who actually boxes out versus who out-jumps their opponent (it matters come playoff time, just ask Amare)? These are just three quick examples of things that you can easily see when watching a basketball game, but they don’t get tracked statistically. Jason Richardson is my most frustrating player in the NBA to watch because he commits some of the most bone-headed mistakes of any player I’ve ever seen (missed dunk against the Spurs, flying into Jason Kidd in the waning minutes when he had the entire court to work with so he got a charge and we lost the game, not boxing out Ron Artest when obviously there would be enough time for Ron Ron to get another look). But if you look at this stat, Jason Richardson was the second-best player on the team, producing 7.9 wins for the team. But does that stat account for the three games I just mentioned that he directly and single-handedly lost?

No statistical model (and no theory for the origin of species) can ever account for every possible scenario. And no statistical model can ever account for everything that is truly there. If you were a statistician, you would know the faults of such models.

One of the great ironies of this day is that statistics developed out of the field of biology, oddly enough. But, statistically speaking, all of the things that biology “proves” today are impossible, whether you’re talking about creation or evolution. Statistics are used to support the theories, but in neither case can they actually do so. For instance, under certain parameters that are highly favorable to the random creation of the most basic protein (by highly favorable I mean all of the elements necessary for protein synthesis concentrated in a small area with perfect conditions for molecule synthesis, reactions happening once per second, etc etc etc) the likelihood of the most basic building block for a protein being formed by chance is 1:10^54. Statistical impossibility is reached at 1:10^15. For one, I hope you know that 10^54 is not just 39 times bigger. It’s far more than that. And besides that, that’s the likelihood of the most basic possible building block of life being formed, let alone the development of life we have currently today. If there were one of the aforementioned reactions happening every second in those highly favorable conditions, do you know how long it would take to form the most basic building block if it wasn’t already impossible? 10^54/31,536,000 (seconds in a year). I don’t have a calculator that can even count that high, but it’s far more years than scientists even believe matter has existed.

Let me just say, creation doesn’t explain things in a way that satisfies statistical methods either. Both creation and evolution are impossible. But my point in saying all of this was that I don’t think you understand what statistics even is. Part of the purpose in the creation of statistics was to explain observations, not just to categorize and analyze collected data. Scientists developed statistical methods so they could explain the contradictions that they were finding between seemingly conflicting theories of evolution. It was created so that they could take what they believed was true and explain it.

That’s my argument with basketball. We know what is true in basketball. We know who the greatest winners of all time are. Now, we have to develop a model that shows what they did that no one else is able to do quite like them.

Thanks for insulting me, by the way.