Can you talk basketball with non-stat people?

[ampersand5]

Whether it be in person with your friends or merely reading basketball message boards other than APBR; can you discuss and debate basketball with people who either ignore or reject the use of statistics?

[Crow]

I have. Going forward it is less likely. Discussing and debating basketball works if the focus is basketball. I'll say want I want even if they aren't interested in stats. They can say what they want as long it is not a majority about why they don't like, trust or use stats. I am no longer seeking to convert but I ain't giving in or being sheepish abut using stats either.

[Statman]

Whether it be in person with your friends or merely reading basketball message boards other than APBR; can you discuss and debate basketball with people who either ignore or reject the use of statistics?

I try, but it's usually futile.

Last time I tried on twitter - trying to ecplain why I thought it was absurd that Sporting News didn't have Frank Kaminsky as a first team pre season All American - I was told it was because he was a poor defender, not athletic - things that aren't explain by stats.

So, I debated that - pointing out he was the rim protector on a well above average defensive team ('13-14), much better than average ball handler & passer for his position, the obvious star player who returns from a top 5 team.

I was then told no 13 & 6 guy should be an all american.

It always ends that way for me - told stats don't matter - then I argue as best I can in a none statistical way - then told that only the most basic stats matter if they support the other other argument, and other important factors such as pace, strength of schedule, quality of team, etc don't matter.

I believe that same guy had Towns as 1st team AA after the season. I guess 13 & 6 the season before isn't good enough to be pre season AA the next season - but 10 & 6 that same season is plenty good enough.

I don't argue much on twitter, it's a waste of time. I'll debate sometimes if I see a reasonable conversation that I think I can add something interesting.

[permaximum]

I am one of those people who believe in advanced stats and "watching" the game. If I could watch all NBA games in a season, I wouldn't rely on stats more than a few seconds. Human mind will still be a greater tool than machine learning algorithms until 2029 in the best case scenerio. (Ray Kurzweil's prediction )

However, bias is a big problem for the mind and there's the fact that we can't watch all NBA games. With these thoughts when I talk basketball with non-stat people, I first want to be sure if the person I'm talking to is biased or not. Then I wonder if he watch a lot of games or not. Then when it comes to stats, I try to explain the important details the basic stats miss, but generally they disagree and they start to disregard stats completely.

But one thing I can't stand is the arrogance of semi-advanced stat people. They think TS% and points above average on the offensive end and rebounds along with blocks on the defensive end all that matter. These people refer to PER, WP, WS constantly. They miss the whole picture and they start to watch the games from those stats' perspective. It becomes a poisonous cycle.

When we get better software and better hardware in the future, we'll have new and better stats and we'll completely disregard today's metrics. Then, there will be a day the new stats will be disregarded too. It's an ongoing process. But human mind will always stay the same.

[Mike G]

Some people don't feel stats add anything to their appreciation of the game, and they might be called stat-free or non-stat fans.
Then there are anti-stat people. They have their minds made up and don't like to be confused with the facts.

People who are so wrapped up in the stats that they miss the game -- to me, these are often hardest to talk to. One can assume a stat regimen contains the useful information, and end up concluding that the majority of coaches and GM's are just dumb dinosaurs.

In any human interaction, the fun is in recognizing what can further enhance the experience. In basketball appreciation, stats are just quantified facts. Any set of facts tell part of the story. If you 'have an agenda', you can use a sampling of facts/stats to support your argument, ignoring those that don't.

The anti-stats crowd will say things like "numbers lie". And often, these people are well acquainted with techniques of lying; but with numbers, they're out of their element.

In one discussion (in the vandalized APBR historic yahoo group), a guy was telling me my numbers didn't work. So I went through the process and at one point multiplied by some ridiculous number like 41,600; later divided by the same number, to arrive at previous result. And he said, Well now that makes sense.

What had happened was that when the derivation made less sense, he had to accept that he didn't understand it. In the straightforward version, he had refused to believe it could be that simple. Something like "percent of available rebounds gotten", which is now known as TReb%.

[Bobbofitos]

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it

[NateTG]

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it

I really don't understand how Upton Sinclair is apropos here.

...The anti-stats crowd will say things like "numbers lie"...

I get the impression that people who do do stats as a whole are all that careful about the way they do things. I'm not sure what the right phrase is, but I see flashes of the "I must be right `because math`" attitude now and then, and plenty of stats people who are all too ready to ignore facts as well.

I don't think that there are 'stats' and 'non-stats' people anyway. As people have mentioned in response to Sir Charles' rant, how 'stats' someone is about basketball isn't a dichotomy, but a spectrum: As far as I'm aware, pretty much anyone who follows the NBA is willing to count points within a game or subtract to calculate the lead, and many people are willing to count wins.

[Mike G]

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it

I really don't understand how Upton Sinclair is apropos here.
.

Sportswriters are often paid to write an "angle" into their story. If facts contradict that angle, they may be written off as noise.

... As far as I'm aware, pretty much anyone who follows the NBA is willing to count points within a game or subtract to calculate the lead, and many people are willing to count wins.

The dichotomy would be that some of us are looking for "more stats", in order to get more of the story. The anti-stats personality says, "the final score is all that matters"; and he may have a favorite numerical nugget or two that holds some personal meaning. But beyond that, more info becomes "too much".

Because "stats" in general society have been abused in political maneuverings, people mistrust them; eventually, they mistrust the people who use them, mistrust their own ability to distinguish right from wrong (in a quantitative sense), and mistrust anything that belies their own senses.

Some of this is survival instinct, and some of it is intellectual laziness. When these forces glom together, it's hard to move it.

[bbstats]

Sure. But I do tell them that SPG > RPG.