Semi-finals: Predictions?

Submitted by Justine Price on Fri, 2017-04-21 20:53

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Sam Lee has important things to do on Monday night, so Sul and I have the duty to bring the tablets. Don't worry, even our geriatric tech-wizardry includes making sure they are charged up. We are also stats keeping the first game, so we've gone ahead and entered all the stats so we can be laser focused for semi-finals quality heckling. Predictions on our predictions? 

 

 

 

Sina Dee

Mon, 2017-04-24 10:02

I will make 7 throw aways.

Seb will throw 4 blade like pindurs.

Pindur will throw 3 regular pindurs.

Michael O'Hare will pull off a Wowchuk (negative salary one week followed by star performance the next)

Thuc shows up to the 7:00 game only to find out his game is at 10:00.

Owen decides he wants a triple berry and gets it.

Amos (missing the game) somehow finds a way to chirp Morgan, Steve Chow, and Hadrian  because Amos  is just that good.

Ariel still goes undrafted after 12 rounds.

Thuc Nguyen

Mon, 2017-04-24 16:13

I'll show up at 6:45 thinking I have a 7pm game.  Then go home at 7:15.  Take a nap and over sleep only to show up at the game at 10:30 and cursing the rest of for being in total 2 hours and 45 minutes late.

Sebastien Belanger

Mon, 2017-04-24 12:15

Parity Predictions (session 2 semi-finals)

In Malcom Gladwell’s podcast, revisionist history episode 6, he discusses the concept of “strong link” vs. “weak link” sports. An example of a strong link sport is basketball where, because there are so few players on the court at any one time, a super-duper-star (i.e. Lebron James) can win a championship for you surrounded by below average teammates. The theory for basketball is anyone can coach up an effective defense with a disparity of talent but offense is dependant on the talent of the top players. In contrast, Soccer requires so many passes to be completed in a row that it is an example of a “weak link” sport. Even Messi needs above average players around him to get him the ball for a scoring opportunity. So where does Ultimate stand? Well, on offense, it’s “strong-link” but on defense it’s “weak-link” but due to the high rate of turnovers in Parity league, I would tend to give the advantage to strong-link. A balanced team, like the one I play on, (Soho) has very little room for error since our top end talent has trouble competing with the rest of the league’s Tier 1 players. So, with that in mind, let’s look at this week’s matchups.

Betty White vs. Kells Angels

Betty White had a stunning upset of Soho last week in a 2 vs. 7 match-up. This week they have the daunting task of trying to knock off a team stocked with top tier talent. In fact, Kells Angels have 3 players that can only be described as elite (Higgins, Piper & Kelly) and a few others that are proven playoff winners (Kells & Cloake). I predict that trying to slow down this offense will be too much for Betty White’s more balanced line-up. That being said, I expect a huge game from Betty’s dynamic duo (Young & Zhao) that will probably be contained with some strategic poaching from Kell’s super-duper stars. Both these teams are composed of “strong-link” players but Kells’ links will likely be too much for Betty White (Prediction Kells Angels: 24, Betty White: 21).

Lumlysexuals vs. 99 Problems

The Lumlysexuals have 3 of the most athletic men in Parity on the same roster which will be facing off against the New England Patriots of Parity league (99 Problems). Keates is elite but even he can’t cover Rowe, Barford and Lumly at the same time.  Of course we all know that only a fool bets against the Golden Boy (Sully) in the playoffs. If we add a few other strong link players to this analysis (Price, Warren, Kudakiewicz) all on 99 Problems, I’m going to say that these two team’s top tier players are pretty much even and that the outcome will be determined by the "weak-link" players. In the end, I think it will be coaching that will decide the outcome of the game and I predict that Ives (Parity’s Belichick) and Price will coach-up the rest of the roster to victory (Prediciton 99 Problems 22, Lumlysexuals 21).

Christopher Keates

Mon, 2017-04-24 14:19

I also think you do Sina, Thuc and Wildgen a disservice when you suggest they cannot keep up with the "elite" players on other teams. They very much can.
 
First, I think you are basing your position on the assumption that the league is "balanced" or "even" in terms of team construction, which I do not believe is the case. This is a breakdown of the team salary cap situation looked at as "value per point you play." Basically, it smooths out the noise and volatility of player salary. The teams are not balanced. Owen's is worth about 6% more than the cap by salary, but ~20% by played salary per point.
 
Let's talk about that a bit. Owen's team was able to float at or below cap early on because of a few quirks of the way we balance teams. Low scoring ties early in the year, Owen played 1 or 2 points one game before stopping and earned $14,000 instead of his usual ~$130,000, and he generally identified that player value is better measured less by salary and more by what a player does each point they play and drafted accordingly. If we rank all players based on salary per point played, no player on Owen's team falls lower than 71st of 98 current and former players in session 2. In short, while he is a great player, he also has a very deep team with a very fat middle of the roster.
 
As Bush aludes to, the same weak link properties are at play in frisbee, and in some ways they are magnified because of the nature of posession. Mistakes in soccer may stall an attack but may not cede posession, where as they will always cede posession in ultimate. I'd argue that this makes ultimate even weaker than soccer in practice (although not in scoring outcomes, but that's a sabermetric sports nerd talk for another day....) What teams need is not to win the "best player" matchup to play good defense and good offense, but to "win the matchup" with as many players as possible. This maximizes the chance that the 6 or 8 or 10 passes it takes to score will be completed successfully. A strong actor in ultimate means that he will win his matchup more often than not to either keep the disk moving or deter a pass to his man, but that does not necessarily extend to the other 5 players unless they are also winning their matchup. A strong actor in ultimate means that areas on the field that can be targetted effectively on offense are larger because of throwing skill, but the targets need to be able either get open or have enough game sense to exploit those less conventional spaces that can be thrown to by the strong actor.
 
The best teams in indoor are almost always the teams with the best depth, not the teams with one or two of the best player. Owen's team just happens to have both.

Sebastien Belanger

Mon, 2017-04-24 16:31

I'm not sure if Thuc, Sina and Wildgen are elite or not. Thuc and Sina are definitely elite offensive handlers but I'm not sure any of them are all that interested in covering some of the younger faster cutters downfield. I would also add that our women have been dominating the competition for most of the season but the downfield duo on Betty White was a tough matchup last week. I think the elite athletes in parity (referenced in my post) can dominate on offense and defense which is why I attribute them with the elite status. Of course, that's my interpretation of that arbitrary label...

Alex Bush

Mon, 2017-04-24 13:53

Sorry Seb, you are wrong. Ultimate is always a weak-link sport, regardless of offense or defense.

In Malcolm Gladwell's essay on the topic, he uses soccer as an example of a weak link sport. Although Messi is the best player in the world, he often needs 6 or 7 passes for the ball to get to him in order for him to make a great play and score a beautiful goal. If one of those passes fails, he can't score a goal. Hence, soccer is a weak-link sport. 

As for basketball, it has nothing to do with the number of people on the court but rather that one person can dominate. Give Jordan (or Lebron or whoever is the star today) the ball and he will dominate. Wilt Chamberlain once had 100 points in a night in what is considered the best performance ever by an athlete. He won that game on his own. Basketball is a strong-link sport.

Now on to ultimate: it was easy for you to see how one weak player on defense can cause consternation. However, on offense it's the same thing. It is not your best player that scores the point single-handedly. It is the 6-7 passes that led to the beautiful huck for a goal with the best player in the league skying 3 players. If one of those passes is dropped or thrown away, the whole play dies. Hence, ultimate is a weak-link sport. 

Sebastien Belanger

Mon, 2017-04-24 14:59

I agree that my explanation of the theory was sub-par since I was relying on a middle age man's recollection of a podcast I had listened to many months ago but I disagree that Ultimatis is only a weak link sport. I've seen too many games where a one or two players can put the team on their back and basically touch the disc every second pass. I prefer a ballanced team roster over superstars from a style perspective, but I've seen both work.

Sina Dee

Mon, 2017-04-24 15:44

More predictions tonight:

Top players on SoHo looks off Seb all night and opts for the throw away instead unless he brings cookies... For everyone.

Christopher Keates

Mon, 2017-04-24 15:47

That habit is the near deification of elite level athletes. I think this applies in all sports, but basketball, soccer and ultimate are the ones we seem to be focusing on here....

In basketball, even the very best players require talent around them to succeed. Championships happen because of effective team play. The myth of Lebron, Jordan, Kobe, etc. is overblown. These are all spectacularly gifted athletes, but they also played with great players, and had great coaching. Nobody wins a championship alone. Even LeBron's other-worldly performance last season in the finals still required effective defensive scheming against the GSW, a good supporting cast, and a bit of luck to win out. Here's a look at the numbers - his teams have still been good. So have all other championship teams. Across the board, those teams are still able to field a team of players that are arguably above league average, and this is basketball, a sport we agree is "strong link."

I think it's important to remember that a performance by one player does not exist in a vacuum in any sport other than maybe a pitcher in baseball (although there the catcher can help significantly, and the outfield can make a difference on balls where a lesser defender may not be able to make a play). I think that in many cases when we see a player "take over a game" what we are seeing is a good performance from them, but also a good supporting performance from the team around them to allow that to flourish. I mean, when Jordan retired in 1993, the next season the Bulls still went to the conference semi-finals and took the Ewing-led Nicks to 7 games.

Sebastien Belanger

Mon, 2017-04-24 16:40

This thread should have been more about predictions. I apologize for my role in turning it into a validation of Sebastien's theory of making predictions. It was more of a gimmick to try and provide an interesting narrative... I LOVE that Bisang is talking trash on the forum though. I assume Kells is printing up his post right now to show to his players before the game (assuming he gets out of the AGM in time).

Jon Rowe

Mon, 2017-04-24 18:33

Kells would be Shooter McGavin:

"I eat sh*t like you for breakfast!"

Christopher Keates

Mon, 2017-04-24 23:17

Brian Kells communicates entirely in adversarial movie quotes or notarized letters.

Brent Burton

Wed, 2017-04-26 09:11

Hey, remember when a middle aged man with a sultry voice used to do podcasts from his basement futon. It seems so long ago. Come back parity podcast! The diatribe here is so mundane and reading is for the skeptics. I prefer when people tell me what to think!

Steve Bisang

Mon, 2017-04-24 15:57

Betty White is a sleeper team, but don't sleep on Betty White.  Ya heard?

B-Dub is the veritable Happy Gilmore of parity.  Raw talent that took some time to polish, but now Happy learned to putt and we are out to win Grandma's house back.