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From: kosower@harvard.ARPA (David A. Kosower)
Newsgroups: net.sport.hoops
Subject: Re: Dynasty
Message-ID: <423@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 15-Oct-85 23:12:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.423
Posted: Tue Oct 15 23:12:16 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Oct-85 20:03:02 EDT
References: <770@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: kosower@harvard.UUCP (David A. Kosower)
Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
Lines: 17

[Go Celtics!]

The claim was made in the referenced article that their winning three out of
the last six championships proves that the Lakers are dominant, since
(by "blind statistics") they were only expected to win two.

RUBBISH!!  That is as bad an abuse of statistics as seen anwhere in
th popular press; it rests on the incorrect assumption that all three
major teams have an equal shot at the title.  They do NOT, since only
one of Boston and Philly can appear in the final, while the Lakers have a
virtual bye.  Thus, in any given year, the Lakers have a 50%, not
33% chance of winning the title IF the championship series were to
be decided, say, by a coin toss... one would therefore EXPECT the
Lakers to have won 3 titles, and Boston and Philly 1.5 each -- which
is in fact pretty much what has happened.

                   David A. Kosower