About this time two years in the past, I watched as on one of many nice betting websites there was a not-so-subtle backwards and forwards of the validity of the so-called zigzag NBA playoff system.
The tactic merely says go along with the workforce off of a loss. A critic got here again after the primary week or so gleaming over the actual fact the method zagged and sagged greater than it zigged. It misplaced cash. Then because the playoffs went on, the proponent received the final chuckle whereas the cynic wrote articles on different matters telling you he’s smarter than everybody else.
Having been within the trade because the 1980s and having been a supporter of laptop techniques since outstanding statistician Dr. Mike Orkin wrote his Pointspread Analyzer software program, the place does Heart of the Handicapping Universe stand?
We agree with the speculation, however much less so the etched-in-stone concerns. Initially, allow us to give a fast refresher of the distinction. A system will be measured objectively as a result of the parameters are concrete. The zigzag is an instance. Going with a double digit favourite off a single digit loss could be one other hypothetical.
After all there will be modest variances relying on when and the place a database gathers traces, however over any statistically vital interval it doesn’t make an enormous distinction.
A idea is very similar to a system however doesn’t have goal parameters. Our idea is the higher the workforce is that the zigzag system favors and the larger the margin the loss was, the extra compelling it’s to “go along with the workforce off a loss.”
True one may provide you with a system to measure our upgrading of the methodology. An instance could be going with a workforce with a profitable share of .575 or greater off a lack of eight or extra. The issue is we consider a psychological sliding scale combining and most significantly, weighing the 2 elements works finest. It permits for a mixing and matching of the 2 parameters.
For instance, this yr as in most years, it will not apply or would solely be weighed barely if we’re speaking concerning the backside three seeds in every convention off a loss. There’s a motive they’re known as “mismatches”.
No. four versus 5 and the following three rounds of the playoffs (barring enormous first spherical upsets), it’s weighed a lot heavier. Bear in mind we instructed you the mocker grew conspicuously quieter because the postseason went on. Now why.
It’s a kind of theories that nearly make an excessive amount of sense. In the course of the common season of each sportsbook we remind you of the Golden Rule to not merely go along with the “workforce that wants it extra” if mentioned workforce is combating simply to make the playoffs.
We name consideration to the actual fact if a workforce had been proficient at profitable “should win” video games they might not be taking part in in must-win video games late within the yr.
Conversely, a one by 5 seed, particularly because the playoffs go deeper, has proven the power to rebound from adversity and reply when their backs are to the wall.
To the handicapper there’s a titanic distinction between determined elite groups and equally determined inferior groups taking part in in a vital contest. It’s just like the distinction between seeing Jennifer Lopez and Rosie O’Donnell in a string bikini.
Okay, I don’t comply with the analogy myself, however the exemplification of the excellence is infallible. From a handicapping standpoint one can’t measure the success of the zigzag if Phoenix coming off a loss is given the identical weight (no pun supposed Rosie) as Washington or Golden State following a setback.
Likewise, the margin of the loss is relevant for at the very least two apparent causes. As we now have mentioned many instances, nothing impacts public notion greater than the final sport they’ve seen. It’s not unusual for a blowout within the earlier sport to affect a gap line by 2-Three factors and extra instances than not, the closing line by extra.
Plus, irrespective of how motivated and well-coached a squad is, it defies human nature to method a sport with as a lot vengeance off a 22-point win as it’s for the workforce off the large setback.
So to pals and foes alike of zigzag, a .700 or higher workforce off a loss will not be even near being the identical because the beneath .520 groups zigging. Neither is mindset the identical for a workforce that misplaced a sport that went all the way down to the wire the identical as one which received humiliated on nationwide tv.
