Comments on: Momentum Matters

By: Johne380

Johne380 — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:37:33 +0000

Very interesting topic, appreciate it for putting up. bfgfcbefceeg

By: Phil Curry

Phil Curry — Thu, 22 May 2014 17:40:31 +0000

Hi - I only just saw this comment today, so I apologize for the late reply. The general point you are making is well taken. Better teams should also be more likely to have better records over the last 10 games. Thus, if you were simply to look at correlation coefficients between records in the last 10 games and probabilities of winning series, what you would be capturing, to a large degree, is that better teams win playoff series more often. This is why multivariate regression techniques are so important. By running a regression, we were able to "control" for the underlying qualities of the teams in the series. By having a term that captures their relative strengths, the momentum term really is separate from the underlying quality of the team. In the regression, we considered the relative records of the teams as well as their relative "momentum". That is, there are teams that were 10 points better, for example, than their opponent who had better records over the last 10 games (which you would expect), but also teams that were 10 points better but had worse records. What we are finding is that, among teams who were 10 points better than their opponents, those that closed out the season (relatively) strong won more often than those who finished (relatively) weak. I hope this helps, and thanks for your comment. Again, I'm sorry it took me so long to notice it!

By: Luka Ryder

Luka Ryder — Fri, 09 May 2014 14:08:34 +0000

I liked this article, however I have one quarrel; I find the information interesting but I'm not entirely sure it points towards momentum. Most people would define momentum as the results of several games immediately before said game influencing the outcome of that game. However, in your data, the previous 5 games does not have an influence, instead the previous 10 does. That makes me think that perhaps there is something else going on here, not momentum but a different factor. For example, perhaps the teams that are best are simply more likely to win the previous ten games than a team that is inferior, therefore being more likely to win in the playoffs regardless of momentum. Perhaps teams that are losing more in the previous ten games are doing so because of injuries and will likely lose in the playoffs for the same reason. I'm skeptical to attribute this data to momentum as opposed to any other possible factor due to the previous 5 games not being representative of future results; in my mind, it would be that sample that would convince me of momentum, instead of last ten games. I understand your point of resting a teams best players, but I still find myself skeptical to accept the conclusion. Regardless, I thought the article was very interesting and well put together. Good read