Not to be a smart-aleck, but …

The players wearing Raptors uniforms are in fact the Raptors.

- injuries and absences are a fact of life in the NBA for every team

- when the Back-ups of Team A play against the Back-ups of Team B, what you still get a chance to see reveals a great deal about the way in which those two specific teams actually work

To discount the pre-season in this league … when evaluating where teams stand relative to one another, as the regular season is set to tip-off … is simple folly.

e.g. The Meaning of Pre-season Stats

cheers

One should follow the statistics blindly either.

Especially when the exceptions to the rule are as common as the rule.

“The Raptors lost those games” – Were those the “Raptors” on the floor who will be playing this season? Or were some of them just guys wearing Raptors uniforms?

re: “Uh…ya, I meant to do that. I was trying to show people the type of bad grammar I was talking about. Glad you noticed. I was afraid it was too subtle. Also, I was dictating to my assistant, so the mistake is hers, not mine. She’s one of those young folks with bad grammar I was talking about.”

Unless your assistant is also the actual owner of this blog, then, you shouldn’t fall prey to laying “blame” on her for something like this.

A lack of personal accountability is a major problem in our society, in general.

re: 1 or 2 games make a big difference

The fact is … the Raptors lost those games.

The Best in a field of endeavour take ALL of the factors you mentioned above into consideration when they make an immediate assessment of the “quality” of a specific something/situation.

e.g. The Best evaluators of basketball ability can watch different players in a game or practice setting as little as one or two times only and … whether or not the ball goes in the basket with a high degree of frequency during that specific session … tell you with a great deal of accuracy which players will be able to knock down those same shots when the brights lights come on at crunch time.

re: the role of statisticians and probability in the game of basketball

In general, it’s a mistake to think that statisticians can correctly interpret, “How the NBA game actually works,” by attending to such things as “margins of error” when applied to number-crunching.

e.g. The numbers say that Charlie V may have a better chance of getting a key rebound for his team than does Jason Maxiell, but … does this mean that Charlie V should be considered a better rebounder than Jason Maxiell?

[IMO, the correct answer is, "No," he shouldn't.]

One of the other things that The Best are capable of doing is identiying correctly which results should be considered as “the outliers”, in a given situation. Once this component is added to the mix, the relationship between Pre-season W-L Records and Regular Season Wins, in the NBA, becomes quite apparent.

Cheers