The Finger Points Outwards - No. 50

BASKETBALL: Evidence that LA basketballer Kobe Bryant has been in effect only an average shooter from the field over his career. That is, unless you believe in ‘the Kobe Assist’.  (And I don’t.)

SOCCER: For those who like their sports and stats, check out the blog The Game Is A Foot. It’s kind of like what this blog would be like if I had been born in the suburbs of London and I was better at maths.

MUSIC: NME rank the Radiohead albums from worst to best. Turns out Nerve has does this as well. And Stereogum too. And IGN. Of course, all of them are wrong. 

CULTURE: Gawker names 22 Terrible Things That Must End in 2013. I’m still undecided as to whether to give the skinny jeans up for good next year.

A Big Sorry To Pond

First on stage were Pond, who essentially looked like MGMT if they had been de-aged by a decade. They also looked like they had come directly from a 'Time To Pretend' video shoot given their various states of undress. Listening to their set was basically a game of 'pick the late '60s psychedelic hippie tune', but they passed the time for the audience in attendance, and playing to a large crowd seemed like it was a thrill to them at least.

Wow, that’s a bit dismissive – who wrote that? Well, I did, when I wrote my review of the MGMT gig in Melbourne a couple of years back. Pond, I’m sorry. I’ve listened to your most recent album ‘Beards, Wives, and Denim’ and I think it’s good stuff. And hell, it’s not like I can play something that even resembles a late ‘60s hippie tune. However, I still stand by my comments that you look like a de-aged MGMT, and that you can’t seem to find your shirts. 

Kallis v Sobers

Over the past few years there has been a debate whether South African cricketer Jacques Kallis is a best all-rounder/cricketer than former West Indian cricketer Sir Garry Sobers. Some have said there is no comparison: that Sobers was and remains the best cricketer since Sir Don Bradman. This post is not going to prove who’s better, but what it will argue is that the conclusion that Sobers was clearly better than Kallis is not easy to prove.

Batting

Sobers had the higher batting average …

Kallis’ batting average is 56.93, while Sobers’ was 57.78. So Sobers made on average about one run more per dismissal, though the difference may not be statistically significant.

Batting averages are higher nowadays…

One argument goes that batting averages have been inflated by shorter boundaries/batting-friendly pitches. If this is true, then the inference is that Sobers’ average would be higher if he batted today (or conversely Kallis’ average would be lower if he played in Sobers’ era).

However, one of the advantages of comparing cricketers’ on all-round ability is that in considering both batting and bowling these effects balance out. That is, Sobers’ batting ability looks better if it is easier to score runs now than in his era, but then so does Kallis’ bowling ability.

Sobers could take the game away from an opponent… 

What does this mean? A run is a run is a run; Sobers’ 57 runs per dismissal are only slightly more valuable than Kallis’ 56 runs per dismissal. One point that is clearly in Sobers’ favour is his better batting strike rate. He reportedly had a Test batting strike rate of 52.5 runs per 100 balls faced, while Kallis’ is 46.0. On the other hand, this also means Kallis stays in longer on average, and while this is a liability in One-Day Internationals and particularly Twenty20 matches if you have a below-average strike rate, it’s a valuable skill in Test matches in which 20 wickets are (generally) required to win the match.

Maybe Sobers’ more aggressive batting makes it easier for his teammates to score runs? But that’s hard to prove; you’d essentially have to see how teammates’ averages and strike rates changed when Sobers and Kallis are batting. My guess is not that much, but if anyone is willing to do the number-crunching I’d be interested in the results!

So in conclusion, Sobers might be a slightly better batsman due to his superior strike rate, but it’s pretty close. 

Bowling

Kallis has the better bowling average – 32.57 to Sobers’ 34.04, although again the difference may not be statistically significant. We’ve already covered above the effects of the relative difficulty of batting and bowling across different eras.

Kallis also gets batsmen out more quickly, dismissing a batsman on average every 69 balls, while Sobers needed 92 balls on average to get batsmen out.

But Sobers got more wickets per match …

Yeah, not a bad point. But every ball that Sobers or Kallis bowled was a ball that someone else didn’t. For each of those balls how much better was Kallis or Sobers than the alternative? That is, is the performance of Kallis and Sobers better than the ‘average’ international bowler – if not they’re actually hurting their team’s performance on average with their bowling, apart from the benefit they provide by giving the better bowlers a rest. (This is not to deny that they’re still both outstanding bowlers in a global sense to get to that level in the first place.) Kallis’ better bowling average and particularly strike rate suggests he adds a bit more value (or at the least detracts less value) for each ball he bowls. Sobers can possibly bridge the gap as long as he added some positive value over the average bowler, but I’m not sure his figures support that.

Sobers’ bowling average would be better if he didn’t have to ‘fill the gaps’ …

This point comes from this post. The argument is that the Windies would pick their team around the other bowlers, and then use Sobers to fill whatever gap was left, so if the pitch was fast, then Sobers would bowl spin, and if it was likely to turn, he bowled pace. That may be true. But whether it matters or not depends on whether you think a bowler should be assessed on what they actually produced rather than what they could have produced if circumstances had been more favourable to them.

Again it’s pretty even, but Kallis might have a slight edge in terms of bowling, due to his better strike rate.

Fielding

Well, how does one assess this? Sobers took 109 catches in 93 matches, Kallis has taken 196 in 158 matches. Not really a compelling argument that Sobers was clearly a better fielder.

To reiterate, none of this is to say that Sobers wasn’t the better cricketer – it’s just to say that it appears difficult to make a clear-cut case for it.

The Wooden Finger Five: December 2012

1. Letter From An Occupant - The New Pornographers: Another song to file under the 'I-really-should-have-heard-this-before-I-found-the-Pitchfork-500-list'. It blasts away for three minutes and forty-six seconds, and the chorus - even though it makes little sense - is gold.

2. Best Of Friends - Palma Violets: Recently named NME's #1 song of 2012, which is not that surprising given that it sounds like it could have been written by all those Strokes and Libertines fans on the NME Editorial Committee. Actually, the Palma Violets are kind of like the evolutionary Vaccines. This is a great anthem though.

3. Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control - Tame Impala: That title is so long it's pretty much the only lyric I remember from the song. This is the penultimate track of Tame Impala's excellent 'Lonerism' album, and as if he knows he's running out of vinyl space Kevin Parker throws just about every effect bar the kitchen sink into it without obscuring its sunny little tune.

4. Default - Django Django: The phrase that has swirled around my head the most over the past month is not really a phrase at all: it's the distorted, hiccupy intro to this song which sounds kind of like "Ba, Click, default, fault, ba click default" though I can't find anything to confirm or deny that. Then that serrated guitar sound kicks in and you're on your way to three minutes of dance-psych-pop-indie bliss.

5. Don't Deny Your Heart - Hot Chip: I like the Chippers, but I'm just mentioning this for its awesome 'football video game' clip. I don't want to spoil the surprises, so I'll just say there's a lot of love in this one.

The Most "Efficient" Championship Winning Team In NBA History

 

A few months back, I wrote a post on the most "efficient" premiership winning team in AFL history, and suggested that I might do it for other leagues if I feel enthused. Well, this post looks at the National Basketball Association. That rating again:

Championship Efficiency Rating = (Championships Won / Number of Seasons Played) - Average Probability Of Winning Championship

The average probability of winning championship changes considerably across the franchises given the huge expansion in the NBA; the probability of winning is much less if there are 30 teams compared to if there are only 8 (which there was in the '50s).

The results are not that surprising for those who know their NBA history; the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers are streets ahead. (For brevity's sake I've cut out all the defunct franchises from the list  below, many of which only played a season or two, although of course they were included when calculating the ratings.) What is more interesting is that only six current teams out of 30 have a positive rating, and one of those just barely. If that doesn't illustrate the 'competitive imbalance' problem in the NBA then nothing does.

Boston 0.191
LA Lakers 0.187
Chicago 0.086
San Antonio 0.073
Miami 0.048
Houston 0.001
Dallas -0.006
Philadelphia -0.015
Detroit -0.016
Portland -0.017
Golden State -0.018
Milwaukee -0.020
Oklahoma City -0.021
Washington -0.032
New York -0.033
Charlotte -0.033
Memphis -0.034
Toronto -0.034
Minnesota -0.035
New Orleans -0.035
Orlando -0.035
Denver -0.038
Indiana -0.038
New Jersey -0.038
Utah -0.039
LA Clippers -0.041
Cleveland -0.041
Phoenix -0.042
Atlanta -0.046
Sacramento -0.048

Note too that Atlanta and Sacramento, despite winning one championship each, come out on bottom, since they played a lot of their histories in a relatively small league with a higher (theoretical) probability of winning.

Who Has The Easiest AFL Draw in 2013?

Once again, I've calculated the difficulty of each AFL team's draw, using the method described in last year's equivalent post. This article is on the money: the weaker clubs from 2012 tend to have the easiest draws in 2013 (and Collingwood gets savaged again).

Melbourne 111.8
Brisbane 111.4
Gold Coast 89.2
Port Adelaide 56.9
Adelaide 55.6
Sydney 42.6
Essendon 26.7
Greater Western Sydney 23.3
Geelong 15.0
Richmond 13.0
West Coast 5.5
St. Kilda 4.6
Carlton 1.7
Hawthorn 1.2
Fremantle -5.2
Western Bulldogs -40.2
Collingwood -43.2
North Melbourne -92.9

As an added bonus, here's the rating of each team's draw broken down by

1) 'teams played twice' (based on the ranking of the teams played twice naturally);
2) the net effect of 'travel' (for example, Adelaide's net effect is zero because they play 10 games at AAMI against interstate clubs, and they make 10 trips interstate); and
3) the effect of not playing your own team. (I initially completely forgot about this effect when I wrote this post, despite making a huge deal of it last year.) 

Obviously, for most teams the net effect of travel is not that far from zero, so the other two effects are the major components.

Marvel NOW!: Reviews of Comics I Said I’d Never Buy (First Half)

About a month back, I said on this blog that I was not interested in the Marvel NOW! launch and it may actually be enough to turn me off Marvel Comics for good (particularly given I'm probably too old for them now - nodding from my wife ... ). O flip-flopping: thy name is Wheatley. (Or maybe curiosity be my name?  ... Or masochism?) To date, I’ve bought seven titles from the Marvel NOW! line, and you know what? It’s not bad. Reshuffling the creative teams, as occurred with the DC relaunch, may have just been the shot in the arm some of these titles needed, or maybe it just fits my theory that, like debut rock albums, comic book titles are at their most exciting for the first twelve issues.

Uncanny Avengers: I’ve already reviewed #1 here. #2 came out this week and it has more beautiful John Cassaday art. I still hate the fact that all of the X-Men are becoming Avengers now, but it’s making for some interesting character interaction (see Rogue and the Scarlet Witch). Verdict: Four (out of five) fingers.

Fantastic Four: It’s hard to do all that much with the FF that hasn’t been done before. I’m not sure this is it yet; the characters seem to be reacting to each other in the same old ways, but the premise of the series – Reed Richards takes the FF on a year-long trip through time and space – has the potential to deliver some Matt Fraction weirdness. Except that I’m sure Mark Bagley is the artist to go all ‘Casanova’ (Fraction’s weirdest and best series) on us; nothing against Bagley, who is perfectly suited to other series. I think I’ll drop this one. Verdict: Three fingers.

Captain America: Now this is an interesting premise; Rick Remender has shot the often said WWII hero into the sci-fi environment of Dimension Z. It’s so ‘fish out of water’ that it might be worth checking out for a few issues at least. And John Romita Jr’s cover to the first issue is the darkest depiction of the good Captain to date. Verdict: Three fingers and a stub.

Thor - God Of Thunder: Potentially the best of the lot, or at least the one that is just pretentious enough to be an Eisner Award nominee. The story follows Thor in three different time eras, with issue #2 in particular making use of his Viking roots.  Also, in a rarity, Thor is not being depicted as a part-buffoon. Jason Aaron may be the smartest scribe the god of thunder has ever had, and Esad Ribic’s art is for the ages. Verdict: Four fingers.  

All New X-Men – The five original X-Men travel from the ‘60s (although in the compressed Marvel timeline probably from 2003) to witness the awful mess that the present world has become, with man and mutant at each other’s throats more than ever (aren’t they always)? It’s OK, but I’m not sold on the premise of this one. My copy though came with a fun little backing board of the original X-Men as babies.

Indestructible Hulk: The Hulk has had remarkable longevity for a rather dull character (Peter David’s run being a notable exception), but new writer Mark Waid makes a promising start here. No more ‘woe is me’ from Bruce Banner; he’s going to use both his brains and his ‘hulking out’ to his advantage. I think I’ll see where this one goes. Verdict: Three fingers and another stub.

FF: Not the Fantastic Four, but the Freedom Foundation. This also has the potential to be an Eisner nominee, if only cos it has hip writer Matt Fraction and super-hip artist Mike Allred on it. And because, instead of the three guys/token girl line-up, it instead has a three girls/piddly Ant-Man roster.  The first issue was slow, but I reckon by issue three, the cool nerds will be all over this one. Verdict: Three fingers with a fourth in reserve.

Still to come:  Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, @*&! Avengers, and Superior Spider-Man.

The Shit Gamer's Review: Pix 'n' Love Rush and Squareball

Sequels notwithstanding, video games rarely look to their own past, as the opportunites afforded by the pace of technological change means that each game looks to be bigger, clearer, and more novel than the last. But the rise of the smartphone has taken games back in a way, as smartphone consumers, many of them not being video game addicts, are typically unwilling to shell out six bucks for a 300 megabyte game. Two games that have taken advantage of these limitations - nay, even revel in them - are Pix 'n' Love Rush and Squareball.

Pix 'n' Love Rush has four games to choose from: Classic Rush, Cursed Rush, Rainbow Rush, and On-Off Rush. Personally, the one I find most addictive is Cursed Rush because the other Rushes require more brain co-ordination - Classic Rush has four buttons (left, right, jump, and shoot), whereas with Cursed Rush you just need to touch the screen to jump. On the other hand, the fact that the levels are called Hard, Harder, Hardcore, Hardcorer, and Hardcorest doesn't exactly appeal to the gaming novice.  Still, it's so visually appealing, with its absorption of the old arcade graphic style (the screen is not rectangular, your progress is measured to the second decimal point, there's a game of Pong being played in the background) that you don't mind frequently falling to your death. And I managed to get 100% on Hard and Harder! Which probably means they're not actually that hard, but still ...

A game that has even more simple graphics, and is more fiendishly evil in its difficulty, is SQUAREBALL. All you have to do is direct a 'squareball' around a maze, and by maze I mean an assortment of Pong-like blocks. Sound easy? Except that the freaking ball  never stops moving, and given this you often have to anticipate your next move even as you are adjusting to your last one. Never have I winced so much, as time and time again I've just negotiated my ball through a difficult patch and thought it was in the clear only for me to unwittingly direct it into open space, or into a pit of lava (and by lava I mean a red block). Squareball requires so much concentration and precision that sometimes I'm almost afraid to breathe. If it wasn't just so darn cute and ironical I would have run from its pits of despair long ago.