I recently added my capstone project to this portfolio which part of it was based on creating a predictive model to try and quantify the outcome of an NBA game. There are certainly many factors involved in a basketball game, and I do not think my model is anywhere near being as predictive as I would like it to be however I wanted to write a post about my thoughts on predicting the outcome of games, which is essentially what we would be trying to accomplish with a predictive model. The way a model works is you input all of the variables you want to track however they are weighted is up to you, and then it spits out a projected score for the game. let's say one team is favored by 4.5 points which would make them -4.5. This means if you were to bet on that team they would have to win that game by 5 or more points for you to win your bet. To start to get into the probability aspect, however, this spread would have an implied probability of about 64%. You would think with that high of a percentage chance of winning the favorite should win. However, let's say they played this exact game 1000 times, 640 times the favorite would win, 360 times the underdog would win. There are so many different outcomes that can occur however the game only gets played once.
This is assuming that the projections are also 100% correct, which is just a faulty assumption. There will always be external factors that are unquantifiable, even something as simple as Jalen Hurts playing with an illness last night in the Eagles vs. Seahawks game. People can attempt to quantify it but no one truly knows how he is feeling and no one truly knows the impact of his illness on the game. The Eagles lost in disaster fashion, they were favored by 4 points and were leading by 4 points up until the last 30 seconds of the game. The Eagles started the season right where they left off last year, winning their first 5 games. Then they lost to a bad Jets team and with the most daunting stretch in their schedule coming up, the Eagles entered it at 5-1. The sports world denoted this stretch as "The Gauntlet," I had friends of mine asking me what my prediction was for the Eagles record during this stretch of the season, here was my prediction.
I ended up being very right and very wrong at the same time. The Eagles did go 5-3 on this brutal stretch where they faced 5 of the 6 teams who are most favored to win the Super Bowl per Draft Kings Sportsbook. They had signature wins over the Dolphins, Cowboys, Bills, and the Superbowl-defending Chiefs. If you told me the Eagles went 5-3 throughout this stretch I would be ecstatic however the sky is currently falling in Philadelphia. The team won the first 5 games but they just lost 3 games in a row, 2 of the games were blowouts at the hands of the 49ers, and the Cowboys who are two teams they would need to face to get back to the Superbowl this year. I am usually a glass-half-full type of individual who is really focused on the idea of recency bias and the probability of all this occurring. The Eagles just faced the toughest stretch in the league and they won 62.5% of their games that seems like a victory to me. However because they just lost 3 games in a row in devastating fashion, the Eagles are under a microscope and people are wondering how they will respond.
Fantasy Football playoffs began last week, and I built 3 teams all with different players, and all finished in the top 4 points scored in the season out of 12 teams in the league. They all made the playoffs however none of them received a bye. 6 teams make the playoffs, and without considering external factors I would need to win 3 games in a row to win a championship. Having 3 teams in 3 different leagues would have my implied probability of winning one championship at 50% which is phenomenal at this point in the season. ESPN projections even had all 3 of my teams at above a 60% chance of winning the first-round matchup! All three teams lost devastatingly, a 3 game skid much like the Eagles however unlike the Eagles, my season is over. The point of all this is that sports are still played on the field, court, or whatever venue they are played on. Statistics are great I love the idea of attempting to quantify things and putting a number value toward the outcome of something. However, this is the perfect example of the randomness that can occur and the variance of outcomes that can happen. To win a championship whether it's Fantasy or real life causes you to string together a stretch of winning multiple games in a row, and most of these games can be close to a coin-flip or 50% chance of winning. Winning is improbable but it's not impossible and that's why we play the games.
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