Sunday Thought - Does Pre-Season Mean Anything?

by Adam Francis on Oct 24, 2010 9:15 AM EDT

The Raptors won as many pre-season games as they lost. So what? In this edition of "Sunday Thought," Franchise looks at if there's anything fans can take from pre-season play besides clubs getting their players ready for the main event...

We've seen lots of folks tell fans not to put any stock in pre-season play because....well...it's pre-season.

Great.

However I got wondering earlier in the week if there was anything more to pre-season than just getting players in shape, used to each other and on the same page regarding team plays etc.

So, I decided to do a little analysis, albeit a fairly basic one.

I went back and made the following table with Toronto's pre-season and reg season records over the past nine years to see if there was anything one could glean from the data:

	Preseason	Win	Loss	%	Reg Season	Win	Loss	%
2010-11	Toronto	4	4	50%		?	?
2009-10	Toronto	2	6	25%	Toronto	40	42	49%
2008-09	Toronto	4	4	50%	Toronto	33	49	40%
2007-08	Toronto	5	2	71%	Toronto	41	41	50%
2006-07	Toronto	6	1	86%	Toronto	47	35	57%
2005-06	Toronto	3	4	43%	Toronto	27	55	33%
2004-05	Toronto	2	5	29%	Toronto	33	49	40%
2003-04	Toronto	4	2	67%	Toronto	33	49	40%
2002-03	Toronto	3	5	38%	Toronto	24	58	29%
2001-02	Toronto	5	1	83%	Toronto	42	40	51%

Anything jump out at you?

To me there's one piece and that's that Toronto has had its best regular season records in the same year as it's posted excellent pre-season marks too. The Raptors went a collective 11 and 3 in pre-season from 2006 to 2008 and won 57 and 50% of their regular season games those years respectively too.

Outside of that it's a bit blurry, but without doing any big correlation analysis such as a T Test, I think you can see that in years where the team's struggled in pre-season, this has generally manifested itself in a mediocre to poor regular season.

Of course there are so many caveats to this sort of basic analysis.

Opponents don't play their best players, hell the Raptors themselves don't, or don't have their rotations set until perhaps very late in pre-season. So it's hard to just say A = B for something like this.

In reality, I think pre-season means something when it does as close a job as possible of recreating what is most likely to occur in the regular season. That is to say if Team A dominates Team B in pre-season, and both are playing their top players and regular rotations, there's a good chance we see a recreation of Team A beating Team B come regular season.

That's why for Toronto I thought this was a fairly efficient pre-season schedule. The team beat the opponents it should have (Philly, Phoenix twice and New York), however struggled against the Bulls' and Celtics' clubs that were also on the pre-season docket.

So does pre-season mean anything?

I think so, but as we've discussed, it's probably more useful as a directional trending analysis than one that tells fans anything concrete about a team's forthcoming regular season performance.

Granted it would be interesting to do the same face-level analysis with the entire league, but for now, we'll leave it at that.

The regular season is around the corner, and we've got a few previews to finish off...

Tweet Comment 17 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

off topic..

Great article but a question, when is ed Davis schedule to return? It should be soon no?

by sherwin316 on Oct 24, 2010 9:49 AM EDT via mobile reply actions

One thing's for sure

If there is a basis for a successful team here, it’s going to be a few years in the making. This pre-season definitely gave some reasons to hope it can happen.

They looked surprisingly energetic, composed, and most of all – well-coached.

With that trade exception there’s a chance we can close the talent gap a bit as well. Maybe a deadline deal at whatever position is needing the most help.

by axl t on Oct 24, 2010 10:05 AM EDT reply actions

I think the “well-coached” piece is the biggest thing I’m happy about. Last year I felt that Jay didn’t “grab the horse by the reins” enough so it’s been great to see that a lot more this pre-season.

Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com

by Adam Francis on Oct 24, 2010 8:03 PM EDT up reply actions

JT’s been handed a pretty incredible opportunity here. Any other team, he’d be gone. Hopefully desperation brings out the best in him.

by axl t on Oct 24, 2010 8:51 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

Preseason means nothing

in the grand scheme. We all know its the truth. Regular season W&L’s are the only thing that matters.

by Tinmann on Oct 24, 2010 12:05 PM EDT reply actions

If it meant nothing, they wouldn’t have it though…so not sure you can say it means zilch; it does mean teams get an opportunity to see how players do with new teammates, new rotations, new plays etc, etc…

And I think from a correlation standpoint if you looked across teams and across history, you would see similarities between pre-season and regular season record.

Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com

by Adam Francis on Oct 24, 2010 8:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Correlationally, I’m sure ther would be a trend, but I am alos very sure the reliability of that trend would be very, very low.

As in, you could probably fit a curve to it, but the standard deviation from that line would probably be pretty high.

by dhackett1565 on Oct 24, 2010 9:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Reminds me of my high school Stats course.

by HDave on Oct 24, 2010 10:16 PM EDT up reply actions

Ed Davis

Davis has not even had an NBA practice session as yet, and I would be surprised to see him available to play until late November at the earliest, maybe later.

by Johnn19 on Oct 24, 2010 12:54 PM EDT reply actions

Thinking the same thing. Haven’t heard about any setbacks but definitely don’t expect to see much from the rook pre-Christmas at this point.

Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com

by Adam Francis on Oct 24, 2010 8:06 PM EDT up reply actions

no way, at 2-4, does Miami have a sub .500 season. No correlation between pre-season and the season would be my guess.

by Gerry71 on Oct 24, 2010 4:05 PM EDT reply actions

But would the 2 and 4 record maybe be an indicator that the team won’t be as dominant as many expect? Injuries to Miller and Wade don’t help but we’ll see how this plays out…

Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com

by Adam Francis on Oct 24, 2010 8:06 PM EDT up reply actions

Indicator, yes. But if you can say that a 2-4 record means that they will win 50 games (rather than 70), then you really can’t argue that a 4-4 record will mean the Raptors will have a .500 or better season.

by dhackett1565 on Oct 24, 2010 9:57 PM EDT up reply actions

Anecdotal evidence the best you can do

I think the best you can say about pre-season is that it can give useful anecdotal evidence. Last year, it was pretty clear by the end of pre-season that Turkoglu was going to struggle to do anything useful for the team(and so it proved). This year it looks like the team is going to have a scrappy identity with various players contributing the scoring. It seems safe to say that PG defense and interior help defense will be weaknesses, while depth and versatility should be strengths.

As far as drawing statistical conclusions, I’d say that any conclusion one reaches based on pre-season is subject to an enourmous margin of error due to the small and non-representative sample size. If it were a poll, the conclusions would be true “+/- 30%, 10 times out of 20”.

by DW19 on Oct 24, 2010 4:53 PM EDT reply actions

DW19 – you hit on something I was wondering about while doing the admittedly face-value analysis; sample size. I didn’t run any tests, but it would be interesting to see if an 8 game set is a statistically significant sample size considering it’s about 1/10th of the size of the actual population…

Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com

by Adam Francis on Oct 24, 2010 8:08 PM EDT up reply actions

So does pre-season mean anything?

When it comes to the correlation between “practice” & “not-practice”, there are 2 stats – one that Gerry71 mentioned – that suggest pre-season means pretty much zippo.

Cleveland …. 6-2
Miami ……… 3-4

But while my stance on preseason is more reflective of team records – there are some exceptions. Boston was 7-1, and I’d like to think that was indicative of a strong Secondary, where Preseason has teams playing their Bench guys heavier minutes than usual. Miami’s record might back that up – after 3 guys, the drop-off is exceedingly excessive. Toronto, for its’ part, was 4-4 because of the “back-up” guys.
.
That aside, there are certain factors that make preseason important, and hence why I have to disagree with the following quote:

Preseason means nothing …. in the grand scheme. [tinmann]

Team cohesion is important. Conditioning another factor – as we experienced with Turkeyglue. Individual development – despite operating under a small sample size (8 games) – can be a concern. Amir fouling situation worries me. Bargnani’s rebounding woes concern me, although Reggie’s play does take the sting out of that. AB’s play against the Knicks was decent, but one rebound is not good. That concern is tempered by Andrea’s preseason record vs regular season – where he’s always done worse. The exception being his sophomore season, and we know how that turned out. In the New York game, Bargs did have one Rb slip out of his hands – it must have been the Olive oil on the ball. Bright side is, Bargs’ per 36 brings things up to 1.5 Rb.
.

by RapthoseLeafs on Oct 24, 2010 6:04 PM EDT reply actions

Now there’s a great point.

Perhaps the one thing that CAN be determined in pre-season is how strong teams’ benches are, since a lot of the pre-season focus falls on these types of players. That would explain the Boston’s and Cleveland’s of the league currently, as well as the Miami’s in terms of disappointing records despite star power by the bunches…

Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com

by Adam Francis on Oct 24, 2010 8:09 PM EDT up reply actions