Nate Smith wrote:

You're cheating to increase the number here, if you strech across the 13
years the non-winning year multiples are the odds of *not* winning, 7/8 and
9/10. We had been comparing winning 3 in a row vs 8 in a row (having moved
from the 3 in a row vs 3 individual), not sure why you felt the need to
fudge.

Now, comparing a three year run with an 8 year run is fudging in the
direction of the 8 year run, so while one can say that the 8 is 1239 times
harder that is not strictly a valid comparison. But it's close enough for
our purposes.


Which is exactly what I said, winning 8 is more of an accomplishment than
winning 3.


No, here you lapse into bullshit. The difficulty in winning one title is a
huge factor mitigating the difficulty of winning multiple titles.

The Lakers winning their 3 in a row was, using the same math, either 36.2,
37.6, 42.3 or 47.6 times harder than any of the Celtics 3 year subset runs.

For the Celtics to win their 8 was 18,949.4 times easier than it would have
been for the Lakers to extend to 8.

Put another way, the difference between winning 8 now and winning 8 then is
much larger (~15x) than is the difference between winning 3 now and winning
8 then.

The Lakers 3 was more of an accomplishment than any of the Celt's runs of
4, but less of one than the 5's, considerably closer to the 5's than the
4's if you want to draw the best comparison.

Now that still understates things a ton, since the economic system now
requires a great to get rid of 1-2 key players each year, so keeping the
talent together is not possible now as it was then. Does Boston win 8 if
it's forced to dump Havlicek and others over the course of the run, making
them a modern type team with a star or two and the rest role players
competing against others that are similar? To study it in detail would
make a great book. Clearly it is much tougher to even remain in contention
for 3,4 or 8 years now than it was to *win* 3,4 or 8 years then.

--
Gary Collard
SABR-L Moderator
gmcollard@yahoo.com
http://sarcastipundit.blogspot.com/

"If Algeria proposed a [UN] resolution that the Earth was flat and
that Israel has flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 120 to 3,
with 27 abstentions." -- Abba Eban

Todd wrote:

No, not purely theoretically or in the real world.

But you're going to get flamed by Marcus for saying it's even 4.5 instead
of 1.

At least you finally admitted your bigotry near the end of that sentence,
here I thought we were beign serious.

--
Gary Collard
SABR-L Moderator
gmcollard@yahoo.com
http://sarcastipundit.blogspot.com/

"If Algeria proposed a [UN] resolution that the Earth was flat and
that Israel has flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 120 to 3,
with 27 abstentions." -- Abba Eban

"Gary Collard" <garycollard@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:44DE2368.5F9367C9@netscape.net...
be.

Wow, sarcasm doesn't get by you at all.