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ESPN.com - Blogs - John Hollinger Blog
So although he isn’t a household name, the loss of May is huge. I have it costing the Bobcats six wins, dropping them from 40 projected wins to 34.
Obviously, that knocks them out of the No. 8 slot, and puts either New Jersey or Toronto in their place. I had those two clubs as co-No. 9s in my preseason rankings at 39-43, so flip a coin. If you want to get real technical, I had the Raptors with 0.06 wins more than the Nets, but I doubt that matters unless the league starts awarding hundredths of wins.
Oct 19th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Hollinger really annoys me with these overhyped stat-based predictions.
First, he claimed the Bulls fleeced the Knicks in the Eddy Curry trade — not because of the draft picks or cap flexibility which allowed them to sign Ben Wallace, but because, per his stats, Michael Sweetney was already a much better player than Eddy Curry. It made sense if you didn’t bother to notice that Sweetney’s such a whale that 4 years into his career he’s not even on a roster.
Second, he claimed that the Pacers killed the Warriors in the Harrington/Stephen Jackson trade because they got Ike Diogu. Jury’s still out on Diogu’s ability, but it saved the Pacers a huge amount of money, while Diogu really can’t be called anything better than a prospect.
Now he claims Sean May’s loss was “huge”. Well, sure, if you didn’t happen to notice he’s missed about 50 games a season every year in his career. Anyone that *was* counting on Sean May to play a full season — or even half of one — is deluded. Once again, looking like Oliver Miller’s kid brother apparently is secondary to awesome per-40 numbers.