Posted:
#1
I just read a great article analyzing how hard it would be for someone who had an interest in fixing a game to actually do so. I don't think we are allowed to post links so I would give out the major points. The name of the guy who did the analysis Phil Birnbaum.
Donaghy is claiming he hit 70% of his bets. For an NBA team to raise its winning percentage from .50 to .70 it would need to create 6 more points of differential per game. For instance it would have to go from scoring 100 and giving up 100 to scoring 103 and giving up 97. This is backed up by the pythagorean projection system which is very accurate for predicting team wins by just knowing the average points scored for and against.
Knowing that teams score 1.5 points for every 2 shot foul situation while only scoring 1 point for every other possession it would take 12 fouls per game for Donaghy to come up with the necessary 6 points.
"Teams shoot about 25 foul shots a game on average. 24 extra foul shots would basically double the number of foul calls per game. If you assume that each of the three referees call 8 foul shots each, one biased referee would have to call *four times as many* foul shots for one team to raise its winning percentage to .700."
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Thats the gist of the article. It would be almost impossible for Donaghy to fix a game that one team should win and create the opposite result.
My personal opinion is that Donaghy was already a pretty good bettor. If an assumption is made that he could hit 60% of his bets without cheating then it is plausible he could call or not call a couple of fouls, give himself and extra 2-3 points a night and increase his percentage to around 70%.
Donaghy is claiming he hit 70% of his bets. For an NBA team to raise its winning percentage from .50 to .70 it would need to create 6 more points of differential per game. For instance it would have to go from scoring 100 and giving up 100 to scoring 103 and giving up 97. This is backed up by the pythagorean projection system which is very accurate for predicting team wins by just knowing the average points scored for and against.
Knowing that teams score 1.5 points for every 2 shot foul situation while only scoring 1 point for every other possession it would take 12 fouls per game for Donaghy to come up with the necessary 6 points.
"Teams shoot about 25 foul shots a game on average. 24 extra foul shots would basically double the number of foul calls per game. If you assume that each of the three referees call 8 foul shots each, one biased referee would have to call *four times as many* foul shots for one team to raise its winning percentage to .700."
*****************************
Thats the gist of the article. It would be almost impossible for Donaghy to fix a game that one team should win and create the opposite result.
My personal opinion is that Donaghy was already a pretty good bettor. If an assumption is made that he could hit 60% of his bets without cheating then it is plausible he could call or not call a couple of fouls, give himself and extra 2-3 points a night and increase his percentage to around 70%.
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