First Thoughts The Challenge: Rivals

I have yet to outgrow my odd fascination with the MTV reality/game show The Challenge, thus I must blog and analyze the silly show. The newest season premiered last week. Teams compete in challenges for money and prizes while trying to avoid being eliminated from the show. This season the twist is that the teams are made up of two "rivals" who dislike each other for some reason. I'll summarize the rules briefly and give my thoughts on optimal strategy in this post.

NBA Amnesty Clause: Worst Contracts

If the NBA Amnesty Clause is to be re-enacted, the NBA owners and players' union have to agree to it. I believe the players would largely be in favor of it. Eliminated contracts still get paid in full and teams would then have more money to spend; either from having more salary cap room or from not having to pay luxury tax. However there are many NBA teams that would not benefit from the Amnesty Clause. The following 10 teams hardly stand to benefit from the Amnesty Clause: Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors, Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, Houston Rockets, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City, Sacramento Kings. I doubt the owners of those 10 teams would like to see the Amnesty Clause enacted. If those teams agree to the Amnesty Clause they would be agreeing to give their opponents a large competitive advantage. Also, if the luxury tax remains those teams receiving luxury tax money would stand to earn even less money if the teams over the cap could cut some of their luxury tax causing contracts.

*Clever Segway*. Here are the top 5 best uses of the Amnesty Clause:

5. Travis Outlaw, New Jersey Nets. 3 years and $21m remaining on his contract. The dollar amount is small compared to some of the other potential targets, but Outlaw has been awful these past two seasons (under 1 WS each season, 8.8 PER last year).

4. Rashard Lewis, Washington Wizards. 2 years and $46m remaining on his contract. Yes, he only has 2 years remaining on his deal but $46m for his lack of production on a rebuilding team is a ridiculous waste of cap space.

3. Ben Gordon, Detroit Pistons. 3 years and $37m remaining on his contract. I am not a huge fan of volume scorers and neither is PER or WS. If Detroit cuts Gordon's deal and trades Richard Hamilton, then the Pistons could get a great start on rebuilding.

2. Brandon Roy, Portland Trailblazers. 3 years and $49m remaining on his contract. Not Roy's fault as his pre-knee injury play was deserving of this contract. After multiple surgeries and the scary rumors about the condition of his knees, the Trailblazers could use the Amnesty Clause to move on.

1. Gilbert Arenas, Orlando Magic. 3 years and $62m remaining on his contract. Arenas has been awful since his knee injuries and arrest on gun charges. If the Magic jettison him and move another deal in a trade, they could have some cap space.

Honorable Mentions: Brandon Heywood, Dallas Mavericks (4 years, $35m), Richard Jefferson, San Antonio Spurs ( 3 years, $30m). Cutting either deal could give these contending teams a chance to reload for another title run.

NBA Amnesty Clause: Atlantic & Central Divisions

Wrapping up hypothetical targets of the NBA Amnesty, clause let's take a look at the Atlantic and Central Divisions. For some background see my original post on the clause.

NBA Amnesty Clause: Southeast Division

Next up for discussion, the contracts of the Southeast Division. See my first post on the Amnesty Clause for a little background.

NBA Amnesty Clause: Southwest Division

The analysis of a potential NBA Amnesty Clause now turns to the Western Conference Southwest Division. See my first post on this for some background. Basically I am looking for the worst contract on each team, with "worst" being decided by criteria particular to what the Amnesty Clause will likely be.

NBA Amnesty Clause: Northwest Division

Continuing the analysis of the Amnesty Clause on NBA contracts, which contracts in the Northwest Division are most fitting for elimination?

NBA Amnesty Clause

The current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NBA and the NBA Players' Union is set to expire this year. There has been talk of a new agreement including an Amnesty Clause like the last CBA did. The last amnesty provision allowed teams to eliminate one contract. The teams still had to pay the entire amount on the contract and the contract still counted against the salary cap. The benefit to the team is that the salary no longer counted towards the luxury tax. The luxury tax in the NBA is a penalty for team salaries that are too high. If the team salary is above the luxury tax line, the team has to pay a $1 tax for each $1 it is above the tax line. Using the Amnesty Clause a team could eliminate a $20m contract from their luxury tax calculations and save $20m. If the NBA brings back the Amnesty Clause, which player contracts are the likeliest targets?

More Memory Game

This post is an attempt to answer the question I posed in a prior post about the Memory Game. If you are not familiar with the Memory Game, you can read that post to get familiar with the rules and terminology. The question:

With the second part of your turn, if you do not have a 100% chance of getting a pair is it better to flip an already known tile or try to flip an unknown tile?

As I explained in my prior post on Memory, there are two ways to score. The first method of scoring is to flip over your first tile and already know the position of its match on the board. The second method of scoring is to flip over your first tile, not know the position of its match, and then randomly guess and find its match. My question asks should you forgo the second method of scoring pairs? 

Memory Game

In the seventh episode of this season (22nd) of Survivor, two contestants played the Memory Game to see who would remain on the show. In the Memory Game you score points by flipping over pairs of the same card. Whoever identifies the most pairs wins. The Survivor version had 20 tiles (10 unique pairs) laid face down. The contestants took turns flipping over two tiles per turn. If you flipped over identical tiles (a pair) you received a point and those two tiles were removed from the game. If the contestant flipped over non-identical tiles, the tiles were returned to their face down position. The players alternated turns regardless of whether they scored a pair or not. First to get five pairs won the game. Watching the game, I had two questions:

1. Is it better to go first or second?
2. With the second part of your turn, if you do not have a 100% chance of getting a pair is it better to flip an already known tile or try to flip an unknown tile?

NBA Salary Commitments

As I sit around killing time until I can play some pick up basketball at the park, I'm taking a look at the salary data available at HoopsHype.com.  NBA salaries amuse.  Every year we get to see the winner's curse in action.  They gave how much to Joe Johnson?  Why on earth would you sign Hedo Turkoglu to a five year deal (and how the heck was he traded twice within the first 18 months of his contract)?  I took a look at each team and made some tables and graphs of each team's salary commitment.

More Fangraphs.com Org Rankings

To see the data in spreadsheet form, click here. You can see how teams changed in versus last years ranking and where they scored in each of the four component categories. Toronto, San Fransisco, Cincinatti, and the White Sox moved up 10 or more places while Milwaukee, Seattle, Cleveland, and Arizona were the big downgrades. I didn't like how Future Talent was compiled and have some reservations about Financial Resources  (perhaps a topic for another post).

Fangraphs.com Organization Rankings -- Star Plots

Fangraphs.com has an annual series of posts where they rank each Major League Baseball organization on the following criteria: Present Talent (30%), Financial Resources (30%), Baseball Operations (25%), and Future Talent (15%). The writers grade each team in each of the categories probably on a scale of 1-100 (I believe; no ranking is below 62 or above 95). I took the rankings for each category and made some star plots.

The Challenge: Cutthroat

After two episodes the MTV reality show The Challenge: Cutthroat has not had much to analyze strategically. The only major choices faced so far have been picking the teams and choosing who gets sent into the elimination round.

Bill Simmons and the NFC West

In his weekly football column, Bill Simmons of ESPN.com harshly criticizes the NFC West. His main point of evidence is the NFC's west record since 2002 (go-go arbitrary end points). He posts this table in his article:

Aging Curves in Basketball

The NBA offseason raised a few questions. In order to answer these questions I need to do a little research and figure out a few things. One of these things is an aging curve for basketball players. What is their prime? What rate do they decline after that prime? Luckily this question has been asked and answered in baseball so I can use their methodology and apply it to basketball.

For data, I went to www.basketball-reference.com and pulled the advanced data for players from the 2000-2001 season through the 2009-2010 season (the seasons from the last collective bargaining agreement). My methodology follows the work of TangoTiger and MGL, particularly this article written by MGL. I will try to briefly summarize the methodology. MGL offers a much clearer explanation so I recommend reading that article first.

The World Cup Approaches...

Another World Cup tradition: players complaining about the new ball. The Adidas Jabulani replaces the much maligned 2006 Teamgeist and the hated 2002 Fevernova. Goalkeepers complained about the 1994 Questra ball and I'm sure soccer players wished many unkind things towards the 1998 Tricolore ball but I can't find a link. I'm not sure why but I find the sky-is-falling stories about the new balls amusing.

Fresh Meat II: Episode 7

Continuing my strange fascination with the MTV show Fresh Meat II, here's a post about the latest episode. Wes's coalition officially reached its end as the two remaining teams in it where forced into the elimination challenge. Wes's team lost and left the game. We are left with 6 teams. 4 eams are in Kenny's alliance and 2 are on the outskirts. The last 4 teams go to the finals where they compete for cash money. 1st place in the final challenge wins $200k, 2nd place $60k, 3rd place $40k, and 4th place receives nothing. The goal is to not only make it to the finals, but to maximize your expected winnings in the finals. Strategically, how should the six remaining teams behave to optimize their expected payout?

The Challenge: Fresh Meat II Episode 6

A few weeks ago I wrote a post saying that Kenny's alliance had basically no chance to retake the majority (0.2%). The Kenny's alliance was down 7 teams to 3. The alliance would have to win 4 reward challenges and 3 elimination challenges in order to take back the majority. 3 reward challenge victories and 3 elimination challenge victories later, Kenny's alliance has seized control of the game and is in a dominant position. What happened? Why was I so wrong in underestimating the chances of Kenny's alliance?

Fresh Meat II: The Challenge Episode #4

My earlier posts on the MTV reality show Fresh Meat II: The Challenge recommended two strategies for the competing factions in the show: one side should tighten the bounds in its group and keep loyalty strong while the other side should use the threat throwing a team into the elimination challenge as a way to get teams to defect to their faction. However the factions got the strategies backwards. I recommended Kenny's alliance use the threat of being sent into the elimination challenge to get someone to defect to his alliance. Wes's coalition had the superior numbers. It was in Wes's coalition's best interests to keep loyalty strong within the group. Instead Kenny let someone in his alliance choose who was going into the elimination challenge, thus trying to boost loyalty withing the group while Wes's coalition used the threat of being thrown into the elimination round to get a team to defect to his coalition.

NBA #1 Seeds that Struggle in the First Round

A post on Hoops Analyst talks about the Los Angeles Lakers - Oklahoma Thunder NBA playoff first round series. The Lakers are the highly rated #1 seed and the Thunder are the lowest rated #8 seed. The two teams are playing a best-of-seven series. The author asks if a #1 seed that is struggling against a #8 seed is "a bad indicator for their success in the playoffs"? The post then looks at each of the #1 seeds that struggled against #8 seeds and concludes "I would venture that there is little correlation between a round one struggle and overall team weakness." What does the data say?