As for your last sentence, exactly. As for your first sentence, this is assuming the distribution is EXACTLY a normal distribution among every single player in the league, and we are somehow selecting EXACTLY the top 12 players in the league for the Olympic team. As DRob/Ewing/Barkley/Malone vs. Chandler/Love/Davis shows, these approximations are not even close to being valid.

Holy crap is that a flying lawnmower?

And I'm not "upset", I'm frustrated that I have to repeat the exact same argument ~5 times, more or less, before people catch on. And I'm just begging people to show me how they are completing their argument of "2012 era NBA is ever so slightly better than 1992 therefore the 2012 Olympic team would beat the Dream Team". I gotta say, I don't think it's too much to ask in a 1200 (edit - 1400!) post thread at this point."

Fuuurthermore, it's pretty clear I don't really get frustrated until people like Triumph36 aggressively tard things up and get all "oh hey look let me talk all condescending while being completely wrong herp derp" 1200 posts (edit - 1400!) in without even beginning to comprehend the first 1,199 (edit - 1399!) posts.

This doesn't make any sense. Any distribution across a population by definition includes every member of that population. The question is how many standard deviations the top x players are away from the mean. Taking the generalisations as a whole the probability is that the 2012 is better than the 1992 team. Again though this is meaningless because we're talking about specifics, so please keep to arguing that rather than arguing against basic statistics.

I don't even get what you're saying here.

Saying the NBA population is not exactly a normal distribution is not arguing against basic statistics, and is pretty obviously a correct statement. Your point about standard deviations is simply another way of framing the argument. It doesn't mean the NBA player population is a perfect normal distribution. Basically this post is irrelevant.

Please explain more about Karl Malone, I am just dying to know more. I guess I just don't get how one player makes your entire argument, and evidently the rest of the thread doesn't either, which is why you've made the point 800 times.

Oh look, Triumph36 is back!

Karl Malone doesn't make my entire argument. Everyone but like 3 posters understand what my point is regarding Malone. I'm sorry that you are one of those 3. It must suck pretty hard to be in that kind of company.

Karl Malone is but one part of my argument. If you didn't barge in here with your epic stupid and actually were following along you may have been able to incorporate all aspects of the argument instead of coming in here all condescending like and looking like a stupid ass.

Do you really want to know more about Karl Malone or are you just saying that?

yes, one player who has not played in the past ten years does not hold much weight when comparing an entire league now to twenty years ago

Sorry, make that 4 posters.

Nope, just trolling, but it must be pretty important, given that 36 of your posts in this thread have the word Malone. I look forward to more handwaving and claiming that you've won an argument when people think an argument is stupid. I just know I won't be the one to continue it. Pity we don't have Thremp around anymore, that would've been fun.

We have also mentioned kobe and Garnett and dirk and Kidd and shaq and jordan but 12ers keep posting about Malone only so the posts about him are much higher

A one player example is better than no evidence to the contrary.

yes, you mentioned that players get better till they're about 26 or 27, we were all impressed by the logic behind that argument. You also mentioned Jordan dominated at the end of his career, which he didn't.

I recently created a new username but I have been on 2+2 for about 8 years. Triumph is the most condescending poster I have noticed by a fair bit so don't take it personally.

lol, awesome - i wonder who you used to be on the forum? no mention of that, but i have some guesses. i mean, if you were here for 8 years and i'm the most condescending, you must've missed a lot of other dudes.

Ya you might be right. I am certainly not as active as some others, I think I made only about 2K posts in 8 years and I'm not here every day as some seem to be.

He did for 6 years after 1992.

u guys are all insane

Hmm, still no mention of who you used to be.

Triumph not even the most condescending poster ITT

That wasn't the argument at all

ITT we learn that sorting by birthyear is the epitome of sports logic, yet proof that a Dream Teamer was still dominating at almost the halfway point between the two eras while way past his peak is irrelevant.

And as Nicholasp pointed out, maybe if simple arguments weren't way over your head so you kept bringing up Malone's dominance at almost 36 I wouldn't have to keep going over it. Would you like me to try drawing out the argument in your coloring book for you?

Who's the most condescending?

lol, well this post is pretty funny considering the post you made directly before it, but I wasn't actually talking about you.

Its just as fallacious if you use "improve dramatically" as "improve"

From ages 25-27 in what are obviously peak years for a professional basketball player, Dan Issel put up the following averages:
21.8 PP36, 9.9 RP36, 2.1 AP36, 19.8 PER, .536 TS%

Then, late in his career at age 32-34 when all scientific research will show he obviously COULDN'T have been as good, he put up these numbers:
26.2 PP36, 9.0 RP36, 2.7 AP36, 22.1 PER, .585 TS%

I think this scientifically shows that there was no improvement whatsoever from the ABA in the mid-70s to the NBA in the Dream Team era. After all, if Issel did better in the NBA at almost the halfway point in time and after the merger was fully complete than he did in the ABA, the game couldn't have evolved significantly over that time period.