David Sparks is the Arbitrarian. His groundbreaking statistics column runs ran weekly here at HP. But now he's moving on to working for an NBA team, while I'm stuck making Crazy Pills jokes with the rest of the animals. Sigh. Bastard. In all seriousness, David has been a joy to work with, and a great member of HP. We hope you've enjoyed his work as much as we have, and we wish him nothing but the best of luck in his future endeavors. He's got a bright future in a league that discovers more and more every day the value of metrics. This is his farewell post. Do us a solid, and let David know how much you liked his stuff in the comments. Cheers, David. Once we've stopped crying over David and playing Peter Gabriel, we'll work on getting a new stats columnist. Keep your eyes open.
At least for the time being, the Arbitrarian is going on hiatus. I have been honored with an offer to intern for a very successful professional basketball franchise, and so my statistical work will be for that team, no longer pro bono publico.
It has been an honor and a privilege to work with this group of excellent writers at HP, and it has been endlessly entertaining to engage with you readers in the process. I am sure that I have learned more than I have taught in the interaction--thank you for your patience and willingness to share your insight--I appreciated every comment, response, and e-mail I have received.
Special thanks goes to my co-bloggers here, who have been nothing but supportive; the fine thinkers at APBRmetrics (to whom I owe much); and most of all my wife, who has encouraged me in all my endeavors, even this one.
I hope you will join me in continuing to follow Hardwood Paroxysm and its peerless coverage of our favorite league, and I truly hope that you think about the world with a different, more Arbitrarian, mindset.
7 comments:
Congrats, this is exciting news. Sucks for the rest of us, but it's awesome you're getting this chance.
David, you really deserve it.
If you need somebody to bring you donuts, say the name "Farfa".
You've done great work here. Unless you're working for the Raptors, I implore you not to leave.
Congratulations - it was always just a matter of time.
Hi, David.
1. Congrats on the internship!
2. Please do not forget to ask the question I posed to you on your blog several weeks (months?) ago.
I've been waiting patiently for an answer. :-)
khandor: You may be well served to ask your question at the APBRmetrics board. I'm sure you'd get a number of well thought-out responses there.
answer man,
Not to be cute, but ...
A well-thought out answer is not what I am looking for.
In the summer I asked David Sparks to give me his opinion on a straight forward question about the statistical "relationship" between "Rebounding" [as one of many factors in a NBA game] and "Winning" a specific game that already been played when using regression analyses.
The fact is ... I'm not particularly interested in the opinions of other statisticians, at the moment, and would like to hear David Sparks' thoughts on the specific question I asked him on his web site during the summer; that's all.
Hopefully, David will find the time to provide his answer for me.
I have respect for David's work, that I've read so far, and have been waiting patiently for him to get around to answering my question. :-)
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