Hey
@Volcanologist while you're expertly demolishing Pookie, feel free to point out something obvious that nobody there seems to have noticed.
That study he is using to diminish the impact of coaching actually proves the exact OPPOSITE of what he thinks it says.
That study is sort of a Mythbuster, and it busts the "New Coach Bump" myth. I.e. the claim that most teams get an automatic bump in performance just from the act of switching coaches by itself, regardless of the quality of coaching.
What that study proves, though, is that doesn't actually happen - on average, coaching changes makes no impact by itself. Some teams improve, some stay the same, some get worse - in equal proportions. There is no magic bump just from firing your coach.
What this means, then, is the exact opposite of what Pookie wants it to mean - it means that post coaching-change improvements CANNOT be dismissed as just a "new coach bump", since there is no such thing as a "new coach bump".
This doesn't mean that changes are necessarily due to the coaching (though in our case there is overwhelming evidence that it is), but the ONE and ONLY thing his study makes crystal clear is that the change most definitely cannot be dismissed as due to the mythical "New Coach Bump".
