Free Riding Bosh

Okay, so I'm going to switch it up a bit here, and bitch about the Raptors. When they play as a team, they are so money. I went to Game 3 and it was such an awesome time - they played amazing. In Game 4 however, there was no real distribution of points amongst the players. Game 4 was a perfect example of the Free-Riding Phenomenon. This is part of the moral hazard problem and implies that agents will free-ride off other agents to maximize their own personal utility (by minimizing costs). Bosh dropped 39 points in a 106-94 loss to Orlando on Saturday. I have to do real work right now, but here is what I came up with quickly:

When Bosh is not in the lineup or scores less than 10 points, the Raptors really suck with a winning percentage of approximately 26% and a sample size of 19 (15 of which he didn't play). When Bosh scores between 10 and 24 points the Raptors win approximately 57% of the time - absolute money (sample size 44). I'll break it down further for higher points: when Bosh scores between 25 and 29 points, the Raptors won 4/9 games this season. Between 30 and 34 points they won 4/6 games, and when he dropped more than 34 points they were 4/8 games. No real solid conclusions can be made without delving deeper into the situation (blocks, rebounds, etc.) and checking out points by other players as well as doing some t-tests, but 52% winning percentage when Bosh scores 25+ is bullshit. The other players need to step up in those games.

To put it pretty bluntly, the Raptors win 55% of the time when Bosh scores 10+ - given that Bosh did this every game (and played all 15 he missed), the Raptors would have approximately 5.5 more wins than they do now (HOLDING ALL ELSE EQUAL), and I would venture a guess that if the other boys didn't free-ride off his skills on Saturday, we would be looking at a Game 5 tonight with the series tied at 2-2 rather than hanging by a thread.

Peace and much love to you.