John Hollinger Had The Best NBA Preseason Predictions, Jon Barry's Were Nearly The Worst

Jack Dickey|published: Mon 25th June, 11:50 2012

With the NBA season concluding last week with a Miami Heat championship, let's revisit how those pre-season pundit predictions turned out. We tracked the picks from 30 ESPN pundits across 11 categories (6 division winners, 2 conference champions, NBA Finals champion, MVP, and rookie of the year).

Going with the consensus this year would have paid off handsomely, as Vegas only missed on two favorites. It liked Derrick Williams to win rookie of the year—the award went to Kyrie Irving—and the Mavericks to win the Southwest. The Spurs won. Still, several pundits outperformed Vegas, with John Hollinger scoring the best based on $1 Bet Yield. As a reminder, this metric calibrates predictions for boldness by measuring the average payout (using Vegas odds) had you placed $1 bets on each of the pundit's selections.

$1 Bet Yield

John Hollinger	$2.44
Chad Ford	$2.39
D. McMenamin	$2.23
Chris Ramsey	$2.08
Nick Friedell	$2.02
B. Kamenetzky	$1.92
Keith Lipscomb	$1.89
Tom Haberstroh	$1.87
Brian Windhorst	$1.86
Chris Palmer	$1.85
Kevin Arnovitz	$1.85
Chris Forsberg	$1.82
Maurice Brooks	$1.82
Vegas	$1.82
Jeff Caplan	$1.65
David Thorpe	$1.51
Henry Abbott	$1.51
Chris Broussard	$1.49
A. Kamenetzky	$1.48
Justin Verrier	$1.48
J.A. Adande	$1.46
R. Shelburne	$1.46
Tim Legler	$1.39
Michael Wallace	$1.29
Larry Coon	$1.21
Jalen Rose	$1.15
Marc Stein	$1.12
Scoop Jackson	$1.12
Jon Barry	$0.99
Tim MacMahon	$0.83
Zach Harper	$0.46

Hollinger and Chad Ford tied for the most accurate bracket based on the standard hit rate approach (# of correct calls divided by # of total calls), each getting 10 of 11 picks right. Hollinger missed the Pacific division winner (Clippers instead of Lakers), while Ford missed the Southwest winner (Grizzlies instead of Spurs).

Hit Rate

Chad Ford	91%
John Hollinger	91%
Chris Forsberg	82%
Chris Ramsey	82%
D. McMenamin	82%
Keith Lipscomb	82%
Maurice Brooks	82%
Nick Friedell	82%
Tom Haberstroh	82%
Vegas	82%
B. Kamenetzky	73%
Brian Windhorst	73%
Chris Palmer	73%
David Thorpe	73%
Henry Abbott	73%
J.A. Adande	73%
Jeff Caplan	73%
Kevin Arnovitz	73%
R. Shelburne	73%
A. Kamenetzky	64%
Chris Broussard	64%
Jalen Rose	64%
Justin Verrier	64%
Larry Coon	64%
Michael Wallace	64%
Jon Barry	55%
Marc Stein	55%
Scoop Jackson	55%
Tim Legler	55%
Tim MacMahon	45%
Zach Harper	36%

Republished with permission from PunditTracker.com. PunditTracker's mission is to bring accountability to the prediction industry by cataloging and scoring the predictions of pundits. The site, which is currently running as a blog, is slated to officially launch later this year.