The "realist" debate revisited

[Mr October]

Realism, by definition, is grounded in rational perception.  Almost everything we were shown for the majority of this season would lead any rational person to believe that the odds were pretty long for the kind of post-season run that we're seeing here. 

There's a huge difference between saying "the odds are pretty long that we'll win a title" and saying "there's absolutely no chance that we're going to win, those are just the facts, and if you disagree you're wearing green colored glasses".  The latter viewpoint was expressed many times.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter which side was "right" here.  Rather, this is simply a good time to reflect upon the fact that sometimes, we really don't have a clue how things are going to work out, and we shouldn't mock and heap scorn upon those who have a different outlook.  The predictions of those who called themselves realists turned out to not reflect reality at all. 

Another TP. You are dead on, Roy.

Disagreeing and debating is cool. Being condescending (even if it is not intended) is not cool.

[Donoghus]

To be perfectly blunt, there are some people that drove me nuts earlier in the season that I'm perfectly content to see eating crow right now. 

I really believe that there were some individuals who got off on the Celtics struggles and would've preferred to see themselves proven right even at the expense of a Celtics lose.  Not gonna dance around it, I despise those type of people and glad that they're getting their comeuppance right now.

[FallGuy]

I really believe that there were some individuals who got off on the Celtics struggles and would've preferred to see themselves proven right even at the expense of a Celtics lose. 

Not sure I believe this. Everybody around here seems pretty happy these days. A lot of people are happy to have been wrong.

[misha]

To be perfectly blunt, there are some people that drove me nuts earlier in the season that I'm perfectly content to see eating crow right now. 

I really believe that there were some individuals who got off on the Celtics struggles and would've preferred to see themselves proven right even at the expense of a Celtics lose.  Not gonna dance around it, I despise those type of people and glad that they're getting their comeuppance right now.

I agree. Some people took it too far.

[dark_lord]

I really believe that there were some individuals who got off on the Celtics struggles and would've preferred to see themselves proven right even at the expense of a Celtics lose. 

Not sure I believe this. Everybody around here seems pretty happy these days. A lot of people are happy to have been wrong.

i felt the same as dons:

i think most people, virtually all, on here want the team to win.  however i think there was/is a very small percentage that wanted the team to fail for the ability to say they were right. 

[BballTim]

If you fervently believe that something that, based on all rational and epistemological evidence, seems really unlikely is going to happen, and you make a point of telling everybody about it, and then it actually happens, does that make you smarter / more realistic than everybody else?  Or is it just a case of faith (which is by definition irrational) being rewarded?

Realism, by definition, is grounded in rational perception.  Almost everything we were shown for the majority of this season would lead any rational person to believe that the odds were pretty long for the kind of post-season run that we're seeing here. 

The people who expressed doubt through the second half of this season were being realistic.  The fact that they ultimately turned out to be wrong doesn't change that.


But it sure feels good to be wrong right about now.

  Ignoring any and all evidence that doesn't support your point of view hardly makes you a realist. The Celts showed beyond a doubt that they were capable of this level of play during the season. It's irrational to say that a team that spends a good month or so playing better ball than any other team in the league is incapable of playing like that later in the same year.

  Did you not notice that their poor play began right at the time that two of their best 3 players were battling injuries? Did you not see how those players coming in and out of the lineup and playing while injured affected our cohesiveness? Didn't you realize that, when KG and Paul were healthy, the team would have to adjust their roles because of Rondo's expanded role in the offense when they were out?

  It's a truly amazing coincidence that I was making these exact same arguments on a regular basis since January. Especially since it was based on what I'd seen from the team on the court this year. I disagree that the fact that you missed the fairly obvious signs that this could easily happen (not "would definitely happen") makes me irrational.

[Casperian]

I have several problems with this thread

1. The playoffs are not over, yet.

2. Itīs not fair, imo, to talk about "self-described" realists. The optimists are just as guilty of believing that their view is realistic. The reason why some pessimists called themselves realists is pretty simple: We, as a fanbase, have naturally an extremely optimistic view on our team. Thus, if someone starts a thread with a negative premise, he is normally in the vast minority with his opinion. In the anonymous environment of the internet, heīll be quickly called a "debbie-downer" and gets the advice to "jump off the bandwagon". Donīt tell me we here on Celticsblog are above this kind of behaviour.

The key is communication, debate, discussion. Both "camps" want the best for their team.

3. It seems a bit self-righteous to me, to say that the "pessimists" were proven wrong. Most of the people who were labeled "pessimists" were just voicing a negative opinion, not necessarily a prediction, and these people didnīt agree on every topic with each other, either. In any case, they certainly didnīt start a "negative" thread to earn a lot of tommy points.
Maybe these people actually helped the team to come to the point where they are now by putting their finger in the wound? After all, members of this team acknowledged that they were playing bad during the regular season. I specifically remember the 3 "statement games" that were all losses.

I also remember the Boos in game 3 of the cavs series. Were these people also wrong? Maybe it lit a fire under the team. Maybe our team needs a reality check, a kick in the butt, from time to time.

4. Itīs generally a bad idea to label people.

5. We talk way too much semantics for a sports blog.  

EDIT: Let me add that this is not directed at you personally, Roy. Youīre just using the terminology that everyone here uses.

[jv_squad]

I have several problems with this thread

1. The playoffs are not over, yet.

2. Itīs not fair, imo, to talk about "self-described" realists. The optimists are just as guilty of believing that their view is realistic. The reason why some pessimists called themselves realists is pretty simple: We, as a fanbase, have naturally an extremely optimistic view on our team. Thus, if someone starts a thread with a negative premise, he is normally in the vast minority with his opinion. In the anonymous environment of the internet, heīll be quickly called a "debbie-downer" and gets the advice to "jump off the bandwagon". Donīt tell me we here on Celticsblog are above this kind of behaviour.

The key is communication, debate, discussion. Both "camps" want the best for their team.

3. It seems a bit self-righteous to me, to say that the "pessimists" were proven wrong. Most of the people who were labeled "pessimists" were just voicing a negative opinion, not necessarily a prediction, and these people didnīt agree on every topic with each other, either. In any case, they certainly didnīt start a "negative" thread to earn a lot of tommy points.
Maybe these people actually helped the team to come to the point where they are now by putting their finger in the wound? After all, members of this team acknowledged that they were playing bad during the regular season. I specifically remember the 3 "statement games" that were all losses.

I also remember the Boos in game 3 of the cavs series. Were these people also wrong? Maybe it lit a fire under the team. Maybe our team needs a reality check, a kick in the butt, from time to time.

4. Itīs generally a bad idea to label people.

5. We talk way too much semantics for a sports blog.  

Great post, Casperian - thank you.

Not to further defend some of the "negativity" on this board during the regular season, but it seemed Ainge agreed with those who felt the team as it was currently constructed was not good enough to win it based on his trading House and shopping Ray.  Fortunately, changes were minimal and as it turns out injuries and chemistry were mostly to blame.  Who really knew?

I'm thrilled with how the Celtics are playing now and believe they have a real chance at getting banner 18.  I also think it's a possibility we could still lose this series to the Magic or could lose to the Lakers in the Finals.  The beauty is, I don't know WHAT to expect anymore!   Anything's possiblllllllllllle!

I find it a little hypocritical, though, that some of the more "optimistic" bloggers are complaining about condescending replies during the regular season while now adopting a condescending tone with the Celtics success.  What do you want?  A ribbon?  Congratulations - you were right. 

Anyway, hopefully this topic can finally be put to rest and hopefully the Cs can bring home banner 18!

[dark_lord]

I find it a little hypocritical, though, that some of the more "optimistic" bloggers are complaining about condescending replies during the regular season while now adopting a condescending tone with the Celtics success.  What do you want?  A ribbon?  Congratulations - you were right. 

the only thing i want, bc i can only speak for myself, is respect.  i felt pretty disrespected numerous times during the season.  whenever i posted things that were positive in nature or giving a reason that i thought we might be ok in the playoffs, i was immediately shunned, labeled, and my posts were considered to be naive.  this wasnt a rare occurrence either. it was frequent over the course of a few months, which made posting anything celtic-related not fun or pleasant.

[BballTim]

I never remember the game threads going all the way back to the season before the championship ever being anything more than a place to cheer the team on while simultaneously talking basketball. It was always a very upbeat place to be during a Celtic game, internet wise that is. Even during the worst of times.

  I've never gone into the game threads but the general threads before the KG trade could get pretty brutal. Green tinted glasses, blind homer, kool-aid drinker, Aingeophile and other such names were pretty typical to see. I took the easy way out this spring, avoiding the website for a day or two after a bad loss, including game 3 vs Cleveland. It's much more relaxing that way.

[Mr October]

I have several problems with this thread

1. The playoffs are not over, yet.

2. Itīs not fair, imo, to talk about "self-described" realists. The optimists are just as guilty of believing that their view is realistic. The reason why some pessimists called themselves realists is pretty simple: We, as a fanbase, have naturally an extremely optimistic view on our team. Thus, if someone starts a thread with a negative premise, he is normally in the vast minority with his opinion. In the anonymous environment of the internet, heīll be quickly called a "debbie-downer" and gets the advice to "jump off the bandwagon". Donīt tell me we here on Celticsblog are above this kind of behaviour.

The key is communication, debate, discussion. Both "camps" want the best for their team.

3. It seems a bit self-righteous to me, to say that the "pessimists" were proven wrong. Most of the people who were labeled "pessimists" were just voicing a negative opinion, not necessarily a prediction, and these people didnīt agree on every topic with each other, either. In any case, they certainly didnīt start a "negative" thread to earn a lot of tommy points.
Maybe these people actually helped the team to come to the point where they are now by putting their finger in the wound? After all, members of this team acknowledged that they were playing bad during the regular season. I specifically remember the 3 "statement games" that were all losses.

I also remember the Boos in game 3 of the cavs series. Were these people also wrong? Maybe it lit a fire under the team. Maybe our team needs a reality check, a kick in the butt, from time to time.

4. Itīs generally a bad idea to label people.

5. We talk way too much semantics for a sports blog.  

EDIT: Let me add that this is not directed at you personally, Roy. Youīre just using the terminology that everyone here uses.

The point of the thread is whether you think one thing or another, you should be respectful of each other's opinions. We're all pulling for the same team after all!

All we can do is express opinions when discussing the future. Disagreements are cool, just do it respectfully.

[Roy Hobbs]

The point of the thread is whether you think one thing or another, you should be respectful of each other's opinions. We're all pulling for the same team after all!

Exactly right.  And part of that respect is for people to remember that their opinion -- especially when related to future events -- isn't necessarily any more valid or "realistic" than anybody else's.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I don't know how people keep missing the main point of this whole disagreement.

I thought I made things quite clear in my first post in this thread, yet people keep dancing around meaningless arguments about who was right and who was wrong, which in the end is not important.

What is important was the thought process behind all proclamations made. What is important was how labels/stances where completely miss-used by almost everyone here. The problem was the definitive proclamations that were simply way off base with little thought on what the playoffs are all about and how they ignore a history filled with instances of lower seeds, "inferior" teams beating, "better" and "higher" seeds. Even if the odds were against the Celtics, who just about everyone agreed on.

[vinnie]

I just don't get why this is even being revisited again, but whatever floats your boat. Seems like we have reached a point where just about everyone is on board, and many of us have flat out stated we were wrong and basically apologized. Why this thread at this time is beyond me, but whatever.

[PosImpos]

If you fervently believe that something that, based on all rational and epistemological evidence, seems really unlikely is going to happen, and you make a point of telling everybody about it, and then it actually happens, does that make you smarter / more realistic than everybody else?  Or is it just a case of faith (which is by definition irrational) being rewarded?

Realism, by definition, is grounded in rational perception.  Almost everything we were shown for the majority of this season would lead any rational person to believe that the odds were pretty long for the kind of post-season run that we're seeing here.  

The people who expressed doubt through the second half of this season were being realistic.  The fact that they ultimately turned out to be wrong doesn't change that.


But it sure feels good to be wrong right about now.

How would you define Optimism? Just curious.

Optimism is looking at a situation which has multiple possible outcomes, some negative and some positive, and always expecting the positive outcome to be most likely (e.g. the Celtics are going to win).  

Alternatively, optimism is looking at a situation and favoring a positive appraisal of the circumstances over a negative one (e.g. glass half full).

Optimism isn't explicitly rational or irrational; it's a point of view.  But it can become irrational when the expectation of a positive outcome hinges on something happening that appears so unlikely based on available evidence that it becomes more a matter of faith than of reason.

There's nothing wrong with being optimistic, whether it's reasonable or not.  But believing that something really good will happen when it seems incredibly unlikely and then claiming afterwards that you were being reasonable all along is kind of obnoxious.

All of the same applies to pessimism.

I really believe that there were some individuals who got off on the Celtics struggles and would've preferred to see themselves proven right even at the expense of a Celtics lose.  Not gonna dance around it, I despise those type of people and glad that they're getting their comeuppance right now.

I really don't think that's true. 

I think most people who were being negative, even the worst of them, were probably using negativity as a sort of defense mechanism.  If you make a point of expecting bad things to happen, then when they do you at least don't feel as if you were taken by surprised; in a way, you at least know that you were right.  If you happen to have been wrong, then you're glad because the outcome was good.

It's pretty simple, and I think many sports fans (especially in New England) are wired to think that way.  On the other hand, it is true that many of the people - on both sides - were getting a little bit nasty at certain points this year. 

I think the problems happen when labels get thrown around - without anybody even taking the time to listen to one another - that start to have increasingly negative and unfair connotations.  "Realist" and "optimist" are both fairly neutral terms, but when adjectives like "stupid," "nasty," "arrogant," "deluded," "condescending," etc. get attached to them they become really problematic.