David Knight Trophy Analysis

[Berocka 2,263]

Hi VHL

 

I am here to talk about theme week. Look personally not a big fan of this one to be honest. Anyway, here is something that I hypothesized and let us see if the data matches.

My hypothesis is that the David Knight trophy or the General Manager of the Year trophy is for the most improved team. It will swerve away from the cup winners and give it to a General Manager that did well in regular season but didn’t win the cup. Before you write your comment below saying “OmG BeRoCka” Yes, it is based on the regular season results only… I know okay… Keep your pants on.

 

Before we start I will talk about the data. I have taken the regular season standings for every season from S60 as it is already midnight and there is such a thing as too much data (to my small brain it does).

 

So let me see if my hypothesis matches the data.

 

Firstly, I will look at my theory that if you win the cup you will be less likely to win the GMoTY trophy. Well in the 19 seasons that I looked at only 2 times did the General Manager that won the cup won the General Manager of the year trophy. This was in S66 with the Titans and S71 with the Bears. So in just over 10% of the time does the General Manager of the year also win the cup. I feel like this suits my hypothesis, ideally the General Manager who carries their team to a cup you would think is the best GM. Obviously not when you ask the VHL awards committee.

 

Secondly, is it just a most improved award. Is the team that moved the most from the season before to the current season have the best GM? Well, the first bit of information is that the GM has always had an improving team in all by two seasons. Those two seasons were S61 with the Titans and S65 with the Reign. Both of these seasons had less than 10 teams in the competition, so the movement wasn’t as big of an issue in my eyes. Every other season has had the teams improved at least one spot with the average movement being 3.89. In 8 of the 18 seasons (note that as we started data collection in S60 then we don’t use that information for movement. We start from S61) 8 times the top mover wins the GM of the year award this is 44.44% of the time. When you compare that to the 10.53% of the time the cup winner wins the GM of the year I think we have some interesting evidence.

 

So here is what I think. Overall the GM of the year is the one that moves the team the most. I think that it is overrated. If a GM can keep a team competing when they should have had to rebuild. If a GM builds a legacy and wins multiple cups in a row or in a small period of time. I think this should be looked at. Not how well did they improve from last season. The Legion won the cup twice in a row and didn’t win the GM of the Year award in either of those wins. I think that people are overrating the improvement of teams.

 

Thank you

[Gustav 6,416]

OmG BeRoCka

 

In general I don't disagree with this. The situations you listed are a bit harder to notice than "this GM improved their team" and as such probably aren't noticed as much (even if what the GM did was impressive). Deals made as clear "buying" moves make the goal obvious, while something that's more in the category of shuffling things around will have to be examined more closely and potentially even guessed at if the GM's intentions aren't public.

 

It's also generally considered an award for "who was the top GM THIS SEASON", which can take away from things like keeping a team good for the future or winning a few championships close to each other. So, I can see how that tips the scales even more in favor of "who did the best for their team in this regular season alone".

[ROOKIE745 604]

Review: Interesting media spot, it was fun to read. Good spelling and pacing. I appreciate the research you did for the post in checking all the way back to S60. Good information and kept me interested the whole read through. Maybe you could have added in a picture or used some fancy fonts but I think it's fine without. Easy read, 9/10