Well, it appears I was right. The Sonics are remarkably inconsistent, probably even more so than I projected in my dire predictions of inconsistency before the season. I didn't write this column to say, "I told you so," or anything of that nature. Instead, I'd like to consider inconsistency as it applies to basketball, the Sonics, and, well, life in general.

Sports are, in my opinion, inherently breeding grounds for inconsistency; no sport more than baseball.

A number of factors conspire to produce inconsistency in baseball. For hitters, the opposing pitcher is hugely important, and widely varies. Many hitters play almost every day, which makes consistency difficult to achieve. As well, in such a limited statbase as is provided by one game, minor things (luck?) can make a huge difference. The easiest example here is the guy who hits the ball on the screws four times, but manages to find a fielder's glove with each. Perhaps he's played far better than another player who has a bunt hit and a seeing-eye single, but as the saying goes, it looks like a line drive in the box score.

On the pitching end, the importance of minor things is magnified even more. To wit, the difference in quality between a pitch which induces a fly ball to left with the bases loaded, and one which results in a grand slam home run and Dave Niehaus getting out the rye bread, is minor. The difference in result is huge.

Generally, I think baseball fans are savvy enough to realize that the nature of the game produces great inconsistency, and know that they must judge things over the course of a season as opposed to over a game or even a week (playoffs, of course, excepted, because each small success or failure is magnified to have a much greater importance). You wouldn't hear a baseball fan say that Marlin pitcher A.J. Burnett, who threw a no-hitter last season, is a better pitcher than Greg Maddux (who has never no-hit the opposition in his stellar career), would you?

Basketball is better in this regard. While it's quite possible to luck into a home run, getting lucky to score 30 points is quite different.

As a statistical aside, this is an example of the relative difference in reliability of stats which produce large numbers and those which produce small totals. A stat that produces large numbers, such as total points scored by an individual over an NBA season, is usually fairly accurate. Others are less so. That's why 'stats' like triple-doubles and 50-point games, while certainly interesting and fun for fans, are of little or no analytical value. If you wish to dispute this fact, note that former Sonic guard Dana Barros (one) bests Gary Payton (zero), the man he used to back up, in career 50-point games.

Back on topic, while the nature of high totals in basketball tends to somewhat reduce inconsistency on at least a statistical basis, there are still a myriad number of things which can produce inconsistency. The quality of the opposition's defense -- even the quality of the one player primarily defending a given other player -- can have a huge impact on a player's scoring output on a given night. That's why we expect Payton to perform better against Kenny Anderson than against Eric Snow. The opposition's defensive strategy is also a significant determinant. A team that doubles Payton will probably reduce his point total and increase his assist total as compared to another team which single covers him.

These factors alone are not enough to account for all inconsistency, are they? In my opinion, no.

It's my belief that the single biggest factor in inconsistency is, in a word, overanalysis. Before we go much further, I will gladly confess that I am probably more guilty of this than anyone who could be reading this article. Heck, there probably wouldn't be a SonicsCentral.com were it not for overanalysis.

As I see it, nobody, not even the finely skilled players that constitute the NBA's population, can be consistent on such a limited basis as one single game provides. After all, think about how you would be seen by your peers if you were judged on such a minimal basis. For me, perhaps that would be a column-by column running analysis. Maybe a message board devoted to breaking down my columns. What would people find if they were to do such a thing? I'm quite certain that they would find a remarkable amount of inconsistency in the quality of my columns.

I will be the first to admit that there are good and bad columns amongst my total output. There are times when I'm out of thoughts because of all my writing during the week. Maybe I can't come up with any interesting topics to write about. Perhaps I'm a little depressed or upset. It could be for any reason -- the Sonics' play of late, something a friend or family member said to me, the play of my online baseball team, heck, even the fact that I couldn't figure out the third word in today's Jumble!

The simple fact is that all of us have our good days and our bad days. Moving to another example, another area I could easily be judged based on is grades. Last year for a political science class, I wrote a paper which got a 2.3 score. As far as I can remember, that's probably the worst grade (and thus the worst paper?) I've ever gotten on a paper in my life (of course I may just be glossing over other worse performances). If somebody were trying to analyze my relative worth as a student based on that single paper, they'd probably conclude that I was an average student at best. It's quite apparent that the one paper is not a particularly good indicator of my overall worth as a student. That's why that class was based on more than that one paper, and why someone who really was trying to determine my academic aptitude would look at the sum of my grades over the course of my academic career as opposed to one given paper.

Returning to the field of basketball, should I as a fan expect any more consistency on a single-game basis than I expect from myself on a single-paper basis? Undoubtedly, I shouldn't. A number of factors go into an individual's performance, and it could be at the low or high end of that player's true ability scale. To say that there is such a thing as a 'consistent player' is really to propogate a myth, in my mind. A more apt description would be a 'less inconsistent player', poorly worded as it may be.

So what's the point here, the bigger picture? While critiquing a player's performance in an individual game can be interesting, and is certainly an important part of the life of any basketball website or message board, problems arise when fans try to draw conclusions about the player from that one sample. Just because Ben Wallace had a poor game against the Sonics does not make him a bad player; Chucky Atkins' five three pointers in the third quarter do not make him one of the better outside marksmen in the league. These kinds of conclusions simply must -- to be made with any accuracy -- saved for the long haul, a large cross-section of a player's performance with various outside factors balanced. If I may be permitted to speak on that last point for a minute, we as fans are constrained in our efforts to judge athletes by the fact that games are not played in a vacuum. There is no equivalent of a scientific experiment in sports; we can't hold constant other variables while running numerous trials. Since our analysis must be empirical instead of experimental, the only way to fairly do it is to look at a sample that balances these factors. An equal mix of poor teams and good ones, varied quality of individual defenders, and even a balance of home and road games.

Then -- and only then -- can we even start to draw any useful conclusions about NBA players.