MAVS 94, KINGS 95

[burekemde]

it seems neglectful to discard them as a source of information.

I don't believe ML depicts that it is a complete lack of information. In my view, it provides useful information. So does training as well. Any basketball activity provides information for the coaches to evaluate the players, what they are capable of. However, this is far far less information than the information obtained when every team is at full strength and both teams play in a completely different way. So many anomalies happen once squads are not at full strength, and the level of play decreases notably. This is seen all around the NBA at the moment, and you see players performing better than usually dont perform as this when the level of play increases. We see things we would never see in playoff series with teams at full strength. However some things also could be extracted from this that can be translated to more competitive games.

It's definitely a valuable source of information, but correctly described by ML as far less information than what you get in full strength games. So many things that you can do, that you wont be able to do when the situation changes. The key is extracting the useful information that can work when everyone is back at full strenght and employ this down the road.