Some Myths Refuse to Be Busted

A couple of months ago, Facebook brought up one of my old posts.  It was about all the players the Red Wings had drafted from 2000 to about 2018 when I wrote the post.  The "experts" were always touting how great the Red Wings were at scouting and drafting because they had a few players drafted in lower rounds become stars, most notably Tomas Holmstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg.  

Buuuuuut, when I actually started drilling into the data, what did I find?  Not much actual drafting success in this millennium.  They had a handful of guys who played in the league for a little while.  One, Johan Franzen, had a great playoff series in 2008 when they last won the Cup and seemed poised to be a big star--they even gave him a lifetime deal that was so popular then as a way to skirt salary cap rules.  But then injuries took him out of the game.  Jimmy Howard was a decent goalie for them in the 2010s.  Dylan Larkin, their current captain, is a good player, though not really elite.  He'd probably be on the second or third line on a really good team.  A couple others drafted in 2000-2001 contributed to the 2008 Cup like Niklas Kronwall, Jiri Hudler, and Valteri Filppula.  Kronwall was decent but injuries kept him from ever being that dominant, Norris Trophy-caliber guy people hoped for.  Hudler and Filppula were OK and hung around for a while, though neither was ever really a top-six guy.  A couple others like Justin Abdelkader or Darren Helm were nice "energy guys" on the third or fourth lines but not star players.

Mostly when I looked at their drafts, the Red Wings drafted guys who never played in the NHL or only played a few games before disappearing.  So really this whole idea that they were so great at drafting was built on a couple of success stories.  It was based on anecdotal evidence, not factual evidence.  That was something I talked about before in relation to the pandemic.

If you mention this to any fans, they'd say, "Most teams don't draft that many superstars!"  Well, yeah, exactly.  Most teams don't and neither did the Red Wings.  So their record isn't really any better than other teams.

Another sports myth that's bandied about whenever the Packers make the playoffs is how good they are at home in the playoffs.  Buuuut, when you look at the data, not really so much anymore.  It's true that in the 90s Brett Favre was pretty much unbeatable at home in the playoffs.  (Though even that should have an asterisk as a few of those games were against the Lions.)  As the new millennium dawned though, their record became pretty average.  In the Aaron Rodgers era, they're pretty beatable in the playoffs at home--like this year.

Like the Red Wings drafting "success," this was based off some early success and the media just doesn't want to retire the myth.  And why should they?  It's such a romantic image of the Packers in their frozen fortress like the Night's Watch in Game of Thrones.  Let's not let the facts interfere with a good story.

Another myth is that Donald Trump is a good businessman.  People on the right continue buying into this myth despite that it's patently untrue.  I mean he's gone bankrupt 4 times!  He has a whole string of business failures, Truth Social being the latest one.  But like a lot of good con men, he still projects the image that he's rich and successful and so people keep on believing it.

There are other probable myths that have been around a while in Washington.  John McCain was a "maverick" who went against his party...probably not that often.  Just in a few high-profile instances.  Anthony Kennedy was the "swing vote" on the Supreme Court...again, probably not that often.  Just a few high-profile instances.  Orrin Hatch "worked across the aisle"...probably not that often.  In most cases, though, they just went along with the others on the right.

In all these cases, a few high-profile examples create the story and then the story keeps getting repeated and people are too dumb or lazy to actually check whether the story is still true.  Or if it ever even was true.  And in some cases, the story is too good and/or too useful for most people to want to retire it.  It's good for Red Wings management if people think they're good at drafting when they're really pretty mediocre.  It's good for the NFL (and gambling sites) if people think the Packers have a home field advantage because it will up the drama for games.  It's good for Trump (not the general public) if people continue to think he's a good businessman despite that he never really was.  It was probably good for McCain and Kennedy that people thought they were more moderate than they actually were.

Basically it seems to me that these myths aren't busted because they're useful lies.  But is that another myth?  Hurm...

(Fun Fact: Last year's Red Wings draft pick won the Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year, so I guess they're getting better--also because they have much higher picks than in the 2000s.)