albeit not conclusive. moreover, you did say that its "clear from that article that there is little statistical significance once you get above 52% and really not much difference down to 48%". you can assign significance if you want, but its NOT clear.
moreover, small sample size? the sample covers every team from 2011-2017...thats 224 data points which is not huge but well beyond what would be considered a small sample study. how many points do you want?
that being said, given the data provided i too would not be surprised to find that "win totals go down as 59% is approached and that the real sweat spot is in in the 54-57% range" but that is really just a guess.
thus overall the article does provide some useful information as to how teams have successfully managed the salary cap. but as the exceptions point out, i dont know that they are hard rules, but rather rules of thumb.
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CeeZar
I don't assume no significance. I said little evidence.
Given the small sample size and lack of supporting data. I don't think there is any way to draw the conclusion that getting close to 60% is in any way optimal. We can say with certainty that is NOT common as less than 14% of the teams go over 55% which works out to 4.5 teams/year on average with even less teams near the 60% mark.
The .3 win difference between the segment up to 59% and the next lower segment up to 55% seems meaningless given that we are still talking about slightly above average win totals. In the 56-59% range, average wins are only 9.2. That means there were a lot of average to below-average teams in that range. I realize that we don't have the distributions, but unless they are way off the bell curve that seems like a pretty safe statement
What the data does show somewhat clearly is that top heavy teams at 60%+ are not good teams - as in really bad teams
Since there is a HUGE drop off from 56-59% to 60%+, I would bet that within the 56-59% range the that win totals go down as 59% is approached and that the real sweat spot is in in the 54-57% range.