As of Jan. 3 2009
The rating system has been improved. A new User Guide follows the ratings.
1 Los Angeles Lakers 51.20
2 Cleveland Cavaliers 50.80
3 Boston Celtics 48.90
4 Orlando Magic 28.00
5 Houston Rockets 12.60
6 Atlanta Hawks 11.50
7 New Orleans Hornets 11.30
8 Utah Jazz 8.40
9 Denver Nuggets 8.00
10 San Antonio Spurs 6.50
11 Portland Trail Blazers 6.20
12 Dallas Mavericks 1.20
13 Detroit Pistons 0.00
14 Phoenix Suns -4.70
15 Miami Heat -6.10
16 New Jersey Nets -12.90
17 Milwaukee Bucks -15.20
18 Indiana Pacers -22.10
19 Philadelphia 76ers -24.20
20 Charlotte Bobcats -26.70
21 Toronto Raptors -31.40
22 Chicago Bulls -31.90
23 New York Knicks -34.30
24 Los Angeles Clippers -37.00
25 Golden State Warriors -38.90
26 Memphis Grizzlies -38.90
27 Washington Wizards -50.10
28 Minnesota Timberwolves -54.00
29 Sacramento Kings -58.00
30 Oklahoma City Thunder -65.30
COMPLETE SPREADSHEET FOR THIS REPORT IS HERE:
Detailed Spreadsheet for Real Team Ratings Jan. 3, 2009
USER GUIDE FOR REAL TEAM RATINGS
Updated as of Jan. 4, 2009
Starting with these ratings the Real Team Rating system is improved. It was improved to make absolutely certain that you can predict the outcome of the playoffs in advance as accurately as possible. Since all crucial factors are now included and weighted very carefully, it is very unlikely that there will be many major changes in this system in the coming months and years.
SUMMARY OF FACTORS USED
1. Offensive Efficiency: Points Scored per 100 Possessions; WEIGHTED 2.0 (The points scored per 100 possessions is doubled and input into the formula for the overall rating.)
2. Defensive Efficiency: the Negative of Points Allowed per 100 Possessions; WEIGHTED 2.0 (The points allowed per 100 possessions is multiplied by -2 and input into the formula for the overall ratings.)
3. Net Points Per Game: Points Per Game Scored Minus Points Per Game Allowed; WEIGHTED 1.0 (The straight up points scored per game minus points allowed per game is input into the formula.)
4. Defensive Overweight Adjustment. The teams are sorted by defensive efficiency. Then, using a range from -4.5 to 4.5, points are assigned, in equal increments of .3, to each team in order of how it ranks according to defensive efficiency. 0 is skipped. Specifically, the team with the best defensive efficiency (fewest points allowed per 100 possessions) is given 4.5 points, the 2nd most defensively efficient team gets 4.2 points, the third most defensively efficient team gets 3.9 points, and so on, until the least defensively efficient team gets minus 4.5 points.
It is well known that, for the playoffs, how well a team can defend is generally somewhat more important than during the regular season. This factor gives an up or down adjustment in the Ratings in accordance with how each team ranks in defensive efficiency in the NBA. Since almost all teams ramp up their defense in the playoffs, you have to be careful here to avoid getting carried away and putting in adjustments that are too large.
5. Each team's win-loss record is accessed for games it played against the top 16 teams and, separately, each team's win-loss record is accessed for games it played against the top 10 teams. These two records are added together, which has the effect of double weighting wins and losses versus top 10 teams, while leaving wins and losses versus the 11th through the 16th best teams single weighted. In other words, the sum of the wins versus the top 10 teams is added to the sum of the wins versus the top 16 teams, and the sum of these two sums is added to the overall Real Team Rating formula (with weight of simply 1.0). Losses in games against the top 10 and against the top 16 are subtracted from the overall Real Team Rating in the same way that the wins are added.
Number 5 is a key improvement from the previous version and clearly establishes Real Team Ratings as the most accurate playoff predictor possible without guessing how unmeasurable factors such as unknown coaching strategies and possible injury problems will affect individual playoff series. By counting in the overall formula actual wins and losses in games between the likely playoff teams, you have gone in a straight line directly to evidence for the question we are out to answer: how good are the teams really going to be in the playoffs, according to everything known now?
This factor makes a separate strength of schedule adjustment mostly unneeded, because the strength of schedule is automatically reflected by the number of games a team has played versus the best 16 and the best 10 teams.
Note that #1 and #2 combined is net efficiency or net points gained or lossed per each 100 possessions. This is doubled, whereas the simple net points per game is single weighted. In the original version of the Real Team Ratings, the efficiency was single weighted and the points per game was ignored. Then it was realized that teams in the playoffs do not have as much freedom as they do in the regular season to set the pace they want, so the points per game should be considered as a reality measure along with the points per 100 possessions, because net points per game is much more independent of pace than is net efficiency, which is not theoretically very independent of pace.
For example, consider the Denver Nuggets. They are the or almost the fastest paced team in the NBA during the regular season. If you just look at the efficiency measures, the Nuggets appear to be almost identical to the Utah Jazz both offensively and defensively. But since the Jazz play at a slow pace, the teams are not really similar at all when you look at efficiency and pace together.
Suppose that in the playoffs, the Nuggets and Jazz play, and the Jazz decide to and are able to disrupt the Nuggets usual fast pace and slow it down. In this case, there will be fewer possessions for the Nuggets in the playoff games than they had typically in the regular season. This in turn means that the Nuggets will be disrupted in what they did during the regular season to one extent or another. This means that both the offensive and the defensive efficiency could change in the playoffs from what it was in the regular season, due to all of the changes forced on the Nuggets by the change of pace. Both the offensive and the defensive efficiency might change, and each change could be either for the better or for the worse.
In other words, when looking at the playoffs, the efficiency is not at all written in stone. Therefore, we decided to bring in actual points per game at 1/2 the weight of efficiency, since in the playoffs the actual points per game will change only in the same direction as the pace changes, which means the relationship between offense and defense can not be disturbed as it can be in the case of efficiency. In summary, efficiency is generally theoretically superior to points per game, so it is double weighted. But if a team is forced to play at a different pace in the playoffs from what it played in the regular season, a small amount of forecast error could be in the regular season efficiency performance measure. This possible error can be largely offset by bringing in the simple points per games scored and points per game allowed in single weight strength, as we have done.
In extreme cases, such as the fastest pace team being slowed down substantially in the playoffs, there may still be substantial forecast error even after everything we have done. In all such cases, you would expect that a team forced to play at a much different pace in the playoffs than they did in the regular season would do worse in the playoffs than the forecast would indicate. This in turn means that it is dangerous for a team to be relying on either a very fast or on a very slow pace during the regular season, unless it is certain that it will be able to operate at that pace in the playoffs even when the other team is trying to disrupt that pace.
You can no longer use the actual ratings as a starting point for estimations of margins of games between teams, which is no real loss, because you could not do that very accurately with the previous system anyway. Remember, you should never bet money on the outcome of games, because there are always variables that neither you nor anyone else will be aware of that will go into determining the outcome of each game.
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