Jun 15, 2014; San Antonio, TX, USA; Gregg Popovich in game five of the 2014 NBA Finals at AT&T Center. The Spurs beat the Heat 104-87 to win the NBA Finals. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
The defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs lost on Wednesday to Alba Berlin a team playing this year in the top German league and Euroleague. Needless to say, the Spurs came into the game as the favorites and their loss was a bit surprising.
But I wondered how surprising the Spurs loss should be considered. Luckily, the NBA has a web page dedicated to the NBA’s experience playing overseas, which has come under a number of promotional programs over the years.
Since 2006 the NBA has consistently played against European clubs in the preseason, first under their Europe Live promotion, and in the last two years under the Global Games umbrella. In that time the NBA teams have squared off against European teams in Europe 21 times prior to the Spurs-Alba game. There have also been European teams touring the US during the preseason, but given the home continent advantage factor, I only considered the European location games to compare to the Spurs-Alba match.
In the 21 games prior to Wednesday European teams have gone 7 and 14, a 33% win percentage. That would translate to a 27 win season in the NBA, about what the Lakers managed last year. Analytics people often use point differential rather than winning percentage to estimate team strength because while they are closely related over the long haul, point differential tends to converge more quickly to the team’s ‘true’ strength with weaker teams squeaking out wins between sizable losses.
That is just the pattern we see looking at the NBA-Europe scores, with the European teams tending to claim narrow victories between larger losses, the only exception being a 19 point embarrassment of the Chris Kaman/Corey Maggette Clippers by CSKA Moscow. The total net point differential over those 21 games was -158 for the European teams or -7.5 points per game, applying a point differential win formula [1. Wins = 40.9 +2.54 *Net Points via Evan Zamir’s Advanced Stat Primer] to an 82 game season gives an approximately 22 wins, or a 26.8% winning percentage. That would be a little below Utah last year and above Philadelphia.
Just how improbable the Alba Berlin win was depends in part on how good the Spurs are compared to how good the typical NBA squad that has played European teams. Generally speaking the NBA teams being sent abroad have been a mixed bag, though on the whole the NBA has probably sent a bit above average teams abroad in order to showcase their stars, since the whole point is a marketing promotion. The Spurs, though are very definitely an above average NBA team, they are the defending champions with virtually their whole team returning from last year. During the 2013-2014 regular season the Spurs compiled a 62 and 20 record with a +7.8 point differential. Potentially, that indicates as much as a 15.3 expected point differential between the Spurs and a European team, which would map to a 10% win probability for the Euro team.
To put that in perspective, in the first regular season game last year the Philadelphia 76er’s upset the then defending champion Miami Heat at home. The 76ers went on to compile a 19-63 record with a -10.4 net point differential while Miami went on to a +4.8, for an almost identical difference between the two teams of 15.2 points on a neutral site.
Following the Alba Berlin victory European teams are 8-14 a 36% winning percentage with a -7.13 per game differential. Technically that might seem to bode a little better odds for the Spurs next opponent Istanbul Fenerbahce Ulker, generally considered a stronger team in European game than Alba, but in the two times NBA teams have been able to play a European team after a loss in Europe they’ve ramped up the intensity and won by average of 22 points.