Dec 20, 2014; New Orleans, LA, USA; Portland Trail Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge (12) is guarded by New Orleans Pelicans forward Anthony Davis (23) during the first half of a game at the Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
Welcome back to the Nylon Calculus weekly power rankings! We got some wonderful reader-response last week, and so I’ve got some changes in methodology to explain before I leap forth into the rankings.
The basic premise of the rankings is that I use the teams’ net points per 100 possessions over opponents to rank them, with weekly adjustments based on the rate of change of the regression that includes their last two weeks’ worth of games (in short, the rate at which a team is improving or getting worse from the prior week).
The basic premise of the adjustment, in turn, is that I adjusted all of the rankings for all the teams’ strength of schedule so far: teams got a slight uptick or downtick in Net Rating if their schedule has been easier or harder, depending on average win% of opponents played and number games played in the East. As well, I adjusted the teams’ Net Rating for each game used to find the rate of change to reflect the opponents played against (e.g. if a team beat the Lakers, who have a -7 Net Rating, by 10, they only received a 3 point credit; as well, no win resulted in a negative Net Rating and vice versa, all were adjusted to 0 if necessary).
As well, I made small adjustments to the overall Net Rating for teams whose actual Win%, at this point, was drastically different from their expected Win% based off of their Net Rating, to account for the fact that they may simply be beating up on bad teams, or vice versa. Finally, I added a bump based off of Pythagorean Wins for players returning from injury, to try and account for the bumps that OKC and Sacramento should be receiving with Westbrook, Durant, and Boogie back in the lineup. Every team with a player returning got such a bump, however: Houston with Dwight, San Antonio with Splitter, and so on were all taken into account.
All of that said, let’s look at this week’s rankings! As with last week, I’ll include thoughts on the top 5, bottom 5, and some in between:
On the top 5 teams:
- Golden State Warriors: This team is “sliding” because they lost a tough game against another Western Conference title contender. Nothing seems to be in their way right now, even with Andrew B out for a while. This team is just so damn good.
- Portland Trailblazers: The Blazers have had a relatively easy schedule so far, but they’ve had some really nice, quality wins after a rough week last week, and they’re looking really, really good right now.
- Toronto Raptors: They’re ranked really high as a result of a monster Net Rating that drops steeply after the Blazers, but there’s a disparity between their win/loss record and point differential, and their win margins have been really small lately on an easy, East-heavy schedule. The hype might be a bit much, here.
- Memphis Grizzlies: Their win against Golden State was awesome, but every other game they’ve played has been way too close, and their loss to Chicago hurts. Still, because of their grind-it-out style, games are usually excessively close for this team, and they’ve had a brutal schedule to start the season. The Grizz are absolutely title contenders.
- Dallas Mavericks: Their net rating is starting to look seriously inflated and they’ve had one of the league’s easiest schedules…but they’ve also kept winning games they should win, and winning them by a lot, and even with adjustments for schedule and inflated Net Rating these guys come out really well. Also, congrats on getting Rondo…maybe.
On the bottom 5 teams:
- Philadelphia 76ers: Parental Supervision is advised: this content contains graphic bad basketball.
- Minnesota Timberwolves: Injury concerns and an extremely difficult schedule means that this team may be better than it comes off immediately. But after bad losses to the Lakers and Celtics, they continue to slide.
- Orlando Magic: This is without a doubt a scrappy team. But they lost big to some other scrappy teams — the Celts and Jazz — and they’re looking a bit rough right now, behind another bad week.
- Detroit Pistons: This is an atrocious team playing flat out bad basketball right now. On the bright side, they just went ahead and waived Josh Smith, so…progress!
- New York Knicks: They were better this week than last week, so that’s encouraging. Still, good lord this team is bad at NBA basketball.
Other Teams of Note:
- Boston Celtics: Boston saw a huge surge, but their latest wins were still only against Philadelphia, Minnesota, and Orlando. Still, they won those games by a lot and have a (barely) positive point differential right now. This team has been quietly decent, and they just made a sneaky-positive trade.
- Charlotte Hornets: This team still hasn’t beaten anyone good, but two wins in one week (against the 76ers and the admittedly feisty Jazz) and far closer games than normal are nice potential leaping points for this struggling squad.
- Cleveland Cavaliers: They took another hit after a hard loss to Atlanta, and their wins against Brooklyn and Charlotte were largely unimpressive. Note: this was done before the Cavs’ very nice win against Memphis.
- Houston Rockets: The Rox really plummeted: they’ve had an easy schedule, and even with Dwight Howard back they’ve failed to get some very winnable games.
- Indiana Pacers: A win agains the lakers, trademark close games against Western Conference teams, and a rough early schedule gives them a nice bump.
- Los Angeles Lakers: Is this team better than it seems? They’ve had a so-so record since getting Nick Young back from injury, they’ve been surprisingly competitive, and they’ve had a hard schedule so far, all of which may be indicating a better-than-expected Lakers squad.
- New Orleans Pelicans: Anthony Davis is a world eating monster, but this team has a bad habit of playing close games with teams they should blow out, and their nasty loss to Portland is a scar on their recent record.
- Oklahoma City Thunder: A loss to the Warriors and a close game against the Lakers mitigate their current standing, but make no mistake, this eventual title contender is surging.
- Sacramento Kings: They’ve improved just a bit from last week, and they’ve had a hard schedule so far, so playing close games against teams like the Thunder and Bucks are nice. Unfortunately, even with Boogie back this team appears to be sliding. Rumors are they’re trying to sign the cut Josh Smith., hoping to plug in the gap.