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Hornets have already beat the Heat and are undefeated, yet the Heat get ranked higher with two losses??
Oh, it's not the result that leaves me doubting. It's things that happened to lead to that result.
For instance, I saw a Spurs team that had a huge size advantage for most of the game manage only 38 points in the paint (out of 107 scored on field goals). I saw a team that gave up 30 points in 2 quarters (and 29 in a third). I saw a team that was outrebounded by a team that shouldn't have been able to do that. I saw a team that conceded a significant number of uncontested 3's and got lucky that enough of them missed. Those are just 4 examples.
Do I think those things are incurable? No. But I also don't think the 6th best team in the NBA should be trying to cure all of those problems at once.
Hornets have already beat the Heat and are undefeated, yet the Heat get ranked higher with two losses??
Not really a Hornets fan, but I find it hard to say that they've peaked 5 games in with 2 new starters in their line up. One can only assume that they will get better. They have been winning so far because of solid perimeter defense. You got to give it to Monty Williams for getting his team to play the way they are playing.
Jason Richardson missed two 3-pointers with 40 seconds left, when he'd been shooting lights out. Courtney Lee missed two free throws with 16 seconds left. That's the difference between being 4-1 and being 2-3.
It's also the difference in being 6th in the power rankings, and being about 16th.
It is always better to be lucky than good.
Luck is a short-term plan.
Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.
Heh... I'll take lucky. But wasn't it last season (or the one before?) that the Spurs were winning a bunch of close games early in the season? A lot of us, myself included, were saying that it was because they were mentally tough. Somebody posted a stat that games decided by 3 points or less were basically a toss-up. It showed that even the best teams lose as many as they win, over the long haul. We sort of dismissed that idea. And by the end of the season, the Spurs had lost at least as many as they had won.
I'm convinced. When you let a team hang around for a photo finish, you're just lucky if you win - no matter how good or bad the other team is.
I'll take lucky. But expect it to even out before May.
My business professor loves to say this. I tend to agree with this a little bit more in business than I do in sports.
What does the beginning of the season have to do with anything? Preseason predictions don't mean . Steve Nash won two MVP awards that he didn't deserve because people couldn't just say that their preseason predictions about the Suns were way off. In addition, what does the playoffs have to do with it? It's a ranking in November.
What are you talking about? West is a 2 time all star and he starts for the Hornets. That makes him better than half the guys on your list, and he's the second best player on his own team. You're not making a very good case that the Hornets are an average team.2 All-star starters? Who would it be the 2nd? West?Ahead of Durant, Dirk, Timmy, Pau, Scola, Melo, Odom, Al Jefferson, Griffin, Aldridge, Lee, Randolph, Gay, (even) RJ. He is probably not even in the top5 power forwards or the top 10 forwards in general.
Good for the Spurs, they finally realized that the system has to fit the personnel you have, not the other way around. They're incapable of playing lockdown D anymore, so play to your strengths. Their ceiling is being the 4th best team in the league, and with the coaches and vets they have, it's certainly attainable.
Given my personal expectations this season, I'll take my chances with 4th best team in the league once the playoffs roll around. If the support players can put them at that level, they more than have the superstars to be the difference against anyone in crunch time.
Damn straight! Expectations and rankings don't mean crap, come playoff time. It's all about 7 games. And the Big 3 all know what it takes to win.
Any team that has guys shooting 3's like this is dangerous in a series. We'll see if they can keep it up, but I feel better about our two rookies than I ever did about Mason.
Glad to see we're getting some recognition.
as of right now, there is no reason for us not to be that high. our one loss has come against the hornets
It's crazy that Spurs are considered the 6th best team at this point with so many things that aren't going well. So much improvement that this team can make. By the time playoffs come around the team will give itself a chance against anyone if they shore up those things.
13th in Hollinger's rankings this morning.
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings
According to Hollinger, the Spurs have the 3rd softest schedule to date. With that, they are only 9th in differential.
What's really funny is that Houston and Phoenix are above them on the list, but their record is what contributes to the "soft" schedule.
Bruce just said on ESPN spurs are in top 4 with portland (who I think theyre better than) and LAL and OKC. He had the mavs at 6 in the west
Houston gets 9th because of their strong Strength of Schedule and low Margin of Victory (or loss, as it would appear in their case).
So in Hollinger's world, being 1-5 but not getting blown out by good teams is better than being 5-1 and beating the teams that you are supposed to beat.
Interesting.
interesting 8-13 rankings as well as miami above LA.
sure is some weird math that hollinger uses.
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings
Not trying to start a Spurs are the best team in the league, better then the lakers, heat or celtics debate because I know that's simply not true right now.
But how the can our ceiling be the 4th best team in the league if we're ranked 6th right now and playing like absolute crap most nights?
Your logic is almost as flawed as Reagan and Thatchers era of Market Fundamentalism.
It's not weird at all. He lays out a formula and emphasizes scoring margin. He also emphasizes recent performance (though this is a moot point right now since we only have 6 or 7 games to work with).
He also provides a rationale for why he emphasizes scoring margin. The reason is simple - if you look back to NBA history in hindsight, scoring margin has been the single most reliable predictor of championship success bar none.
His rankings become progressively more powerful as the season goes on, obviously, because you have more data to work with.
Really though, is anybody truly surprised that Houston is ranked 9th? Did they seem like a 0-5 sub-13 rank team when we played them and barely eeked out a win, especially considering the fact that their two primary scorers went down (martin, brooks) and Yao did not play?
Suns margin -1.29,
Spurs margin +3.67
Head to head margin, Spurs 1-0
There's the two main indicators right there. Please explain how the Suns are five spots ahead of the Spurs.
It's really nice that this fancy, mathematical, non-objective formula requires how a team seems or gives credit for the potential of injured players that don't actually play.
EDIT: I don't mean to sound overly contentious, I'm just enjoying taking apart the logic. The rankings don't really mean anything, but I'm interested in how they make a lick of sense.
Last edited by Obstructed_View; 11-09-2010 at 02:16 PM.
Yeah, that's odd. I don't get it either. The Rockets lost by 8 points to New Orleans, but the Spurs lost by 9. I guess that's more important than all those wins. With such a small sample of games, I'd expect the rankings to go almost in line with scoring margin. Now that I look at it again, how the are the Lakers not an easy number one? They weren't blown out by a team they were supposed to beat.
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