Spurs moving up in ESPN rankings.

[mountainballer]

So you didn't actually check the history, you just took an article someone wrote that questions the scientific reliability of Hollinger's formulas and made a bunch of unrelated conclusions based on that article without understanding what it was talking about.

Fact: Hollinger's formulas have absolutely NO INTEREST in appealing to scientists, they are intended to try to point to strength of an NBA player or an NBA team.

comon kid. you can do better than this.

this: you didn't do this you didn't check that and finally but but but you don't understand is getting old.

and btw. it wasn't me who brought up the "academic field"

btw2. "intended to try" are the key words. no doubt that Hollinger really tries hard. I once really tried hard to dunk a basketball. didn't work. and I even wasn't credited for trying that hard. didn't even give me a single point for my intention to try.

[mathbzh]

Hollinger's contention that recent wins should play more into the rating than past wins is merely a reasonable hypothesis; this isn't an evidenced-based fact and therefore this premise is certainly open to argument, although I'd be hard pressed to find anybody who actually disagrees with the premise.

You can agree with the premise and disagree with how the variable is integrated in the model. 1/3 of the rating comes from 10 games... this can only decrease the accuracy of the indicator. This makes no sense for me because a 10 game sample is just too small... The SOS variability is too large and affect the rating too much (over a season the difference in SOS should be very small) it also gives too much weight to each game (what if you have one 40pts win in these 10 games? What happen when a team save their top players for playoffs when the other try to secure a spot in the playoffs?)...

The only reason why Hollinger includes the last 10 games adjustment is because he has a weakly issue and does not want to produce the same ranking over and over again.

[Blackjack]

I tend to take Hollinger's rankings with a grain of salt. I don't think his methods are without flaw or even the best available, but I do believe there is some merit.

Basically, I believe when given sufficient data and a full sample-size (i.e., a season), Hollinger's PER will give you a decent indicator of a team or player's strength. But when it comes to utilizing it during the course of a season, when the variables are are simply unquantifiable, his formula nets an incomplete result.

It'd be like building or making something that looks like complete or nothing like what you'd think it should and making your final analysis off of that.

And in that respect, it's actually a pretty smart thing to write about during the year -- you generate the interest or outrage over the incomplete findings and then turn out to be in the ballpark with your findings when all is said and done.

It allows for him to look like a fool for a good amount of the time, only to save his credibility enough so that he can do it all over again the following year.

Not bad.

[ElNono]

I can confirm we've broken into the top 10 in Hollinger's ranking and are now above the Rockets... breakout the champagne

[The_Worlds_finest]

I want to see the Playoff odds machine. Also for steins top ten to be released tomorrow my prediction.

1.Hornets(Last of the undefeated)
2.Lakers (Defending Champs, One loss doesn't move them too far south)
3.Celtics (Dominated Heat again, Defending East Conference Champs)
4.Spurs (While the leagues best put together Big 3s, The Spurs quietly assembled a big 4, Best Start since 04-05)
5.Jazz (5 come from behind wins)

[jestersmash]

Looks like the win over OKC bumped the Spurs up to 6th for Hollinger's rankings.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings

1. Hornets
2. Heat
3. Boston
4. Lakers
5. Denver
6. Spurs


Subjectively, Boston appears to be far better than Miami so far, and not just because they've defeated Miami head on twice.

Anyways, I - like many others - find these rankings to be largely useless during the beginning of a season. I put more weight into them come february, march, etc once more data has piled in.

[UnWantedTheory]

Looks like the win over OKC bumped the Spurs up to 6th for Hollinger's rankings.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings

1. Hornets
2. Heat
3. Boston
4. Lakers
5. Denver
6. Spurs


Subjectively, Boston appears to be far better than Miami so far, and not just because they've defeated Miami head on twice.

Anyways, I - like many others - find these rankings to be largely useless during the beginning of a season. I put more weight into them come february, march, etc once more data has piled in.

Couldnt have said it better myself.

[The_Worlds_finest]

week 3 Stein has
1.Celtics
2.Hornets
3.La
4. SPURS
5.Jazz
6.Heat
rest ---who cares.

[polandprzem]

[/B]
Couldnt have said it better myself.

Why?

You could try man

[rjv]

utah is 13th for hollinger ? computers suck at basketball !!!

[lefty]

SPurs 4th
Jazz 5th

http://espn.go.com/nba/powerrankings

[DaBears]

Can some one explain to me the logic behind the rankings for week 3.. I mean the spurs have the 2nd best record in the NBA, only the hornets have better.. Yet SPurs and hornets respectfully are ranked below both LA and Boston.. I cant quite figure that one out.....

[jestersmash]

Can some one explain to me the logic behind the rankings for week 3.. I mean the spurs have the 2nd best record in the NBA, only the hornets have better.. Yet SPurs and hornets respectfully are ranked below both LA and Boston.. I cant quite figure that one out.....

If you wanted rankings just based on standings, then you might as well just look at the current standings -

http://www.nba.com/standings/team_re...w_Std_Cnf.html

1. Hornets
2. Spurs
3/4. Lakers/Boston

etc.

But, there's no point in creating a ranking system that is solely based on standings, because we already have that.

The only thing you mentioned in your post is standings, so the implication is that you clearly don't care about other variables like strength of schedule, scoring margin, etc. That's fine, that's your prerogative, but if you want to do that, then you can look at the standings all day long, they are there for everyone to see on nba.com

Spurs are "2nd place" if you want to create a ranking system that only considers win-loss record.