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I happen to think that was about the only thing he got right, the 1999 team was a monster, they would have trounced any team even if it was a full season.
Which team do you think was better?
you should look up the explanation of the hollinger power rankings. by the way people, the power rankings do not ONLY take point differential into account, but also strength of schedule and a win-loss record of the last ten games. and yes, there is a strength of schedule in the nba, according to hollinger, the rockets have the hardest schedule.
I happen to think that was about the only thing he got right, the 1999 team was a monster, they would have trounced any team even if it was a full season.
Which team do you think was better?
Yes, yes, whoopdy fricking doo. However, in his explanation that is his primary means of explaining the Spurs being so highly ranked, which then leads one to believe that it's a dominant component of his formula. Wouldn't it be more important to evaluate strength of schedule, momentum? Why not just break it down even further, lets take a look at the point differentials against winning and losing teams?
When you evaluate his formula, it comes across as being arbitrary. In something like this, the weightings are an important factor and they seem to be abitrary, or at best attempts to factor in "momentum" (his 2/3rds 1/3rd weighting).
Ultimately, it's like any attempt to computerize quantifying the good and bad teams...crap.
your absolutely right if an ignorant person were looking at it w/o the explanation. i know if i didnt read it, it would mislead me, its a good thing i read it, phew!...but he also mentions the rest that the starters are getting, alot more than most contending teams.
he does...
he does...
good point, but only one you made.
What difference does power rankings make? In the NFL, the San Diego Chargers were hands on favorites to win the Super Bowl. How did that turn out?????? Thats why they play the games!!!!!
NFL is no way like NBA. in NBA you play 7 games in playoffs, usually the best team wins.
So power rankings are more important. But these stupid media people need to stop looking at records, pt difference only. They need to use common sense, for example, Phoenix cannot be #1, or #2 cause they don't ing play defense. also Spurs cannot be ahead of Dallas, because Dallas keeps beating our ass. use common sense!
Except for the fact, you know, that saying point differential is a major component, WAS NOT MISLEADING. It actually is, a whole section all unto itself. Which he mentions in his explanation, whoa.
I think you missed the most important aspect, how does he arrive at his weightings? I would have more faith in this formula if he had modeled it on the results of previous years results. For example, apply his formula to each year's regular season results and see if they accurately predict the champion, then tweak the formula to arrive a method that best predicts the future success of a team.
By the way, I failed to see a component in your oh so hollowed formula that quantified "resting your star players and playing the scrubs" factor for success.
As it is now, it's a just a little ditty that fans can trot out every so often to prove that their team is oh so kickass.
I prefer to watch the games and base my confidence in the chances of the Spurs on that.
Bingo.
Playoffs = a new story.
I kinda wish we were talking and not typing to make arguments a little more clear. I never said that point differential was insignificant. i was suggesting to the people of spurstalk.com that there are other factors other than point differential. its a function of an equation, or ONE of the functions. i knew point differential had its own section, but so are other factors. Although hollinger explained the spurs success with the point margin, there other factors that make the spurs successful that involve the equation, thats what i was pointing out.
Your argument with testing the formula is a good point. although hollinger says that studies have shown point margin is a better way of measuring team quality than win-loss records, he doesn't prove this fact on the site.
On resting the players, this does matter! im not saying they are more successful for it, i am saying that it is better to rest starters for the playoffs emphasizeing the fact that there is an 82 game season and it only positions your team on a 16-team playoff tree. it doesnt matter where we are in the playoffs, what matter is if our players are healthy for the championship run.
im also not saying that this formula is perfect either, but i think its a better way of measuring team quality than the standings. my opinion though...
I did some basic analysis, and this is what I found.
Since 1950 (the year BAA became the NBA), there have been 57 champions, of which 30 of them were won by the team with the best record. Of those 30 teams, 5 shares the best record with at least another team. But also of those 30 teams, 23 of them belongs to what I call dynasties.
Only the following teams were defined as dynasties:
90's Bulls
80's Lakers
60's Celtics
50's Lakers.
The reason I tabulated those as dynasties and non-dynasties is to show that the teams are so much better than the compe ion, that winning a championship and having the best record in the league was expected of them. You can make a case that the 80's Lakers does not belong to that group because of the Celtics, Pistons and 6ers. What this shows is that in a compe ive league, where there is no clear-cut #1 (subjective call, and is applicable to this year), only 7 of the 27 champions have the best regular season record.
Even if the "dynasty" factor does not come into play, the team with the best regular season record won the championship 30 out of 57 times, which is barely half the time (about 53%).
IF the team with the highest point differential wins the championship 31 times or more out of 57 times, then it is a better indicator than the won/loss column. However, I do not have that data.
Just to make my stance clear, I do NOT agree with Hollinger's ranking formula without further justification as to how well his formula predicted playoff success, and that his arbitrary allotment of weight to each variable is without reason. However, IF he can show me, from past instances, that this formula can predict playoff success with X% accuracy, then I would give more credibility to it. I also do NOT agree with his formula on PER due to the totally subjective nature of the topic, there is just no defition of "best" or "better" player.
But on the other hand, his formula is not without it's basis, and it would be at least helpful for people to discredit his formula without actually going through it, and explain why it was not logical.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insid...Rankings-Intro
You can't reasonably attach a logical formula without some logical arguments.
Stein came out with his power rankings...
No suprise, Dallas is on top followed by Phoenix. The Spurs did make a jump to #3 though (previously 4th) with their recent streak.
"That's some nice work there, boys."
Amb...nice work!!!
I wish we did have a point differential...Let me see if I can find you a source.
i wouldn't say he is selectively picking stats, he stated his formula when he started his rankings after the start of the season - they haven't changed. the only bad part is what shoogar pointed out - he's using stats to describe the team as a whole instead of how they play. he mentioned the spurs record in close games, but that's as close as he came to the reality of sa's situation.
i understand what hollinger is saying, but closing out close games is a huge part of the game. and the spurs have been just absolutely dreadful when it comes to protecting a small leads at the end of games. they're gonna need to get better at that to be able to defeat dallas in the playoffs
Here are the REAL power rankings:
1. San Antonio Spurs
2. Utah Jazz
3. Phoenix
4. Dallas Mavericks
5-30 are junk NBA teams.
This should be entertaining...
finished playing with your dildo and decided to come post?
This guy has to stop smoking crack or crystal meth. Does he really believe the Jazz are the 2nd best team in the league? Obviously he was just trying to start something. He should be ignored for now on.
it's just a coping mechanism for him, he's a scared spurs fan, a rarity among spurs fans...it's actually kind of hilarious to read his posts
BTW, one more point, I do not care about rankings (as in I don't put much weight into them), but I do find them fun to read and how people (including myself) argue over it despite the fact that it was, under almost all situations, based on a person's opinion.
Hollinger's ranking was supposed to take subjectivity out of it by basing it strictly on stats, but the selection of those stats and weight on each stat is, again, subjective.
Until some stats geek come up with a decent model that can reasonably predict playoff success (not just who won the championship) base on regular season statistics in February, we will just have to go on and on about this argument.
Finally (I guess that's two points I want to make), there is no way in I would rank the Spurs #1 at this point, but I do believe that the Spurs will win the championship this year, because I am a fan.
you forgot to put the Heat right below phoenix
ali i'm saying is that he leaves out other stats that don't fit into his formula, that's what i meant by selective, it would be crazy to include everything. i have a huge problem with the point differential as i already explained in an earlier post because it doesn't account for certain situations (like when the mavs rookies blew 16 points in under 4 minutes) that don't translate well into playoff success and the whole thing about resting the starters may prove advantageous against the suns but it's a wash against the mavs because they basically play the same minutes as i already posted those stats earlier as well.
Utah is 3-0 vs Phoenix.
2-1 vs San Antonio.
1-1 vs Dallas, including a 101-79 blowout.
SA has 18 losses, but 9 of those are by 5 or less points. I forgot that Phoenix is 1-7 against teams that actually matter.
1. SA
2. Utah
3. Dallas
4. Phoenix/Miami/Detroit
I can't believe that garbage was worthy of 3 pages...
jeffdrums22 is here!! yay!!!
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