Predicted wins thru 20 games
by banandy on Feb 3, 2012 9:04 AM PST
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PrintHere's a quick snapshot of the league thru Feb 2 (i.e. Clippers first 20 games).
Using the pythagorean wins method (which, if you don't what that is, check out this link W Pyth), you'll notice that using this method, the Clippers were predicted to win 11 games, but actually won 13. The prediction formula seems to "work" when comparing the other NBA teams versus their actual wins to date.
Some quick observations:
- Uh oh, Clippers project to be only the 10th best team in the West...behind the TWolves and Rockets! Yikes, getting blown out last night obviously hurt them in this exercise. Obviously, there's some margin for error here and just further illustrates how tight of a race it is out West.
- 76er's are projecting out to a 70 wins (assuming this was a full 82 season)!
Feel free to add any of your own observations/conclusions - I'll try to continues updating this periodically as we go thru the season.
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Here's the problem...
Pythagorean looks exclusively at point differential. It’s a great predictor of playoff success when the season is over, because by then everyone has played a relatively balanced schedule. But there’s so much variability in the schedule after 20 games that point differential is meaningless. Even at the end of the season, you shouldn’t compare east team to west teams by Pythagorean, since the schedules will be so different — Philly has played Washington 3 times, winning by a combined 74 points, Detroit twice cumulative 44, etc. That sort of thing tends to help your point differential, you know?
Clippers have played toughest schedule in the NBA so far. Just as a counterweight to this conclusion, check out the RPI, in which Clippers are ranked as the best team in the NBA.
Neither method is perfect by any means. Pythag ignores quality of opposition, RPI ignores margin of victory and home/road. But I think we can safely assume that the Clippers are better than 10th in the West based on the results so far, despite what Pythag says.
In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. - Elwood P. Dowd
I agree - not even trying to argue that this is some sort of end all be all...
but it is interesting (to me) to see how the team compares to the rest of the league.
We need Bill Walton back: "THROW IT DOWN BIG MAN...THROW IT DOWN"
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Wait did it ding us 6 games (or 8 regular season games) just from that 1 loss?
Or rather, what do the up and down arrows mean on the second sheet?
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be." - John Wooden
2nd chart is a comparison back to when I did the analysis thru 10 games
For example, in a 66 game season…we are expected to win 35 games – it used to be 41 wins, so down 6 is what you’re seeing.
The explanation for this is because their opponent’s ppg has increased by 2.1, while their own scoring has gone down 0.7 going thru 20 games.
We need Bill Walton back: "THROW IT DOWN BIG MAN...THROW IT DOWN"
___________
Follow @manlinessprime
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