BBR Rankings: 2009-12-11
Posted by Neil Paine on December 11, 2009
TGIF everybody, mainly because it's time for another edition of the BBR Rankings... Orlando holds down the top spot for the second straight week, but by a razor-thin margin over a surging L.A. Lakers squad that went 3-0 over the past 7 days. Meanwhile, Boston and Atlanta flip-flopped #3 & #4 after the Hawks lost to the Knicks last Friday, and the top 5 is rounded out by the Phoenix Suns, #1 in our "poll" 2 weeks ago. Dallas dropped out of the top 5 after spending the first 3 rankings at #5 following an ugly loss at Memphis a week ago, while Chicago's 0-4 week sent them sliding down 6 spots to #19. And on the rising side, Denver climbed into the Top 10 again after splitting their 4-game stretch of road games on the week, while Detroit's sizzling 4-0 week propelled them to #16 in this edition of the rankings.
(Want to know how the BBR Rankings are calculated? Read this first. Also, mouse over column headers for descriptions.)
| Rank | Prev | Team | W | L | WPct | SOS Rk | Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Orlando Magic | 17 | 5 | 0.773 | 22 | 2-1 |
| 2 | 2 | Los Angeles Lakers | 17 | 3 | 0.850 | 14 | 3-0 |
| 3 | 4 | Boston Celtics | 18 | 4 | 0.818 | 28 | 3-0 |
| 4 | 3 | Atlanta Hawks | 15 | 6 | 0.714 | 15 | 2-1 |
| 5 | 6 | Phoenix Suns | 15 | 7 | 0.682 | 24 | 1-2 |
| 6 | 5 | Dallas Mavericks | 15 | 7 | 0.682 | 23 | 1-2 |
| 7 | 8 | Houston Rockets | 12 | 9 | 0.571 | 1 | 1-1 |
| 8 | 7 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 15 | 7 | 0.682 | 27 | 2-2 |
| 9 | 11 | Denver Nuggets | 16 | 7 | 0.696 | 30 | 2-2 |
| 10 | 9 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 11 | 9 | 0.550 | 2 | 1-1 |
| 11 | 10 | Utah Jazz | 13 | 9 | 0.591 | 13 | 3-2 |
| 12 | 14 | Miami Heat | 11 | 9 | 0.550 | 9 | 1-1 |
| 13 | 15 | Portland Trail Blazers | 14 | 9 | 0.609 | 29 | 2-1 |
| 14 | 17 | New Orleans Hornets | 10 | 11 | 0.476 | 8 | 3-0 |
| 15 | 12 | San Antonio Spurs | 10 | 9 | 0.526 | 7 | 1-2 |
| 16 | 22 | Detroit Pistons | 10 | 12 | 0.455 | 4 | 4-0 |
| 17 | 20 | Toronto Raptors | 10 | 14 | 0.417 | 16 | 3-1 |
| 18 | 21 | Charlotte Bobcats | 9 | 11 | 0.450 | 17 | 2-1 |
| 19 | 13 | Chicago Bulls | 7 | 13 | 0.350 | 3 | 0-4 |
| 20 | 24 | Memphis Grizzlies | 9 | 12 | 0.429 | 21 | 2-0 |
| 21 | 18 | Milwaukee Bucks | 10 | 11 | 0.476 | 26 | 1-3 |
| 22 | 16 | Sacramento Kings | 9 | 12 | 0.429 | 19 | 0-4 |
| 23 | 23 | Golden State Warriors | 7 | 14 | 0.333 | 12 | 1-2 |
| 24 | 19 | Washington Wizards | 7 | 13 | 0.350 | 10 | 0-3 |
| 25 | 25 | Los Angeles Clippers | 9 | 12 | 0.429 | 25 | 1-1 |
| 26 | 28 | New York Knicks | 7 | 15 | 0.318 | 5 | 3-0 |
| 27 | 26 | Indiana Pacers | 6 | 13 | 0.316 | 20 | 0-3 |
| 28 | 27 | Philadelphia 76ers | 5 | 17 | 0.227 | 6 | 0-3 |
| 29 | 29 | Minnesota Timberwolves | 3 | 19 | 0.136 | 11 | 1-3 |
| 30 | 30 | New Jersey Nets | 2 | 20 | 0.091 | 18 | 2-2 |
December 11th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Can we have our SRS back? At least I know what that means!!
December 11th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Ha, yeah, the AP poll thing is kinda dumb. In my defense, I did decide to have a weekly ranking in the first place after reading the poll progressions in the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, so I wanted to pay homage to the polls somehow. This wasn't the right way, obviously. :)
December 11th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I got rid of it. Sometimes I can get too carried away, in case anyone hadn't noticed...
December 11th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Could you show the actual number that the teams are ranked by? It would be nice to actually see it!
December 11th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Would you explain how the SOS rankings are calculated?
December 11th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
For SOS, it's the Simple Rating System (with home-court factored in). I fixed the link above to send you to the detailed explanation, but the rankings are basically set up where the "margin of victory" portion of SRS actually ignores point differential (handing out generic margins for home wins, home losses, road wins, & road losses), but the SOS portion is purely based on point diff. This has the effect of crediting teams for beating strong opponents, but not encouraging blowouts/poor sportsmanship. It's the kind of ranking they originally used in BCS calculations before the powers that be forced them to take margin of victory completely out of the equation.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Re: DSMok - Here are the SRS scores that generate the rankings (remember, no MOV in the team's base score, but SOS does include MOV in its calculation):
December 13th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Why were the Lakers ranked first when they had played so few road games? Are they not taken into account? If not, they should be.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Neil,
At what point today will you be publishing your BBR Rankings: 2009-12-18?
December 18th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Neil,
According to Jeff Sagarin's SOS ratings for NBA games played thru Dec 16 2009, the Toronto Raptors had the most difficult schedule to that point. But, according to your SOS Rk for Dec 11, 2009, the Toronto Raptors were rated as having played the 16th most difficult schedule.
Can you please explain this disparity?
Thanks, in advance.
December 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=4267
It could be a W-L vs. point differential thing. For Sagarin's base rankings, I don't know if he uses MOV in his SOS calculation; this SOS ranking, though, is pure, 100% MOV, with no regard to W-L %.
Evidence of this is the fact that the Raps jumped to 4th in SOS in the new BBR Rankings today after playing 4 teams who average +4.00 in standard SRS since last Thursday.