http://teamrankings.com/nba/27powerratings.php3 I don't know if this has been posted.If so,please lock it. Rockets are #1,of coures. Pretty interesting that Rockets and Bucks are the only teams in top 10 SOS not with a losing record. It will be interesting to track this as the year goes on.
It really seems like they make the Rockets schedule first, then finish the rest of the league just so they can set it up so that every damn game is hard fought. I know that's not the case though.
This is nice. A good thread BTW. Notice, as of now, Houston has one of the best records vs top 5 teams, despite an unimpressive overall record: http://teamrankings.com/nba/ Don't know how often they update. Weekly? What's interesting, I think, is that by a certain time deep into the season, the strength of the schedules will even out for many teams, at least for those in the same division and/or conference.
It's good sign and it may indicate that we could finish with very good record, if we play most of our tough games early in the year like this, before players start to get banged up and when we are still trying to find ourselves. we've played the big three twice already, Suns, Mavs, and Spurs. We split with the Suns and Spurs, and both Mav games were winable. include the Jazz, Lakers, Nuggets, Bucks, and Clippers team that was .500 when we played them. Also, you can figure in Heat team that's getting healthy and a Charlotte team that's close to .500.
we will play dallas and SA more than other teams in the league correct (because we are in the same division)? simply being our division will give us a top 5 toughest schedules in the league for the season. or am i off? ever since they re-did the divsions i never know how many times we play each team. it was so easy to remember before. 2 against the east (1 road 1 home) and 4 against each west team (2 road 2 home).
Not necessarily. Teams within the same conference but not the same division meet 3 or 4 times a year in regular season, depending on the drawing, which I guess is somewhat random. If memory serves me right, we played against Utah 3 times in the '05-'06 season and 4 times last season. We play them 3 times this season. You are almost right, except that we play each divisional rival 4 times.
As of today, despite the NYK game at home a few days ago, the Rockets have had the toughest schedule among all NBA teams: http://teamrankings.com/nba/27powerratings.php3 Notice that a majority of the top teams (those that are ahead of us) in the WC are in the bottom 3rd of the strength of the schedule ranking: 1. Houston (17-17) 0.084 2. Memphis (10-23) 0.073 3. Toronto (17-17) 0.058 4. Minnesota (4-29) 0.046 5. Utah (18-17) 0.040 6. Golden State (20-15) 0.039 7. Sacramento (12-20) 0.031 8. Miami (8-26) 0.024 9. Cleveland (17-17) 0.023 10. LA Lakers (21-11) 0.013 11. Philadelphia (14-20) 0.012 12. Seattle (9-24) 0.011 13. LA Clippers (10-21) 0.004 14. Milwaukee (13-20) 0.0 15. Chicago (13-19) 0.0 16. Indiana (16-19) 0.0 17. Orlando (22-13) -0.001 18. Portland (21-13) -0.006 19. New York (8-24) -0.008 20. New Jersey (17-16) -0.012 21. Detroit (26-8) -0.015 22. New Orl/OKC (23-11) -0.022 23. Boston (29-3) -0.022 24. Atlanta (15-16) -0.023 25. Charlotte (11-21) -0.040 26. Denver (21-13) -0.041 27. Dallas (23-11) -0.042 28. Phoenix (24-10) -0.049 29. San Antonio (23-10) -0.056 30. Washington (17-15) -0.088
Lord I would love to see us go on like a 30-5 run or something nuts like that. make our record 47-23 lol with like three weeks to go in the season.
Is it possible that teams with weak schedules are considered weak because they won most their games, hurting their opponents win percentage. While teams with strong schedules are so because they lost many games, helping improve their opponents win percentage, making their opponents seem better. I know this is a factor, but the question is how much, which is why this ranking is not perfect in my opinion.
It may not be "perfect" in the sense that there are some degree of correlation as you described, but it's definitely objective and unbiased in my opinion.
ITPST (If The Playoffs Started Today - invent this acronym someone ), Atlanta would have the #8 seed, 1.5 games ahead of Indiana. So that's a step up for Atlanta. The Rockets would have the #5 seed if they were in the East, as you'd expect....
