Old Man Rock, The Rockets were always in the top 8 seeds using the Riley Record. Back then, do you think the W/L record that put us at 12 was better than our #8 seed. "<b>We control our own destiny</b>" implies if we win out, we will be #1 seed. However, if either Pho, LA or NOs wins out, they will pass us. So, they control their own destiny, too. yes, and neither does W/Ls. right? People who are arguing against the value of this "tool" are essentially saying the W/Ls are always accurrate throughout the season; of course, we know that's not true. Many coaches believe this is a better barometer than win/losses. Everyone talks about how important holding your own at home mean. All this does is makes it so a home losss does not change your standings, but neither does an away loss. JVG explained this tool in terms of, you can't have more than 10 home losses and you need roughly 20 away wins to get a good seed. That formula is 51 wins!
sigh Do you believe W/Ls is the best predictor of seeds throughout the year? If you say no, then you'll understand why coaches look at this more than W/Ls. I'm just posting in table form a Wins Losses measurement that many coaches use. W/Ls and Riley Riley become one and the same at the end of the year. They are the same!
What? We have played one more game than NO, and are ahead of them. We have fewer losses than Pho. If we could win out and they could win out (impossible since we play each other), we stay ahead of them. They do not control their own destiny; only we do. Other than that, Away wins vs Home losses is interesting.
If Pho wins out, that means they beat us twice. Thus they pass us, and thus they control their own destiny. Same with LA and NO. The top record is rarely ever the only team that "Controls Their Own Destiny" with this many games left.
The stat that matters most is total loses.The team with the least total loses is going to be the 1 seed. The next most important stat is head to head in the case of a tie as that determine the tie break. This statement bothers me. "We control our own destiny" implies if we win out, we will be #1 seed. However, if either Pho, LA or NOs wins out, they will pass us. So, they control their own destiny, too." If LA and the Rockets are tied, ie both win all remaining games, we own the tie breaker so we would be 1. As we do not play each other again that is possible We play NO and Pho so there is no way for either team and the rockets to win out. If we lose to NO we will have more losses the NO at the point. If we lose to Pho and beat NO we would have the same number of loses and they would have the tie break at this point with the best we could do is tie the series going to division records I think in the even of both teams having the same record. I am not saying the stat is useless... it is a good stat to compare teams early to midseason late when the schedules can be very very schewed. At the end everything comes to an endpoint and it simplifies to total loses and head to head in the event of ties, then division records... blah blah. At this point all the rockets need to worry about is beating NO. Giving us a tie break for an effective two game lead over NO, keeping us even with LA and still ahead of PHO. We can worry about the next game after this one. Fierguard.
Fierguard, yeah, looking at losses is the key towards the end of the season. I agree. I didn't say we both win out. I'm just explaining that more than one team can control their own destiny. You know that's true, right? "Controlling your own destiny" means you don't have to rely on any other team to win games for you. Pho and NO don't have to rely on anyone else to pass the Rockets. so....
No argument. But N.O. can say that they control their own destiny, too. Why can't they say that? It's true. And Pho can say they control their own destiny wrt passing the Rockets in the standings. It's true.
and another meaningless thread also. I knew waking up this morning this **** was going to happen, did everyone expect us to win out? if so one word for those people DUMMIES
Heypartner, This is crazy. Controlling you own destiny means that if they win out they will end the season in 1st place. Currently the Rockets are in 1st and if they win out, guess what, they will be in 1st at the end of the season. Thus, "controlling their own destiny". Games are NOT played in a vacuum. If the Rockets "win out" the would therefore, beat the other teams and last I check, they are going to play the other teams. Now not saying the Rockets will win out and they may even lost the next 3 road games. These things happen. Just ask the Spurs, Mavs, etc. But it is good to know this tool is predicting 1, the Rockets make the playoffs, which was not in the plans when Yao went down and 2, they may get home court in the 1st round (tie for 4th means maybe home court). Cup half full.
Yes, I believe that Win/Losses are the best predictor of seed because that is what they are defined by. We are not tied for fourth, we are tied for first. This is just like another Power Rankings. It is just another of thousands of ways to measure where a team is at and where it is going. I would think that point spread would be a better way to measure how good a team is. Anyways, my problem is not with your stat, it is with the way you present your stat. Yes it is "simple math", but whenever you use the words "simple math" you are talking down to someone. It might be a good predictor of seed, but the fact is, we are not tied for fourth, we are tied for first. So treat it like a predictor stat, not the holy heypartner gospel.
The same is true for N.O (and Pho wrt passing us) It is not unusual for more than one team to control their own destiny. It just means they don't need other teams to win games for them. That's all it means. mlwoo, The thread title could have been better written. Please allow me to apologize if it offended you. It wasn't meant to be. We've have the Riley Record discussion many times in the past. I haven't shown it recently. I didn't want to show it during the streak, and then I thought last night, I would make the table. You know what, since I haven't done this is like three yrs on this bbs, I thought it was a bad idea. "Simple Math" was my dumb way of trying to clarify that the riley record = playoff position in the end. Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone. in the past, it's a way of discussing difficulting of remaining schedule. I believe we are going to have a tough time maintaining top seed, not based on team talent, but based on schedule vs other teams.
Hayparter, You still don't get it. "control you own destiny" is nice to say to a team NOT in 1st place. In this case, abit may be very short lived. The Rockets are #1 and they have the most control of all the destinies of the conference. If the Rockets win out the will be 1st. Since the Rockets play NO, one team will lose. But your assumptions IF all the teams win out, AND THAT MY FRIEND CANNOT HAPPEN. Sure sounds nice and btw, the sun raises from the East and mostly set to the west. I think, Can you check on that for me? Is there a Riley stat on that? OK, I'm sorry the the tone. It's just man, let the fans enjoy the perch at the top for a moment. You don't have to be logical with some Riley gismo so that you can say the Rockets are not that good. Psst, we all know that here. Even with Yao, this was not a lock for the trophy. Not this season. Without him, it's a long shot and the odds are lottery like.
Oh, lordy. I'm the biggest homey there is. I'm not trying to say the Rockets are not that good. sigh....this bbs is waaaaaaayyyyy too sensitive nowadays. pls give me the benefit of the doubt to say that I've made a thread like this in past years and it never caused such a huge outrage. Talking about remaining home vs away schedule and pointing to Riley Records as accurate measure of position has never caused people to get so defensive before. It's quite amusing...this bbs. So much fighting. So much assuming that someone is trying to pick a fight. ps: If we win out, we are #1. If N.O.s wins out, they are #1. It's the same. What aren't you understanding?
good post Heyp I didn't realize that the Lakers were doing that well on the road. Thanks for the post.
I have a slightly better projector, adding percentages of home/road win/loss against teams with winning/losing records. The projection is that we will have 57 wins. I don't have time to do the same math on other teams. So I don't know how 57 fares. But according to HP's straight Riley calculation, I think we are projected to have 56 wins. So my projection is 1 win more and perhaps win give us a sole 4th seed? But the catch is this: we are not the same team as we were earlier. We didn't have Yao, which is a minus. But we have better chemistry, which is a plus. I remember at the beginning of the streak, my projection was 49 wins. I told people that we would win more than 50 because we were still improving. People were pessimistic at that time and few people believed, even with Yao healthy.
Ah, the Riley record. I had almost forgot about it. Best indicator of the strength of the teams in the regular season. Thanks for posting this heypee!
aaah now THAT is a good point Easy the record from earlier in the year when the team didnt know who they were and played like it could be skewing the projections. Im not real sure there is any way to compensate for that btw... nice try heyp It seems this board cant accept someone posting without a agenda to either bash or be a sunshineass. but thanks for tryin
