His ranking is worse than the BCS computers. What kind of serious computer ranking takes margin of victory into consideration? This isn't euro soccer, this is NBA. Chicago Bulls, 5 game over .500, 6th in the East, on a 2 game losing streak, but ranks #6 over Utah Jazz, 17 games over .500, 3rd in the West, on a 6 game winning streak, ranks #7. Also, Knicks #15 (23-29) over Pacers #17 (27-24) and Wizards #21 (28-21) And his ranking gets its own page on ESPN. This is just stupid.
Apparently, there have been studies that margin of victory is a better predictor of future win/loss record than current win/loss record. And many coaches, most notably Hubie Brown who's a big proponent, favor point differential stats.
i believe they also take into account strength of schedule, recent performance, and home and road stats. hate him or love him, the guy is some sort of statistical genius much like our future GM; so these funky numbers are going to be a sort of reasoning for this team for years to come...
One would expect teams that average more points per game than they allow to have a record over .500 and the greater that margin, the better the record. If you look at his rankings, the top teams are also teams most people would consider good. If you only want to look at wins and losses, you could just look at the standings.
A computer model would be seriously deficient WITHOUT considering margin of victory in basketball. It measures both how your offense and defense performed against other teams. Don't you think that a team that consistently wins by 10 or more points is better than one that has scraped out a lot of 1 point wins? If you blow out a team by 20-30, it helps you more in his ranking than just one win - showing your dominance. If you get blown out, it shows that you suck more than just the one loss. Pay attention to it and you'll see that it is as good of a predictor of future success as he says it is. Basically, you aren't an elite team if you don't average at least an 8 point differential against average competition. Hollinger's ranking is really cool because you can look at Detroit's latest hot streak, see the level of their recent competition at a glance, and realize that they may not be all that their recent record says.
Hollinger's record takes into account strength of schedule. It's not the "margin of victory" that places the Jazz at 6th. It's the strength of schedule based on total games and last 10 games. Check out the Jeff Sagarin ratings for a straight "margin of victory" ranking. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nba0607.htm It uses "margin of victory" only and doesn't take into account strength schedule like Hollinger. You have to look at the right hand side where it says "Predictor". It places the Jazz at 5th over the Pistons. Jazz has a better "margin of victory" even though the Pistons are 8-2 and the Jazz are 7-3. In the Hollinger rankings, the Pistons get a bump for better record in the last 10, so it's the "last 10" not the margin of victory. The Utah Jazz actually are ranked 5th and the Bulls are tied 8th. The Bulls are 7th in Hollinger but 8th in margin of victory rankings. You hate Hollinger rankings more than a "magin of victory" ranking like Sagarin.
