Interesting factoids: - In the remaining schedule, the Houston Rockets have the second highest number of national televised games to Dallas Mavericks (11) and San Antonio Spurs (11). The Rockets are tied with the Phoenix Suns at 10 national televised games. National televised games consist of games televised in the following networks: ABC, TNT, NBATV and ESPN. Sacramento Kings are the lowest at 0 with New Orleans Hornets at 3. NO reminds of the Rockets last season were we had done well in the standings but we didn’t get any respect and our games were not televised. Ok…our games were ugly to watch! - The Houston Rockets have the easiest home schedule with a whopping 40% of games remaining are being played against teams that have a record above 0.500. The Phoenix Suns have the worst team home schedule with 74% of games being played against teams with a record above 0.500. - The Houston Rockets have the worst road schedule with 71% of the games remaining being played against teams that have a record above 0.500. The Portland Trailblazers (47%) have the best road schedule against team with a record above 0.500. - The Houston Rockets are slightly above average at 20% in terms of the number of home games against the bottom feeders (team with a record below 0.500). The Utah Jazz and the Sacramento Kings are tied at 24% for the top nod which is not far away which means that the spread is not large. The New Orleans Hornets are the team with the lowest number of games against the bottom feeders at 12%. - The Houston Rockets are the lowest team at 7% in terms of having to play games in the road against the bottom feeders. The Dallas Mavericks are the highest at 24%. - The Houston Rockets are slightly below average at 53% in terms of overall games against teams with a record above 0.500. The LA Lakers are the lowest at 49% and the New Orleans Hornets, the highest, are at 59% - The Houston Rockets are slightly below average with the number of back-to-back games with 7 remaining. The Portland Trailblazers and the Sacramento Kings have the highest at 10. The Phoenix Suns are the lowest team at 6. - However, the Houston Rockets have the highest number of back-to-back games (6) where the second game is played against a team with a record above 0.500. Tied at six are the Golden State Warriors, and the Sacramento Kings. - Odd but true, the Houston Rockets along with the Sacramento Kings are the only teams that have both games in back-to-back games scheduled at home. - Out of the seven back-to-back games we have one back-to-back game sequence will be played at home, three games are considered split (one at home and one in the road…vice versa) back-to-back games, and three are road back-to-back games sequences. - The Houston Rockets have 11 games remaining against Eastern Conference (EC) teams. The team that benefits the most is Dallas which has 10 games against EC teams but only one game is against a team with a record of 0.500 or better. The Denver Nuggets have 13 games against EC teams but they play 62% of those against teams that have a record of 0.500 or better. So what can be inferred from all this data? (Assuming no injuries and team rosters remain the same) 1. Dallas will probably win the Southwest division, with New Orleans in second place (their schedule does not seem forgiving) and a tossup for third between San Antonio and Houston. San Antonio has poor road record and they play 62% of road games against teams with a record of 0.500 and better. The Rockets are at 67% which is by no means an improvement over the Spurs number but our team seems to be performing better in the road when compared to home games. Which brings me to the next point, 62% of Rockets (the Spurs are at 53%) home games are against teams with a record less than 0.500. All four of these SW division teams will make it to the playoffs. 2. Utah has a good chance of being the first seed in the Western Conference. 3. There is no chance that Sacramento will make the playoffs. Portland and Denver will probably not be making the playoffs. 4. LA Lakers will win the Pacific conference because of Phoenix’s remaining tough schedule. Actually, it will be a battle of acquisitions...which one was better O'Neal or Gasol? 5. Golden State will beat out Denver for the last playoff spot during the last week of the season. The info used for this analysis is contained in the following spreadsheet The spreadsheet contains the remaining schedule for the 11 Western Conference contending teams with their current records. At the bottom you can find some peculiar statistics with the lengthy description in column N. Feel free to read into the numbers however you want... Let me know if you find other interesting factoids! EDIT: For those interested, I will be updating the spreadsheet regularly.
Pretty impressive post! Thanks for sharing, the data spread on remaining home/road schedules and the breakdowns is statistically very interesting.
Fixed. Thanks! I wrote a computer program that calculates all this stuff and then dumps it into a .csv file and somehow I added to every team an extra road and home game.
This is really helpful in that, it's sort of like a projection through to the season's end, more accurate than standings because it factors in strengths of schedule. However, it does not account for the changes in quality of each team down the stretch. So basically, if the Rockets play as they have been, we'll be in the playoffs, probably 3rd or 4th in the SW division and 6th or 7th seeded in the West. In my opinion though, our cakewalk schedule through February could give us some much needed momentum to go into March and beat some of those teams we're not supposed to. Kind of like when you're running or riding a bike or driving downhill, the speed you pick up on the way down will help you climb a hill that immediately follows it. The Rockets got straddled with a huuuge uphill climb to start the season, so it's just starting to even out now. By comparison, teams like the Hornets and Spurs have been had an easy road for most of the year, and now will be their time of reckoning.
Overall great post but I couldn't let this slip. For one national televised games are decided before the season begins and most can't be changed. Even with the ones that can be changed you only have a choice between one or two other games and those are also decided in advance. So NO isn't getting disrespected no one expected them to be this good. Also ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. The only ugly games to me are the ones that we lose and the ones in which Sam Cassell plays.
Last season, one of the network (I can't remember which one...maybe ABC/ESPN) pulled the plug on the Rockets twice and replaced it by some teams that were hotter or interesting/fun to watch. This decision was done in late January/ early February.
Are you nuts? This is great stuff. I know this may not turn out to be true, but such statistical analysis is brilliant. Keep up the great work, jsmee!
All I said was that the Jazz do have a legitimate chance of being the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. Yesterday, the Jazz won and Phoenix lost which would make the Jazz 2½ games away from the top seed. Would you say that it is at least plausible? That's all I am claiming based on the schedule of the top teams. The other possible No. 1 seed would be the Dallas Mavericks. There is also a good chance that New Orleans, LA Lakers and Phoenix will not be at the top seeds at the end of the season. These are probabilities and anything can happen. Also I just realized that the link for the spreadsheet that I posted would be for gmail or Google members only. This would be the correct link for the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has been updated with the latest information and will be updated on a daily basis. Remember that column N describes in detail what the numbers mean.
Historically, the Spurs have always done mediocre at the beginning on the year and on the road. The Spurs turn it on with the start the Rodeo road trip. They are doing great on their road trip right now.
