Rockets 09/10 Win/Loss Profile Against Good/Mediocre/Bad Teams

82games.com has an interesting piece of information called "win/loss profile," which breaks down how a team is doing against various types of of opponents. For example, high scoring/middle scoring/low scoring, fast pace/medium pace/slow pace, etc. Basically, the 30 teams of the league are ranked 1-30 based on the relevant features, and then broken into 3 groups of high (1st to 10th), middle (11th-20th) and low (21-30th) in accordance with the relevant category.

One thing that I found most interesting is the W/L breakdown based on "Net Points," i.e. difference between points scored and points scored against a team. Because "net points" generally tells you how good a team is over the course of a season. A top 10 "net points" team is a top 10 best team in the leauge, etc. It's a rough division, but I think it's useful.

So here's how the Rockets this season against the high, middle and low teams in terms of "net points" this year. Well actually, I decided to use a similar stat: the "SRS" (simple ranking system) from basketball-reference.com instead. The SRS take strength of schedule into account, as well as points differential. I am using SRS because (1) strenth of schedule tends to even out in an 82game season, but varies more in the early part of the season among teams, and (2) it's the measure that I can get my hands on most easily. In any case, the spirit of the numbers should be the same.

Rockets 09/10 W/L Record vs:

Good Teams (1-10): 5-6 (45%)
Middle Teams (11-20): 1-2 (33%)
Bad Teams (21-30): 3-0 (100%)​

Here is the team's breakdown from 08/09

Good Teams (1-10): 17-14 (55%)
Middle Teams (11-20): 14-6 (70%)
Bad Teams (21-30): 22-9 (71%)​

Here are my thoughts and theories based on the early numbers and a review of numbers from past seasons and other team:

1. The Rockets have had a damn difficult schedule. 11 out of their 17 games (65%) have been against "top 10 teams." In a typical season, you'd expect to have about 1/3 of your games against "top 10 teams." The Rockets, for example had 31 of 82 games last year (38%) against top 10 teams.

2. It's especially hard to draw conclusions based on the Rockets 1-2 record against "Middle Teams" and their 3-0 record against "Bad Teams" because of the very low number of games in each category. The 5-6 Record agaisnt "Good Teams," however, is a little more meaningful. It's about 30% of a season's worth of games you'd expect to play agaisnt the "Good Teams." (Of course, the identity of "good teams" can change later in the season, but it's still useful info for now.).

3. So, what can we conclude from this 5-6 Record? My conclusion is that the early numbers indicate the Rockets are playing like a 50-win team. Here's how I arrived at this thought:

A 5-6 Record gives you about a 45% win rate against Good Teams. Looking at prior data, such a win rate against Good Teams have tended to give a team 50+ wins overall. I.e. a team that can win 45% of its "Good Team" games will win significantly more of their "Middle Team" or "Bad Team" games-- a high enough %, typically, to result in 50+ wins overall.

For example:

Here are the win% against "Good Teams" by the teams that won 50 games, or at least close to it in 08/09:

BOS: 50%
HOU: 55%
ATL: 31%
ORL: 62%
CLE: 67%
LAL: 74%
SA: 41%
DAL: 36%
DEN: 48%
NOR: 39%
UTA: 36%
POR: 43%​

Besides Lakers (67 wins), ORL (59 wins), and CLE (66 wins), a 45% win rate vs. Good Teams is pretty much as good as that of any of the 50-win (and close to 50 win) teams from last season. Even the 62 win Celtics only won 50% of their games vs. Good Teams (though they are probably the exception).

I didn't go though all of the rest of the league yet, but those non-50 win teams I've seen have not topped 40% in terms of win% vs. Good Teams.

I also took a look at the Rockets win % against "Good Teams" since 02/03 (the first year for which 82game.com has data), here's how it came out:

08/09: 55% 53 wins
07/08: 43% 55 wins
06/07: 44% 52 wins
05/06: 18% 34 wins
04/05: 55% 51 wins
03/04: 30% 45 wins
02/03: 32% 43wins​

Sure seems llike the Rockets have tended to win 50+ games whenever they manage a 40+% win rate against the top 10 teams. When the Rockets have won less than 50 games, they tend to win against the top team at a much lower rate.

Of course, I have not looked at the data on every team in every season, but I don't think it's a fluke based on a good number data points that I have example.

 

Yeah, I agree it's a bit too early too tell. For instance, OKC is ranked 7th in terms of SRS right now-- and they've been playing very well to deserve it, too. But they might drop out. PHX is currently ranked 11th (largely due to unimpressive strength of schedule, I think), but they might move up. Switching OKC (against whom Rockets are 2-0) with PHX (against whom Rockets are 0-1) and the Rockets are 3-7 (30%) instead of 5-6 (45%) vs. "Good Teams."

In any case, I think we can still agree that the Rockets have had some nice wins against teams that are playing pretty good basketball, which is promising.

 

Increase level of team play/confidence/cohesiveness so the team is more ready next year (hopefully to have a good shot at the championship with return of Yao and addition of other talent).
Increases the trade value of players on the roster.
Increases fan interest, team income, and financial resources of the team so they can spend more on players.

There are plenty of benefits.