Updated Hollinger's rankings... Dec. 31

I did this already. See posts #70 and #111 in this thread for the results.

 

OK, clearly I need to get to a real PC, because I'm sitting in an airport typing on a tablet, and this post wasn't here when I started. +1 to durvasa.

 

On the ESPN Rankings there ranked like 13 or somthin like that

 

Cool. I saw 111 but missed 70. Not quite what I had envisioned, but I think that makes the case quite well (with respect to predictive power based on the record through December). I was thinking more along the lines of a creating a time series for each season where each line tracks a team's ranking by a metric against the final season rankings to visualize the deviations within a season and eventually evaluate the metric with a pseudo-area under the curve score to see how close the metric performs over time.

 

So, I tried to do a little test on how Hollinger's projection works...

First, using the wayback machine, I found Hollinger's playoff odds on January 7, 2009, which contains a projection of final team standing that he made based on the Hollinger Power Ranking as of January 7, 2009:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090107132929/http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds

I picked this info because it's Hollinger record projection that I found with a date closest to January 1. It's a little further into the season than Jan 1, of course.

Then I found the actual final standing of each team and compared it with Hollinger's January 7, 2009 projection. The result: an RMSE of 4.17. For what it's worth, using a projection based solely on W-L record as of January 7, 2009 results in an RMSE of 5.28.
I could no find a simple way to find the RW-HL record of each team as of January 7, 2009. If you can find it, please feel free to make the calculation.

Below is the data set I used:

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<table class="tableizer-table">
<tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th></th><th>Jan 7 Record</th><th>&nbsp;</th><th>&nbsp;</th><th>Jan 7 Hollinger</th><th>&nbsp;</th><th>&nbsp;</th><th>Actual Final Record</th><th>&nbsp;</th><th>&nbsp;</th></tr>
<tr><td>Team</td><td>W</td><td>L</td><td>Win %</td><td>W</td><td>L</td><td>Win %</td><td> W</td><td>L</td><td>Win %</td></tr>
<tr><td>Atlanta</td><td>22</td><td>11</td><td>0.666666667</td><td>50</td><td>32</td><td>0.609756098</td><td>47</td><td>35</td><td>0.573</td></tr>
<tr><td>Boston</td><td>29</td><td>7</td><td>0.805555556</td><td>61</td><td>21</td><td>0.743902439</td><td>62</td><td>20</td><td>0.756</td></tr>
<tr><td>Charlotte</td><td>13</td><td>22</td><td>0.371428571</td><td>33</td><td>49</td><td>0.402439024</td><td>35</td><td>47</td><td>0.427</td></tr>
<tr><td>Chicago</td><td>15</td><td>20</td><td>0.428571429</td><td>35</td><td>47</td><td>0.426829268</td><td>41</td><td>41</td><td>0.5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cleveland</td><td>27</td><td>6</td><td>0.818181818</td><td>63</td><td>19</td><td>0.768292683</td><td>66</td><td>16</td><td>0.805</td></tr>
<tr><td>Dallas</td><td>21</td><td>13</td><td>0.617647059</td><td>46</td><td>36</td><td>0.56097561</td><td>50</td><td>32</td><td>0.61</td></tr>
<tr><td>Denver</td><td>24</td><td>12</td><td>0.666666667</td><td>52</td><td>30</td><td>0.634146341</td><td>54</td><td>28</td><td>0.659</td></tr>
<tr><td>Detroit</td><td>21</td><td>11</td><td>0.65625</td><td>45</td><td>37</td><td>0.548780488</td><td>39</td><td>43</td><td>0.476</td></tr>
<tr><td>Golden State</td><td>10</td><td>26</td><td>0.277777778</td><td>29</td><td>53</td><td>0.353658537</td><td>29</td><td>53</td><td>0.354</td></tr>
<tr><td>Houston</td><td>21</td><td>15</td><td>0.583333333</td><td>47</td><td>35</td><td>0.573170732</td><td>53</td><td>29</td><td>0.646</td></tr>
<tr><td>Indiana</td><td>12</td><td>22</td><td>0.352941176</td><td>33</td><td>49</td><td>0.402439024</td><td>36</td><td>46</td><td>0.439</td></tr>
<tr><td>LA Clippers</td><td>8</td><td>26</td><td>0.235294118</td><td>22</td><td>60</td><td>0.268292683</td><td>19</td><td>63</td><td>0.232</td></tr>
<tr><td>LA Lakers</td><td>27</td><td>6</td><td>0.818181818</td><td>61</td><td>21</td><td>0.743902439</td><td>65</td><td>17</td><td>0.793</td></tr>
<tr><td>Memphis</td><td>11</td><td>24</td><td>0.314285714</td><td>25</td><td>57</td><td>0.304878049</td><td>24</td><td>58</td><td>0.293</td></tr>
<tr><td>Miami</td><td>18</td><td>15</td><td>0.545454545</td><td>42</td><td>40</td><td>0.512195122</td><td>43</td><td>39</td><td>0.524</td></tr>
<tr><td>Milwaukee</td><td>17</td><td>19</td><td>0.472222222</td><td>45</td><td>37</td><td>0.548780488</td><td>34</td><td>48</td><td>0.415</td></tr>
<tr><td>Minnesota</td><td>9</td><td>25</td><td>0.264705882</td><td>28</td><td>54</td><td>0.341463415</td><td>24</td><td>58</td><td>0.293</td></tr>
<tr><td>New Jersey</td><td>17</td><td>18</td><td>0.485714286</td><td>34</td><td>48</td><td>0.414634146</td><td>34</td><td>48</td><td>0.415</td></tr>
<tr><td>New Orleans</td><td>21</td><td>10</td><td>0.677419355</td><td>54</td><td>28</td><td>0.658536585</td><td>49</td><td>33</td><td>0.598</td></tr>
<tr><td>New York</td><td>13</td><td>20</td><td>0.393939394</td><td>32</td><td>50</td><td>0.390243902</td><td>32</td><td>50</td><td>0.39</td></tr>
<tr><td>Oklahoma City</td><td>5</td><td>30</td><td>0.142857143</td><td>20</td><td>62</td><td>0.243902439</td><td>23</td><td>59</td><td>0.28</td></tr>
<tr><td>Orlando</td><td>27</td><td>8</td><td>0.771428571</td><td>58</td><td>24</td><td>0.707317073</td><td>59</td><td>23</td><td>0.72</td></tr>
<tr><td>Philadelphia</td><td>14</td><td>20</td><td>0.411764706</td><td>37</td><td>45</td><td>0.451219512</td><td>41</td><td>41</td><td>0.5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Phoenix</td><td>19</td><td>12</td><td>0.612903226</td><td>49</td><td>33</td><td>0.597560976</td><td>46</td><td>36</td><td>0.561</td></tr>
<tr><td>Portland</td><td>20</td><td>14</td><td>0.588235294</td><td>50</td><td>32</td><td>0.609756098</td><td>54</td><td>28</td><td>0.659</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sacramento</td><td>8</td><td>28</td><td>0.222222222</td><td>21</td><td>61</td><td>0.256097561</td><td>17</td><td>65</td><td>0.207</td></tr>
<tr><td>San Antonio</td><td>23</td><td>11</td><td>0.676470588</td><td>49</td><td>33</td><td>0.597560976</td><td>54</td><td>28</td><td>0.659</td></tr>
<tr><td>Toronto</td><td>14</td><td>21</td><td>0.4</td><td>37</td><td>45</td><td>0.451219512</td><td>33</td><td>49</td><td>0.402</td></tr>
<tr><td>Utah</td><td>20</td><td>15</td><td>0.571428571</td><td>47</td><td>35</td><td>0.573170732</td><td>48</td><td>34</td><td>0.585</td></tr>
<tr><td>Washington</td><td>7</td><td>26</td><td>0.212121212</td><td>27</td><td>55</td><td>0.329268293</td><td>19</td><td>63</td><td>0.232</td></tr>
<tr><td>RMSE for Wins</td><td>5.28</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>4.17</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td> </td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td></td></tr></table>

 

One more thing to note:

The apparent effect of "home court advantage" in the season is not always a matter of location and having fans cheering you on. Specifically, it can at least partially be attributed to whether you are playing the 2nd half of a back to back.

NBA teams NEVER play 2 home games on 2 nights (as far as I can tell from looking at schedules), this makes sense from the point of view of selling tickets, and they almost never finish a back-to-back at home-- a notable exception for the Rocket this season was the recent home loss to OKC, when HOU played the night before and OKC did not. So, the vast majority of your "no rest" games (i.e. 2nd half of b2b) are road games and most of the time you are playing against a rested home team.

So, these two factors, home vs. road and rest days, are intertwined.

 

Fairly good results. Most teams came in with 4 wins. Milwaukee was a big outlier. But injuries and trade can have a big impact as the forecast is well before the trade deadline and regular season end.

 

toracon wrote:

"At the time I said that #6 was as high as we would probably go. I stand corrected...."

You stand corrected once again. As of this morning we are ranked fourth! I'm blown away!

 

We just keep on climbing...

Up to number FOUR in the league:

Rating: 106.073

Mar L10: +9.5

SOS L10: .595

Playoff Odds: 94%

Projected record: 51-31

...Champ: 6.3%!


Grain of salt, but feels good man...

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings

 

Hollinger's system is so broke... Lol. I wonder how he's doing in memphis.