Dec
27
The Quest Begins
While trying to come up with a stat that would take the NBA by storm, I kept asking myself the same question; what is the most essential part of basketball that would facilitate winning? And I figured that if I could get to the exact aspect of the sport which directly correlates towards winning, then I could figure out a way to track it, and that would be my stat.
So without further adieu my quest begins.
BASKETBALL IS A GAME OF… Home Court Advantage
Every year, NBA haters rant and rave about the fact that there are never any upsets in the NBA playoffs and that the home team always wins. So if that’s the case why don’t we just decide games based on which team’s home? Yeah, we talk about how the home team carries along with it a certain advantage, but why isn’t it an absolute advantage? Why don’t we just say before the season starts that Portland will end up with 41 wins (based on the number of home games they’ll play). Us fans hope they’ll hit mid forties in the win column, but I think going .500 in a ‘rebuilding’ is fairly promising. So let’s write it down; Portland will win 41 games this year.
And what about a team like Philadelphia? Are they as good as they’ve seemed in the beginning of this season? Or maybe they’ve cooled off a little, and they too, in a semi-rebuilding process would be satisfied with 41 wins without Bynum (since who here really thinks he’s gonna play for them?).
So far, this stat seems pretty spot on. Would you not agree that teams like Portland and Philadelphia make sense to end up at 41-41?
Of course, if you’re even thinking a little, you spot an obvious flaw in this method. Portland and Philadelphia may very well be .500 teams, but will OKC and Charlotte be .500 teams? Perhaps if you added their wins and losses together they’d be .500, but it seems more like OKC will be near .780 and Charlotte will be near .250 as their current records suggest.
The other main problem with this is that at the end of the season, the tie-breaker that the NBA will need to pull out of a hat will be the most ludicrous tie-breakers ever. You see, every team will finish 41-41 and every team will be 26-26 in their conference, so the NBA will need to turn elsewhere for tiebreakers. They might try Football’s version of a tie-breaker, “leave the game in a tie”. That won’t help. They might try Baseball’s version of a tie-breaker, “play until you need to put a third baseman in as pitcher” or for the NBA it would be, “set your 5 to be your backup point guard who couldn’t even buy time in the D-League. And finally, they might try Hockey’s version of a tie-breaker, a shoot out. Imagine two guys going head to head from half court. No cross-overs or pulling the ball back, no shooting from the outside, just pounding it in on the defender under a 5 second shot clock. Hmmm… As if the NBA wasn’t already his stomping grounds; Advantage LeBron.
Obviously the Hockey version sounds the most fun, but clearly that hasn’t worked out so great for hockey.
So clearly, this was a failure and coming up with a stat revolving around home court might be a little more complicated.
So here’s the stat:
Teams win home games. They do. In fact, last year, only 2 teams won less than 1/3 of their own home games; New Jersey (9 out of 33) and Charlotte (4). Last year, the average home winning percentage for the league was .580. 21 teams were over .500 and 9 were under .500. The point is, it’s not so impressive to win at home. Portland was 20-13 at home last year, but all that did for them was 4th place in their division. Utah was 25-8 at home, but all that did for them was the privilege of getting swept in the first round in the midst of a 20 something game winning streak by the Spurs.
The point is, winning at home is overrated. Winning away, now that’s more impressive. Last year, only 7 teams had an away winning percentage above .500. They were, Chicago, San Antonio, OKC, Miami, Indiana, and Atlanta (notice that the Lakers, Clippers and Grizzlies were not in that group). So to come up with the proper stat I figured winning percentage away was more important than winning percentage at home.
Final step – close games (3 or fewer points). They say that to win it all, teams need to be able to close out games, so I decided to factor that into this stat. Again, close games won away are more impressive than ones won at home, since you should be winning those games at home!
The stat is calculated as follows: (win % at home)*.65+(win % away)*.85+(close games won at home)*1+(close games won away)*1.5
Using this stat, the average score amongst all of the teams last year, was a 79.8, which seems pretty average to me. Amazingly, only teams with an 80 or over made the playoffs and just two teams over 80 (Phoenix and Houston) didn’t make the playoffs, but that’s because they play in the West.
Here’s how the teams stacked up:
|
Team
|
W
|
L
|
Home
W
|
Home
L
|
Away
W
|
Away
L
|
Close
games
won at
home
|
Close
games
won
away
|
Stat
#1
|
|
Chicago
|
50
|
16
|
26
|
7
|
24
|
9
|
2
|
3
|
119.53
|
|
San Antonio
|
50
|
16
|
28
|
5
|
22
|
11
|
0
|
5
|
119.32
|
|
Oklahoma City
|
47
|
19
|
26
|
7
|
21
|
12
|
1
|
4
|
112.30
|
|
Miami
|
46
|
20
|
28
|
5
|
18
|
15
|
2
|
4
|
109.52
|
|
L.A. Clippers
|
40
|
26
|
24
|
9
|
16
|
17
|
4
|
6
|
101.48
|
|
L.A. Lakers
|
41
|
25
|
26
|
7
|
15
|
18
|
2
|
6
|
100.85
|
|
Indiana
|
42
|
24
|
23
|
10
|
19
|
14
|
0
|
4
|
100.24
|
|
Memphis
|
41
|
25
|
26
|
7
|
15
|
18
|
3
|
3
|
97.35
|
|
Atlanta
|
40
|
26
|
23
|
10
|
17
|
16
|
3
|
3
|
96.59
|
|
Denver
|
38
|
28
|
20
|
13
|
18
|
15
|
3
|
4
|
94.76
|
|
Boston
|
39
|
27
|
24
|
9
|
15
|
18
|
2
|
4
|
93.91
|
|
New York
|
36
|
30
|
22
|
11
|
14
|
19
|
2
|
5
|
88.89
|
|
Dallas
|
36
|
30
|
23
|
10
|
13
|
20
|
2
|
5
|
88.29
|
|
Orlando
|
37
|
29
|
21
|
12
|
16
|
17
|
0
|
2
|
85.58
|
|
Utah
|
36
|
30
|
25
|
8
|
11
|
22
|
5
|
2
|
85.58
|
|
Phoenix
|
33
|
33
|
19
|
14
|
14
|
19
|
4
|
4
|
83.48
|
|
Houston
|
34
|
32
|
22
|
11
|
12
|
21
|
7
|
1
|
82.74
|
|
Philadelphia
|
35
|
31
|
19
|
14
|
16
|
17
|
0
|
1
|
80.14
|
|
Milwaukee
|
31
|
35
|
17
|
16
|
14
|
19
|
3
|
1
|
74.05
|
|
Minnesota
|
26
|
40
|
13
|
20
|
13
|
20
|
4
|
3
|
67.59
|
|
Portland
|
28
|
38
|
20
|
13
|
8
|
25
|
1
|
2
|
64.00
|
|
Detroit
|
25
|
41
|
18
|
15
|
7
|
26
|
6
|
1
|
60.98
|
|
Golden State
|
23
|
43
|
12
|
21
|
11
|
22
|
2
|
3
|
58.47
|
|
New Jersey
|
22
|
44
|
9
|
24
|
13
|
20
|
2
|
3
|
57.71
|
|
Sacramento
|
22
|
44
|
16
|
17
|
6
|
27
|
4
|
2
|
53.97
|
|
Washington
|
20
|
46
|
11
|
22
|
9
|
24
|
3
|
3
|
52.35
|
|
New Orleans
|
19
|
47
|
11
|
22
|
8
|
25
|
1
|
4
|
49.27
|
|
Cleveland
|
19
|
47
|
11
|
22
|
8
|
25
|
3
|
2
|
48.27
|
|
Toronto
|
21
|
45
|
13
|
20
|
8
|
25
|
0
|
1
|
47.71
|
|
Charlotte
|
7
|
59
|
4
|
29
|
3
|
30
|
1
|
1
|
18.11
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The thing with this stat is that it picks up on small signs about certain teams. For example: Toronto won 3 more games than Washington, but of Washington’s wins, were closer, which showed they could hang in tough games, so they were pushed up. Also, during last year’s playoffs, there were only 2 upsets (not including the Rose-less Bulls losing to the 76ers) LAC over MEM in round 1, and OKC over SAS in the conference finals. Take a look where MEM ranks in my stat; below LAC, despite having a better record. You can pretty much say I predicted it!
Anyhow enough with last year, using this stat let’s quickly see where teams stand this year:
|
teams
|
W
|
L
|
home
w
|
home
l
|
away
w
|
away
l
|
Close games won at home
|
Close games won away
|
Stat #1
|
|
L.A. Clippers
|
22
|
6
|
13
|
3
|
9
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
119.06
|
|
San
Antonio
|
22
|
8
|
11
|
2
|
11
|
6
|
1
|
2
|
114.00
|
|
New York
|
21
|
8
|
12
|
2
|
9
|
6
|
2
|
3
|
113.21
|
|
Oklahoma
City
|
21
|
6
|
14
|
2
|
7
|
4
|
0
|
1
|
112.47
|
|
Miami
|
20
|
6
|
14
|
2
|
6
|
4
|
2
|
1
|
111.38
|
|
Golden
State
|
19
|
10
|
8
|
4
|
11
|
6
|
1
|
2
|
102.33
|
|
Atlanta
|
17
|
9
|
10
|
5
|
7
|
4
|
3
|
0
|
100.42
|
|
Memphis
|
18
|
8
|
12
|
3
|
6
|
5
|
0
|
0
|
98.36
|
|
Denver
|
16
|
14
|
9
|
1
|
7
|
13
|
1
|
1
|
90.75
|
|
Indiana
|
16
|
12
|
8
|
3
|
8
|
9
|
0
|
2
|
90.27
|
|
Milwaukee
|
15
|
12
|
8
|
6
|
7
|
6
|
2
|
1
|
86.41
|
|
Chicago
|
15
|
12
|
8
|
7
|
7
|
5
|
1
|
0
|
85.25
|
|
Houston
|
16
|
12
|
11
|
5
|
5
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
82.60
|
|
Utah
|
15
|
15
|
9
|
3
|
6
|
12
|
3
|
1
|
81.58
|
|
Portland
|
14
|
13
|
10
|
4
|
4
|
9
|
3
|
1
|
77.08
|
|
Boston
|
14
|
13
|
9
|
5
|
5
|
8
|
2
|
0
|
76.48
|
|
Minnesota
|
13
|
13
|
8
|
4
|
5
|
9
|
2
|
0
|
75.69
|
|
Brooklyn
|
14
|
14
|
9
|
7
|
5
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
74.48
|
|
Philadelphia
|
14
|
15
|
9
|
7
|
5
|
8
|
3
|
0
|
72.25
|
|
L.A.
Lakers
|
14
|
15
|
9
|
6
|
5
|
9
|
0
|
1
|
70.86
|
|
Dallas
|
12
|
16
|
8
|
4
|
4
|
12
|
0
|
2
|
67.58
|
|
Orlando
|
12
|
16
|
7
|
8
|
5
|
8
|
0
|
0
|
63.03
|
|
Phoenix
|
11
|
18
|
9
|
7
|
2
|
11
|
4
|
0
|
53.64
|
|
Toronto
|
9
|
20
|
7
|
5
|
2
|
15
|
1
|
1
|
50.42
|
|
Detroit
|
9
|
22
|
6
|
8
|
3
|
14
|
1
|
0
|
43.86
|
|
Sacramento
|
9
|
19
|
8
|
7
|
1
|
12
|
2
|
0
|
43.21
|
|
Charlotte
|
7
|
21
|
5
|
11
|
2
|
10
|
2
|
2
|
39.48
|
|
Cleveland
|
7
|
23
|
3
|
9
|
4
|
14
|
0
|
2
|
38.14
|
|
New
Orleans
|
6
|
22
|
3
|
11
|
3
|
11
|
1
|
1
|
34.64
|
|
Washington
|
3
|
23
|
2
|
11
|
1
|
12
|
1
|
0
|
17.54
|
No real surprises here, as the season is still young, but there are a few things to point out. Firstly, the Blazers are just below the 80 (playoff) mark, which, again is a good sign for a young rebuilding team. Also, if you look at the top, the Clippers (who have a 14 game win streak going into tonight’s game are ranked considerably higher than OKC, by virtue of their strong showing on the road. Finally, Golden State leapfrogged a few teams by virtue of its away record and close games. Let’s see if these play out throughout the season.
Please send you comments/questions/accolades/issues about stat#1- I will respond to them within my next blog
And most importantly I’d love to hear what you guys would name each of my ‘stats’ starting with this one. I will choose the winner from your suggestions.