NBA Team Rankings - February 2, 2012

Here are the NBA Betting Market Power Rankings for February 2, 2012. These rankings use point spreads and over/unders from the past three weeks to derive an implied estimate of team strength. More at the Methodology page.

Summary

There was no movement among the top 4 this week, with the Thunder clinging to the top spot by a half point over the Heat.

Orlando and (soon-to-be-traded?) Dwight Howard, on the other hand, are in free fall. A week ago, the Magic were ranked 5th with a GPF (Generic Points Favored) of 4.5. They have since dropped 10 spots to 15th and lost 3.5 points of GPF. Using the GWP (Generic Win Probability) column, the Magic went from being a team expected to win 67% of its games, to a team expected to win only 54% of the time.

The Bobcats are another team on a downward trajectory. Last week, they took over the bottom spot from the Wizards. They spent this week putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the league. The nicest thing I can say about them at this point is that they're not quite as bad as their record. They have won 15% of their games, but their GWP expects them to be an 18% team.

The Rankings (glossary below):

Rank	Team	LstWk	GPF	oGPF		dGPF		GOU		W-L		GWP
1	OKC	1	6.5	7.0	2	-0.5	16	196	2	17-4	1	0.73
2	MIA	2	6.0	6.5	3	-0.5	17	196	3	16-6	5	0.72
3	CHI	3	5.5	1.5	11	4.0	3	186	21	18-6	2	0.70
4	DEN	4	5.0	9.5	1	-4.5	30	203	1	14-7	8	0.68
5	POR	7	3.5	1.0	13	2.5	8	187	18	13-9	14	0.64
6	LAL	8	3.5	-1.0	21	4.5	2	183	26	13-9	12	0.63
7	DAL	10	3.0	-1.0	18	4.0	5	184	23	14-9	10	0.62
8	PHI	6	3.0	-1.0	20	4.0	4	184	24	16-6	4	0.61
9	ATL	13	3.0	0.0	15	3.0	7	186	20	16-6	3	0.61
10	IND	11	3.0	1.5	10	1.5	11	189	16	15-6	6	0.61
11	SAS	9	2.5	2.0	8	0.5	13	191	14	14-9	9	0.60
12	LAC	17	2.5	3.5	4	-1.0	18	193	8	13-6	7	0.59
13	MEM	12	2.0	-0.5	16	2.5	9	186	22	11-10	16	0.57
14	HOU	16	1.5	3.0	5	-1.5	20	193	7	12-10	15	0.55
15	ORL	5	1.0	-2.0	25	3.0	6	184	25	13-9	13	0.54
16	MIN	19	0.5	2.5	6	-2.0	22	193	6	10-12	19	0.53
17	BOS	18	0.0	-5.5	26	5.5	1	178	30	11-10	17	0.50
18	UTA	14	0.0	1.5	9	-1.5	21	192	10	12-8	11	0.49
19	NYK	15	-0.5	1.0	12	-1.5	19	191	13	8-13	21	0.49
20	GSW	21	-0.5	2.5	7	-3.0	23	194	4	7-12	23	0.48
21	MIL	20	-1.0	-0.5	17	-0.5	15	188	17	10-11	18	0.47
22	PHX	22	-3.0	0.5	14	-3.5	27	193	5	8-13	22	0.39
23	NOH	24	-4.0	-6.5	28	2.5	10	181	29	4-18	27	0.34
24	SAC	28	-4.5	-1.0	19	-3.5	28	192	11	6-15	26	0.33
25	CLE	25	-5.0	-1.5	23	-3.5	24	191	15	8-12	20	0.32
26	NJN	23	-5.0	-1.5	22	-3.5	25	191	12	8-15	24	0.32
27	TOR	26	-6.0	-6.5	29	0.5	12	182	28	7-16	25	0.29
28	WAS	29	-6.0	-1.5	24	-4.5	29	192	9	4-18	28	0.28
29	DET	27	-6.5	-6.5	30	0.0	14	183	27	4-20	29	0.27
30	CHA	30	-10.0	-6.0	27	-4.0	26	187	19	3-20	30	0.18

GLOSSARY

LstWk - The BTM ranking from last week.

GPF - Stands for "Generic Points Favored". It's what you would expect the team to be favored by against a league average opponent at a neutral site.

oGPF - Stands for "Offensive Generic Points Favored". The component of a team's total GPF attributable to its ability to score points (per game).

dGPF - Stands for "Defensive Generic Points Favored". The component of a team's total GPF attributable to its ability to prevent the other team from scoring points (per game).

GOU - Stands for "Generic Over/Under". It's what you would expect the betting over/under to be for the given team when playing a league average opponent.

W-L - The team's win/loss record (and win percentage rank)

GWP - Stands for "Generic Win Probability". I converted the GPF into a win probability using the following formula: 1/(1 + exp(-GPF/6.5)).

Additional Key Factors: