NBA Team Rankings - March 10, 2012

Mexican Grizzlies at the Field Columbian Museum

Here are the NBA Team Rankings as of March 10, 2012. These rankings use the Vegas point spreads from recent games to derive an implied measure of team strength (Generic Points Favored, or GPF). By combining the point spread information with the betting over/unders, I can also decompose team strength into its offensive and defensive components (oGPF and dGPF). For more detail, see the Methodology page.

The Heat, Bulls, and Thunder still occupy the top three spots, as they have all year. But the Heat and Bulls are now in a virtual, um, heat for first place, with the Thunder trailing by three points (a significant margin for these rankings).

Here is how the Bulls and Heat have progressed throughout the season:

After moving in lockstep for most of the season, the Heat started pulling away in early February, and the Bulls started sliding (most likely due to Derrick Rose's five game absence due to injury). Now with Rose back in the lineup, the Bulls are on the rise and the Heat have started slipping (with Chris Bosh's three game absence in early March a contributing factor).

The Grizzlies have cracked the top ten for the first time, having won five straight and ten of their last twelve. Follow their progress on The Ticker.

The Rankings (glossary below):

Rank	Team	LstWk	GPF	oGPF		dGPF		GOU		W-L		GWP
1	MIA	1	7.5	5.5	3	2.0	9	196	9	30-9	3	0.77
2	CHI	3	7.5	2.0	7	5.5	2	190	21	33-9	1	0.76
3	OKC	2	4.5	6.0	2	-1.5	19	200	5	31-9	2	0.67
4	SAS	6	3.5	3.0	5	0.5	14	196	10	26-13	4	0.64
5	LAL	7	3.5	-0.5	19	4.0	5	188	23	24-16	9	0.63
6	PHI	8	3.5	-2.5	23	6.0	1	184	29	24-17	10	0.63
7	LAC	4	3.0	2.0	9	1.0	12	194	14	23-15	8	0.62
8	ORL	5	3.0	-1.0	20	4.0	6	188	25	26-15	5	0.62
9	IND	10	2.5	1.0	12	1.5	10	192	17	23-14	6	0.60
10	MEM	13	2.5	-0.5	18	3.0	8	190	22	23-15	7	0.60
11	DEN	14	2.5	7.0	1	-4.5	27	204	1	23-18	12	0.60
12	DAL	9	2.0	-2.5	22	4.5	7	187	26	23-19	13	0.57
13	NYK	12	1.0	4.5	4	-3.5	25	201	3	18-22	20	0.54
14	POR	11	0.5	0.0	17	0.5	13	193	16	19-21	18	0.53
15	BOS	16	0.5	-4.0	26	4.5	4	185	27	21-18	14	0.52
16	UTA	18	0.0	1.0	13	-1.0	18	195	12	19-20	17	0.50
17	HOU	19	0.0	0.5	14	-0.5	17	195	13	21-19	15	0.50
18	MIN	15	-0.5	2.0	8	-2.5	23	198	7	21-20	16	0.49
19	ATL	20	-0.5	-5.0	28	4.5	3	183	30	23-17	11	0.48
20	GSW	23	-1.0	1.5	11	-2.5	24	198	8	15-21	21	0.46
21	PHX	17	-2.0	0.0	16	-2.0	21	195	11	18-21	19	0.43
22	MIL	21	-2.5	2.0	10	-4.5	28	200	6	16-24	22	0.40
23	SAC	22	-2.5	3.0	6	-5.5	29	202	2	14-26	25	0.40
24	TOR	25	-4.0	-4.5	27	0.5	15	188	24	13-26	27	0.35
25	CLE	29	-4.0	-1.5	21	-2.5	22	194	15	15-23	23	0.35
26	DET	27	-4.0	-3.5	25	-0.5	16	190	20	14-26	24	0.34
27	NJN	24	-5.0	-3.0	24	-2.0	20	192	18	14-27	26	0.32
28	NOH	26	-5.5	-7.0	30	1.5	11	184	28	9-1	29	0.30
29	WAS	28	-7.0	0.0	15	-7.0	30	201	4	9-29	28	0.25
30	CHA	30	-9.5	-5.5	29	-4.0	26	191	19	5-1	30	0.19

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:

League Average Points Scored (APS): 96.5 points
Home Court Advantage (HCA): 3.25 points
Back to Back Penalty (B2B): -0.75 points (see here)

How to Use This Table to Build Point Spreads and Over/Unders

Point Spread (in favor of home team) = HCA + (B2B_home - B2B_away) + (GPF_home - GPF_away)
Over/Under = 2*APS + (oGPF_home + oGPF_away - dGPF_home - dGPF_away)