NBA Team Rankings - March 17, 2012

Here are the NBA Team Rankings as of March 17, 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.

Heat Rises

The Bulls had pulled even to the Heat last week, but with Derrick Rose out once again to injury, the Heat have reestablished their two point lead in the rankings (despite a road loss to the Bulls on Wednesday).

What's Going on with the Knicks?

All the chatter on the Knicks this past week has been on how the wheels were coming off. A six game losing streak. Head coach Mike D'Antoni resigns. A possible end to Linsanity. But you wouldn't know it if you look at the betting lines. The Knicks have been surging, climbing six spots to #7. This seemed like a good excuse to try out Google's Annotated Timeline feature. See below for the Knicks' progression this season in terms of Generic Points Favored (GPF). Note the spike in GPF after Mike D'Antoni's resignation. We'll see if that persists.

The Rankings:

Rank	Team	LstWk	GPF	oGPF		dGPF		GOU		W-L		GWP
1	MIA	1	8.5	5.0	4	3.5	7	196	14	32-11	3	0.79
2	CHI	2	6.5	2.0	9	4.5	2	192	20	36-10	1	0.73
3	OKC	3	5.5	6.0	1	-0.5	15	201	5	33-11	2	0.70
4	SAS	4	4.5	5.0	3	-0.5	17	200	7	29-13	4	0.66
5	PHI	6	4.0	-2.5	23	6.5	1	186	29	25-19	11	0.64
6	LAL	5	3.5	-0.5	18	4.0	6	190	24	28-16	6	0.63
7	NYK	13	3.0	5.0	5	-2.0	20	201	6	20-24	20	0.61
8	ORL	8	3.0	-1.0	21	4.0	4	189	25	29-16	5	0.61
9	IND	9	2.5	0.5	15	2.0	10	193	17	25-17	7	0.60
10	LAC	7	2.5	0.0	16	2.5	11	192	18	24-18	9	0.59
11	DEN	11	1.5	5.5	2	-4.0	28	204	1	24-20	14	0.56
12	MEM	10	1.5	-1.0	19	2.5	9	191	21	24-18	8	0.56
13	DAL	12	1.0	-2.0	22	3.0	8	189	26	25-20	12	0.55
14	BOS	15	1.0	-3.5	26	4.5	3	187	27	23-20	15	0.53
15	POR	14	0.5	-0.5	17	1.0	13	193	16	21-23	19	0.52
16	ATL	19	0.0	-4.0	27	4.0	5	187	28	25-19	10	0.50
17	MIL	22	0.0	4.0	6	-4.0	27	202	4	20-24	21	0.50
18	UTA	16	0.0	1.0	11	-1.0	18	197	11	21-22	18	0.50
19	MIN	18	-1.0	2.5	8	-3.5	25	200	8	22-23	17	0.47
20	PHX	21	-1.0	1.5	10	-2.5	22	198	10	22-22	16	0.46
21	HOU	17	-1.0	0.5	14	-1.5	19	197	12	24-20	13	0.46
22	GSW	20	-2.5	1.0	12	-3.5	26	199	9	18-23	22	0.41
23	DET	26	-4.0	-3.0	24	-1.0	16	192	19	16-28	24	0.36
24	CLE	25	-4.0	-1.0	20	-3.0	24	196	13	16-25	23	0.35
25	SAC	23	-4.0	2.5	7	-6.5	29	204	2	15-29	25	0.35
26	TOR	24	-4.5	-4.5	28	0.0	14	190	23	15-29	26	0.33
27	NJN	27	-5.5	-3.5	25	-2.0	21	193	15	15-30	27	0.30
28	NOH	28	-6.0	-7.5	30	1.5	12	185	30	10-34	29	0.28
29	WAS	29	-7.0	0.5	13	-7.5	30	203	3	10-33	28	0.26
30	CHA	30	-9.0	-6.5	29	-2.5	23	191	22	6-36	30	0.20

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): 97.5 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)