Page 1 of 2
Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 10:57 pm
by Wannabe MEP
From
Sagarin Ratings:

Notes:
- Crystal clear hierarchy at the top: 1) Dubs 2) Spurs 3) Thunder 4) Clips
- Tight pack in the middle…but it doesn’t look as tough as it has the past few years.
- The pileup at the bottom has grown, between Portland losing LMA, Alvin Gentry’s wizardry, etc.
So, at least according to this early pulse-check, it looks like the Suns are one of 5 teams vying for 4 playoff spots. And right now we’re #2 on that list…but 3–5 have the far superior recent history.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:18 pm
by bwgood77
It's interesting to look at the details. We have played the 28th toughest schedule (and Memphis the 3rd toughest) but also interesting that three of the other teams that have had the easiest schedules are the Warriors (29th), Spurs (27th) and Cavs (26th). The Sixers of course have played the toughest schedule but the league is a lot tougher when you never get to play the Sixers.
I used to look at Sagarin ratings all the time, though mostly for college.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:08 am
by DRK
Good thing for our team is we usually play better against good teams. Will be interesting to see how we go when our schdule gets harder. I feel we will be relying on Tyson Chandler alot more against the elite teams.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:17 am
by Wannabe MEP
bwgood77 wrote:We have played the 28th toughest schedule
Schedule's definitely been soft, including a lot of home games. But our point differential is better than our record, so...

This Suns team is not blowing my mind. But it's good enough defensively to stay in most games, and win easily against weak teams. The West doesn't seem like the uber-conference it's been in recent years, at least depth-wise. Houston & Memphis have been...weird. And I'm not sure what to make of Dallas yet either.
bwgood77 wrote:I used to look at Sagarin ratings all the time, though mostly for college.
Yeah, Hollinger is my go-to for NBA ratings like this, but nothing posted yet this season.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:31 am
by 8on
hmmm.....i've been debating the bottom 4 of the playoff field for the last couple of days.
Houston is off to an uncharacteristic start, but check out Harden's shooting numbers. They're atrocious. when you take into account his high volume, it's even worse. he's leading the league in missed field goals. what's more outrageous; that the Wolves will have a better record than the Rockets, meaning that Rubio, Towns, Wiggins and LaVine stay healthy, or that Harden finds his stroke?
so i'm marking the Rockets in no lower than the 8th seed.
most room to fall: Mavericks. Deron is underrated, Wes is a real question mark because of the ACL, and Nowitzki because of his age. we may start to see him fade closer to 13 PPG by the end of the season. the roster is so thin that if any of those three were to miss two weeks, it could ruin their entire season. i like guys like Dwight Powell, but the rest of the roster is a big fat question mark. Parsons is hit or miss, Villanueva is hit, miss, or miss, Pachulia's not a great rim protector or interior defender. true fact: the Mavericks have the 2nd worst strength of schedule. it seems most likely that they have the most room to fall.
good chance to outperform: Blazers. They really haven't had enough time to mesh. It's a drastically different squad than last year. In particular, Aminu, Plumlee and Davis have been way better than I expected per minute. they've lived up to the roles they have. i had a feeling McCollum just needed the playing time; his offensive production has been very good. their frontcourt is the weakest part of the team, but they have some tradeable assets. i wouldn't be surprised to see them make a move by the deadline.
Wolves: i'll have to be convinced that Andrew Wiggins isn't going to disappear for solid chunks of games. is he a game closer? can Towns lower his foul rate? if not, i have hard time seeing them in the playoffs.
Nuggets: room to grow with Mudiay. Barton is starting to break through. Gallo is the unquestioned #1 option. not a playoff team, but might sneak up to 10th or 11th.
Pelicans: what happened? no Tyreke, i guess.
Grizzlies: to me, the simplest explanation is that Zach Randolph is showing his age. Gasol hasn't been the world beater he was last year, either. it's possible that the Grizzlies' formula, which they've used since 2009, is running out of juice. not everybody can be the Spurs. that said, if i had to guess they'll finish somewhere between 8th and 10th.
top 4 in the West is set.
my guess at the bottom 4 playoff teams, no particular order: Suns, Jazz, Rockets, Mavericks
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:35 am
by bwgood77
Los Soles wrote:bwgood77 wrote:We have played the 28th toughest schedule
Schedule's definitely been soft, including a lot of home games. But our point differential is better than our record, so...

This Suns team is not blowing my mind. But it's good enough defensively to stay in most games, and win easily against weak teams. The West doesn't seem like the uber-conference it's been in recent years, at least depth-wise. Houston & Memphis have been...weird. And I'm not sure what to make of Dallas yet either.
bwgood77 wrote:I used to look at Sagarin ratings all the time, though mostly for college.
Yeah, Hollinger is my go-to for NBA ratings like this, but nothing posted yet this season.
Yes, I checked for his system's rankings a couple days ago which I enjoy quite a bit. Not a big fan of Stein's rankings and commentary. I'm sure you know about these rankings from Hollinger's stuff though.
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:38 am
by 8on
why is the Warriors' strength of schedule so bad? those teams have had to play the Warriors, which makes them and look worse than they would if they were playing a team of natural mortals, none of which were grown in a lab and taught how to shoot by aliens from the 31st century.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:41 am
by 8on
basketball reference is saying we've played the 24th toughest schedule.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:46 am
by bwgood77
dantley4prez wrote:why is the Warriors' strength of schedule so bad? those teams have had to play the Warriors, which makes them and look worse than they would if they were playing a team of natural mortals, none of which were grown in a lab and taught how to shoot by aliens from the 31st century.
Yes, and naturally the best teams will have played easier schedule as the season goes on because of the simple fact that they don't have to play themselves, but it's just kind of odd it turned out those teams have played the easiest schedules...maybe the NBA wanted to set up more marquee big time matchups near the end of the year.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:53 am
by 8on
bwgood77 wrote:dantley4prez wrote:why is the Warriors' strength of schedule so bad? those teams have had to play the Warriors, which makes them and look worse than they would if they were playing a team of natural mortals, none of which were grown in a lab and taught how to shoot by aliens from the 31st century.
Yes, and naturally the best teams will have played easier schedule as the season goes on because of the simple fact that they don't have to play themselves, but it's just kind of odd it turned out those teams have played the easiest schedules...maybe the NBA wanted to set up more marquee big time matchups near the end of the year.
Christmas. Thursdays in February (no NFL). Sure, definitely.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:53 am
by bwgood77
dantley4prez wrote:hmmm.....i've been debating the bottom 4 of the playoff field for the last couple of days.
Houston is off to an uncharacteristic start, but check out Harden's shooting numbers. They're atrocious. when you take into account his high volume, it's even worse. he's leading the league in missed field goals. what's more outrageous; that the Wolves will have a better record than the Rockets, meaning that Rubio, Towns, Wiggins and LaVine stay healthy, or that Harden finds his stroke?
so i'm marking the Rockets in no lower than the 8th seed.
most room to fall: Mavericks. Deron is underrated, Wes is a real question mark because of the ACL, and Nowitzki because of his age. we may start to see him fade closer to 13 PPG by the end of the season. the roster is so thin that if any of those three were to miss two weeks, it could ruin their entire season. i like guys like Dwight Powell, but the rest of the roster is a big fat question mark. Parsons is hit or miss, Villanueva is hit, miss, or miss, Pachulia's not a great rim protector or interior defender. true fact: the Mavericks have the 2nd worst strength of schedule. it seems most likely that they have the most room to fall.
good chance to outperform: Blazers. They really haven't had enough time to mesh. It's a drastically different squad than last year. In particular, Aminu, Plumlee and Davis have been way better than I expected per minute. they've lived up to the roles they have. i had a feeling McCollum just needed the playing time; his offensive production has been very good. their frontcourt is the weakest part of the team, but they have some tradeable assets. i wouldn't be surprised to see them make a move by the deadline.
Wolves: i'll have to be convinced that Andrew Wiggins isn't going to disappear for solid chunks of games. is he a game closer? can Towns lower his foul rate? if not, i have hard time seeing them in the playoffs.
Nuggets: room to grow with Mudiay. Barton is starting to break through. Gallo is the unquestioned #1 option. not a playoff team, but might sneak up to 10th or 11th.
Pelicans: what happened? no Tyreke, i guess.
Grizzlies: to me, the simplest explanation is that Zach Randolph is showing his age. Gasol hasn't been the world beater he was last year, either. it's possible that the Grizzlies' formula, which they've used since 2009, is running out of juice. not everybody can be the Spurs. that said, if i had to guess they'll finish somewhere between 8th and 10th.
top 4 in the West is set.
my guess at the bottom 4 playoff teams, no particular order: Suns, Jazz, Rockets, Mavericks
Good post. About Dallas being bad if they missed those guys....look at this box score when they were missing a bunch of guys
http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400828027Carlisle is such a good coach that they will hang around, but the fact that they have played one of the easiest schedules will be interesting to see how they do against better competition, and obviously you can say the same about us.
I think the Grizz will bounce back to some extent due to the tough schedule but some of their losses were absolute blowouts (though I think that was to Cleveland and GS).
I have no idea what to make of Houston.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:32 am
by Wannabe MEP
DRK wrote:Good thing for our team is we usually play better against good teams.
I think I would have agreed with this in the past. Interesting this year though...according to Sagarin ratings, 1–5 vs top 16 (and the 1 was against the injured Clips), and 5-0 vs the rest.
See if the #s hold as the season progresses, but with Chandler now, we're the best we've been defensively since...pre-Nash days. And if the defense is working, we're able to get out and run. So I think we're gonna stay pretty consistent against weaker teams this season.
But we don't have the creative offensive brilliance we've had in the past to overcome elite teams.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 7:55 am
by Christine-In-AZ
It's a rather simplistic way to assess/adjust rankings, but I've always looked at road wins versus home losses to try and gauge or recalibrate the standings through the season. Since officiating has become more consistent and the home/road effect lessened, this method has surely lost some value, but for what it's worth as of 11/20 Road wins V. Home losses are-
Golden State +6
San Antonio +4
Dallas +3
Utah +3
Denver +1
Memphis +1
Oklahoma City even
Minnesota even
LA Clippers -1
Portland -1
Phoenix -2
LA Lakers -2
Houston -3
New Orleans -4
Sacramento -5
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 9:44 am
by Years90Suns
The Suns are among just the best four teams in defensive and offensive eficiency, yet we are the only ones that have a much poorer record and who have not played against good teams (except for the Bulls) yet.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 10:55 am
by MrMiyagi
Years90Suns wrote:The Suns are among just the best four teams in defensive and offensive eficiency, yet we are the only ones that have a much poorer record and who have not played against good teams (except for the Bulls) yet.
I guess OKC and Clippers at full strength aren't good teams. Mavs must be terrible at 9-4.

Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 7:05 pm
by rsavaj
Years90Suns wrote:The Suns are among just the best four teams in defensive and offensive eficiency, yet we are the only ones that have a much poorer record and who have not played against good teams (except for the Bulls) yet.
We've played against good teams. We just haven't beaten any yet.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 11:41 pm
by bwgood77
Difference in net rating from last year to this year..
[tweet]https://twitter.com/johnschuhmann/status/668080554299006977[/tweet]
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 12:31 am
by Christine-In-AZ
bwgood77 wrote:Difference in net rating from last year to this year..
[tweet]https://twitter.com/johnschuhmann/status/668080554299006977[/tweet]
I'd really like to see how this team's net rating compares to the
pre-trade deadline '14-'15 Suns
The numbers from last year surely took a negative hit across the board over the last
20+ 15 games...after the towel was thrown in.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 10:04 pm
by Wannabe MEP
Wow.
Clips have lost 6 of 8, and now they're get
SHELLACKED at home -- to someone not the Warriors, Cavs, or Spurs. Looks like their studs are playing, so...what the hell???
Come to Jesus time after this? Are they imploding??
Man, 6 of last year's 8 West playoff teams are NOT what they were a season ago.
Re: Ridiculously early look at the shape of the West
Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 10:54 pm
by MrMiyagi
Los Soles wrote:Wow.
Clips have lost 6 of 8, and now they're get
SHELLACKED at home -- to someone not the Warriors, Cavs, or Spurs. Looks like their studs are playing, so...what the hell???
Come to Jesus time after this? Are they imploding??
Man, 6 of last year's 8 West playoff teams are NOT what they were a season ago.
Toronto doesn't even have Valanciunas