Djoker wrote:I fiddled around with stuff and decided to rank all 69 championship teams in NBA history since the shot clock by relative Net Rating instead of MOV. Like Sansterre I assigned 35% and 65% weights to the regular season and postseason, respectively. For modern teams (1984-2023) the numbers are unadjusted and the final numbers are simply equal to 0.35*(RS rNet) + 0.65*(PS rNet).
I gave a +1 boost to teams playing just three rounds of the playoffs (1967-1983) and a +2 boost to teams playing just two rounds of the playoffs (1955-1966) because I noticed that older teams don't feature much at the top. They simply never got to beat up on minnows at the start of the playoffs the way modern teams do which hurts them quite a bit in terms of PS rNet.
The advantage of using rNet to me is that it still adjusts for opposition but isn't insensitive to pace the way MOV is. At least in theory, it should give a better list. Of course a more comprehensive analysis can be done but it's just a little fun I had here.
This is the list I got.
Top 25 Championship Teams - RS + PS Relative Net1. 1996 Bulls +15.8 rNet
2. 2017 Warriors +15.2 rNet
3. 2001 Lakers +14.1 rNet
4. 1971 Bucks +13.8 rNet
5. 1991 Bulls +13.8 rNet
6. 1997 Bulls +12.7 rNet
7. 2014 Spurs +12.2 rNet
8. 2016 Cavaliers +12.1 rNet
9. 1986 Celtics +11.7 rNet
10. 1985 Lakers +11.5 rNet
11. 1998 Bulls +11.5 rNet
12. 2018 Warriors +11.5 rNet
13. 1992 Bulls +11.1 rNet
14. 2015 Warriors +11.1 rNet
15. 1972 Lakers +11.0 rNet
16. 2009 Lakers +10.9 rNet
17. 1961 Celtics +10.7 rNet
18. 1985 Lakers +10.6 rNet
19. 1999 Spurs +10.6 rNet
20. 1983 Sixers +10.5 rNet
21. 1973 Knicks +10.5 rNet
22. 1967 Sixers +10.5 rNet
23. 1964 Celtics +10.4 rNet
24. 1993 Bulls +10.1 rNet
25. 2012 Heat +10.0 rNet
I also did some additional rankings looking at offense/defense/net in just the RS and just the PS but I'll put them in spoilers so they don't take up too much space.
Interesting stuff! Quick heads up: I'm think sansterre's playoff weighting was saying playoff games are worth 7x a regular season game, not a flat 35% 65% weighting. Another slight difference, which affects the team ranking for sansterre's list but not the actual overall SRS rating: for each round a team won, sansterre used a +0.7 boost instead of your +1 boost. Teams with fewer playoff rounds get the boost automatically, so e.g. the 1964 Celtics get treated like they're starting their playoffs in the Conference Finals (with two +0.7 boosts) because they only had a two-round playoffs. Sansterre also incorporated league-relative standard deviations into his formula for ranking the teams (but not into the oSRS listed) to help account for older teams in smaller leagues, but that might be more trouble to implement then it's worth for a single realgm post. (see here for the sansterre methodology details:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=86687130#p86687130).
It may end up being relatively similar on average, but this might account for some of the differences between your two lists. Teams with particularly long playoff runs or particularly short ones (e.g. from earlier eras) may have slight differences.
If we get equal weightings, it would be interesting to compare which teams rise and fall the most in the rankings. If a team is particularly higher or lower in one vs the other, that might be informative.
Me personally, I'm not 100% sold that Net Rating (which adjusts for pace) is better than SRS (which does not). In once sense, it is a more even footing. But on the other hand, teams win by raw points, not pace-adjusted differentials.
Let's imagine there's two teams that are both +10 relative NET rating, so pretty dominant. But one team plays super fast and the other suuper slow. Lets they're on pace for a +10 rNet Rating victory in a given game with 5 minutes left. But the opposing team is trying to make a last push to catch up and upset the team.
The issue is, the faster-paced team would be ahead by more points, since they play a faster pace at the same net rating. E.g., the faster paced team could be ahead by +12 points and the slower paced team could be ahead by +8 points, even if they're both winning by the same net rating after normalizing for pace. In theory, the opponents of the faster team would have a harder time catching up then the opponents of the slower team -- it's harder to make up a +12 point differential than a +8 point differential in 5 minutes. Pace is variable; teams on both sides of the court can affect pace. So the team that's generally faster paced could slow down their pace just for the final 5 minutes of the game, and their opponents would just be stuck trying to make up a larger point differential in the same amount of time.
Again, I'm not dead set on this argument. Since pace is affected by both teams, league context could make a difference here. If every one of your opponents is slower paced or faster paced in one era compared to anther, that might change your pace vs if you were in a different era. So using relative net rating might control for league context like that. Perhaps practice also makes a difference -- a team that practices fast could be not as good when they try to slow things down in the final few minutes, since they don't practice that style as much. This sort of strategic style and comfort zone can absolutely make a difference, though I'm not really sure how to correct for that.
But if the actual +10 rNET team itself (regardless of context) is faster paced, it seems like they would be ahead by more points near the end of the game than a slower +10 rNET team. Which to me makes it seem like it would be harder for their opponents to upset them, since they'd be up by more. Thoughts?
