Houston 18' vs Cavs 18'

[durantbird]

Suppose Houston somehow gets by GSW in 18', do they win the finals over Cavs? Suppose Chris Paul is back by game 3

[Dr Positivity]

If Paul plays well when he comes back yes. 18 Rockets vs 17 Cavs is closer.

[lessthanjake]

Yeah the Rockets absolutely beat the Cavs. Maybe it’d be a series if Chris Paul didn’t play at all, but even then the Rockets probably win. As Dr Positivity said, 2018 Rockets vs. 2017 Cavs is actually closer. I’d go with the 2018 Rockets there if they didn’t have any injuries to key players, but if Chris Paul was going to be out some of the series then it starts being a tougher call and would probably depend on exactly how much of the series he misses.

[homecourtloss]

Yeah the Rockets absolutely beat the Cavs. Maybe it’d be a series if Chris Paul didn’t play at all, but even then the Rockets probably win. As Dr Positivity said, 2018 Rockets vs. 2017 Cavs is actually closer. I’d go with the 2018 Rockets there if they didn’t have any injuries to key players, but if Chris Paul was going to be out some of the series then it starts being a tougher call and would probably depend on exactly how much of the series he misses.

With CP3 the Rockets win
Without CP3 I think the Cavs can pull it off
2017 Cavs beat the 2018 Rockets

[Djoker]

With CP3, the Rockets sweep or win in 5. Total annihilation.
Without CP3, closer series but still Rockets win in 6.
Against the 2017 Cavs, a fully healthy Rockets team is still considerably better. Cavs' defense is horrible. Maybe goes 6 games.

[70sFan]

With CP3, the Rockets sweep or win in 5. Total annihilation.
Without CP3, closer series but still Rockets win in 6.
Against the 2017 Cavs, a fully healthy Rockets team is still considerably better. Cavs' defense is horrible. Maybe goes 6 games.

Even with the ridiculous finals shootout in 2017, the Cavs had neutral rDRtg in the postseason, so I wouldn't call their defense horrible.

[RCM88x]

'18 Houston is clearly the better team but I don't think they'd dominate the Cavs like directly comparing team strength might suggest. That '18 Warriors team was really not quite at the level they were the year prior and they still blew the Rockets out in 3 of the first 6 games. I'd guess the Cavs get a couple of games off the Rockets and who knows after that.

I think the '17 Cavs are a far better playoff team than the '18 Rockets were. Regular season is irrelevant in this comparison. As good as those Houston teams were they were always a playoff underperformer relative to their regular season performance.

[Djoker]

With CP3, the Rockets sweep or win in 5. Total annihilation.
Without CP3, closer series but still Rockets win in 6.
Against the 2017 Cavs, a fully healthy Rockets team is still considerably better. Cavs' defense is horrible. Maybe goes 6 games.

Even with the ridiculous finals shootout in 2017, the Cavs had neutral rDRtg in the postseason, so I wouldn't call their defense horrible.

They were also +1.5 rDRtg (21st) in the regular season over a much larger sample of games. In the postseason they oscillated with +6.2 rDRtg vs. Pacers, -8.4 rDRtg vs. Raptors, -4.5 rDRtg vs. Celtics and then +5.6 rDRtg vs. Warriors. That looks pretty bad IMO especially considering how poor and injured their East opponents were. With Lowry and Irving out injured, their defense got a boost in those two series.

[f4p]

'18 Houston is clearly the better team but I don't think they'd dominate the Cavs like directly comparing team strength might suggest. That '18 Warriors team was really not quite at the level they were the year prior and they still blew the Rockets out in 3 of the first 6 games. I'd guess the Cavs get a couple of games off the Rockets and who knows after that.

The '18 warriors put up a +12.3 PSRS in the 1st round WITHOUT steph. then had a slightly more "meh" +9.5 in the 2nd round. but then had a +16.6 against the cavs. so other than the 2nd round, they basically look like the year before, especially adding steph to the 1st round. they also didn't blow out the rockets in game 1, it was a 5 point game with 5 minutes to go. the 2018 cavs problem is they would have just been a target rich environment for the rockets iso hunting style. like it's hard to think of anybody other than maybe lebron who isn't getting relentlessly cooked by harden and cp3.

I think the '17 Cavs are a far better playoff team than the '18 Rockets were. Regular season is irrelevant in this comparison. As good as those Houston teams were they were always a playoff underperformer relative to their regular season performance.

based on what? the rockets were a +8.1 SRS team in the regular season. even if we focus on the healthy 2018 rockets, they had a +11.0 SRS with harden and cp3 in the regular season. in the first round, we beat a +2.3 team by +9.3 nRtg, for a +11.6, and in the 2nd round it was a +4.5 team we beat by +10.3, for a +14.8 PSRS (and not for nothing, it was +15 in the 1st round the next year). it's hard to dominate more than that without being the 2001 lakers or something. and the 2018 rockets basically played the warriors even with cp3 while the 2017 cavs lost the first 3 games by 15 ppg and needed one of the greatest shooting games ever just to get a gentleman's sweep.

[RCM88x]

With CP3, the Rockets sweep or win in 5. Total annihilation.
Without CP3, closer series but still Rockets win in 6.
Against the 2017 Cavs, a fully healthy Rockets team is still considerably better. Cavs' defense is horrible. Maybe goes 6 games.

Even with the ridiculous finals shootout in 2017, the Cavs had neutral rDRtg in the postseason, so I wouldn't call their defense horrible.

They were also +1.5 rDRtg (21st) in the regular season over a much larger sample of games. In the postseason they oscillated with +6.2 rDRtg vs. Pacers, -8.4 rDRtg vs. Raptors, -4.5 rDRtg vs. Celtics and then +5.6 rDRtg vs. Warriors. That looks pretty bad IMO especially considering how poor and injured their East opponents were. With Lowry and Irving out injured, their defense got a boost in those two series.

Irving wasn't on the 2017 Celtics

[RCM88x]

'18 Houston is clearly the better team but I don't think they'd dominate the Cavs like directly comparing team strength might suggest. That '18 Warriors team was really not quite at the level they were the year prior and they still blew the Rockets out in 3 of the first 6 games. I'd guess the Cavs get a couple of games off the Rockets and who knows after that.

The '18 warriors put up a +12.3 PSRS in the 1st round WITHOUT steph. then had a slightly more "meh" +9.5 in the 2nd round. but then had a +16.6 against the cavs. so other than the 2nd round, they basically look like the year before, especially adding steph to the 1st round. they also didn't blow out the rockets in game 1, it was a 5 point game with 5 minutes to go. the 2018 cavs problem is they would have just been a target rich environment for the rockets iso hunting style. like it's hard to think of anybody other than maybe lebron who isn't getting relentlessly cooked by harden and cp3.

I think the '17 Cavs are a far better playoff team than the '18 Rockets were. Regular season is irrelevant in this comparison. As good as those Houston teams were they were always a playoff underperformer relative to their regular season performance.

based on what? the rockets were a +8.1 SRS team in the regular season. even if we focus on the healthy 2018 rockets, they had a +11.0 SRS with harden and cp3 in the regular season. in the first round, we beat a +2.3 team by +9.3 nRtg, for a +11.6, and in the 2nd round it was a +4.5 team we beat by +10.3, for a +14.8 PSRS (and not for nothing, it was +15 in the 1st round the next year). it's hard to dominate more than that without being the 2001 lakers or something. and the 2018 rockets basically played the warriors even with cp3 while the 2017 cavs lost the first 3 games by 15 ppg and needed one of the greatest shooting games ever just to get a gentleman's sweep.

I'm not sure if -9 (-54 total) thru 6 games is playing "even" but okay.

If we're going to continue to play that game ..
'17 Cavs lost to the Warriors -6.8 (11.35 SRS)
'18 Rockets lost to Warriors -9.5 (5.79 SRS)

Not even in the same realm here.

[Djoker]

Even with the ridiculous finals shootout in 2017, the Cavs had neutral rDRtg in the postseason, so I wouldn't call their defense horrible.

They were also +1.5 rDRtg (21st) in the regular season over a much larger sample of games. In the postseason they oscillated with +6.2 rDRtg vs. Pacers, -8.4 rDRtg vs. Raptors, -4.5 rDRtg vs. Celtics and then +5.6 rDRtg vs. Warriors. That looks pretty bad IMO especially considering how poor and injured their East opponents were. With Lowry and Irving out injured, their defense got a boost in those two series.

Irving wasn't on the 2017 Celtics

Ya I meant to say Isaiah Thomas...

[RCM88x]

They were also +1.5 rDRtg (21st) in the regular season over a much larger sample of games. In the postseason they oscillated with +6.2 rDRtg vs. Pacers, -8.4 rDRtg vs. Raptors, -4.5 rDRtg vs. Celtics and then +5.6 rDRtg vs. Warriors. That looks pretty bad IMO especially considering how poor and injured their East opponents were. With Lowry and Irving out injured, their defense got a boost in those two series.

Irving wasn't on the 2017 Celtics

Ya I meant to say Isaiah Thomas...

Funny enough the Celtics actually had a way way better Net rating again the Cavs in the minutes he didn't play in that series, and a better offense too. Actually that holds true for the whole playoffs technically.

[lessthanjake]

I’m not sure it’s actually true that those Rockets teams tended to underperform in the playoffs compared to their regular season. Here’s their regular-season net rating vs. playoff net rating each year Harden was there:

2012-13: +3.6 RS vs. +3.7 playoffs
2013-14: +4.7 RS vs. +4.5 playoffs
2014-15: +3.6 RS vs. +4.4 playoffs
2015-16: +0.2 RS vs. -8.4 playoffs
2016-17: +5.7 RS vs. +5.7 playoffs
2017-18: +8.7 RS vs. +6.4 playoffs
2018-19: +4.8 RS vs. +8.5 playoffs
2019-20: +2.8 RS vs. +4.3 playoffs

So, in those 8 years, their playoff relative net rating was better than their regular-season net rating in 4 years, and they were exactly the same in 1 year. And one of the years the regular-season number was better was by a tiny margin (i.e. 2014 at +4.7 vs. +4.5). The two other years their playoff relative net rating was worse was just on the back of their series against the Warriors. In 2018, their playoff relative net rating was a fair bit worse than in the regular season, but it was definitely higher than the regular season until they met the Warriors. And, given the margin that year between their playoff and RS net ratings, I’m essentially certain that Rockets still had a higher playoff relative net rating than their regular season net rating until the games where CP3 was out (not to mention that the 2018 Warriors were coasting in the regular season and Steph had missed 31 games, making relative-net-rating a bit harsh on their opponents). The only year where we could actually say they performed meaningfully worse in the playoffs than in the regular season was in 2016. But that was also easily their worst regular season, and it’s not like they had any expectations going into those playoffs.

More generally, with only one exception, those Rockets won every series they were the favorites in and lost every series that they were not the favorites. The only exception was the 2014 series against the Blazers, but they were not at all big favorites in that series (not to mention that that was a very different roster from 2018 and Harden was still on the ascendance). And they won a couple series that they were barely favorites in (2020 vs. OKC and 2015 vs. LAC), so they actually did fine in the toss-up series they were in—basically going 2-2 in those series (counting the 2018 Warriors series as a toss-up series that they lost as well).

[RCM88x]

I’m not sure it’s actually true that those Rockets teams tended to underperform in the playoffs compared to their regular season. Here’s their regular-season net rating vs. playoff net rating each year Harden was there:

2012-13: +3.6 RS vs. +3.7 playoffs
2013-14: +4.7 RS vs. +4.5 playoffs
2014-15: +3.6 RS vs. +4.4 playoffs
2015-16: +0.2 RS vs. -8.4 playoffs
2016-17: +5.7 RS vs. +5.7 playoffs
2017-18: +8.7 RS vs. +6.4 playoffs
2018-19: +4.8 RS vs. +8.5 playoffs
2019-20: +2.8 RS vs. +4.3 playoffs

So, in those 8 years, their playoff relative net rating was better than their regular-season net rating in 4 years, and they were exactly the same in 1 year. And one of the years the regular-season number was better was by a tiny margin (i.e. 2014 at +4.7 vs. +4.5). The two other years their playoff relative net rating was worse was just on the back of their series against the Warriors. In 2018, their playoff relative net rating was a fair bit worse than in the regular season, but it was definitely higher than the regular season until they met the Warriors. And, given the margin that year between their playoff and RS net ratings, I’m essentially certain that Rockets still had a higher playoff relative net rating than their regular season net rating until the games where CP3 was out (not to mention that the 2018 Warriors were coasting in the regular season and Steph had missed 31 games, making relative-net-rating a bit harsh on their opponents). The only year where we could actually say they performed meaningfully worse in the playoffs than in the regular season was in 2016. But that was also easily their worst regular season, and it’s not like they had any expectations going into those playoffs.

More generally, with only one exception, those Rockets won every series they were the favorites in and lost every series that they were not the favorites. The only exception was the 2014 series against the Blazers, but they were not at all big favorites in that series (not to mention that that was a very different roster from 2018 and Harden was still on the ascendance). And they won a couple series that there were barely favorites in (2020 vs. OKC and 2015 vs. LAC), so they actually did fine in the toss-up series they were in—basically going 2-2 in those series (counting the 2018 Warriors series as a toss-up series that they lost as well).

Where are you getting those net ratings from? There is no way that some of those are accurate.

Regular season I have all the same numbers, but for playoffs I have +0.8 for '20, +3.3 for '19, +1.9 for '18, +1.2 for '17, -19.1 for '16, -2.4 for '15 which are all considerably worse. They underperform consistently in every single season from my numbers.

[lessthanjake]

I’m not sure it’s actually true that those Rockets teams tended to underperform in the playoffs compared to their regular season. Here’s their regular-season net rating vs. playoff net rating each year Harden was there:

2012-13: +3.6 RS vs. +3.7 playoffs
2013-14: +4.7 RS vs. +4.5 playoffs
2014-15: +3.6 RS vs. +4.4 playoffs
2015-16: +0.2 RS vs. -8.4 playoffs
2016-17: +5.7 RS vs. +5.7 playoffs
2017-18: +8.7 RS vs. +6.4 playoffs
2018-19: +4.8 RS vs. +8.5 playoffs
2019-20: +2.8 RS vs. +4.3 playoffs

So, in those 8 years, their playoff relative net rating was better than their regular-season net rating in 4 years, and they were exactly the same in 1 year. And one of the years the regular-season number was better was by a tiny margin (i.e. 2014 at +4.7 vs. +4.5). The two other years their playoff relative net rating was worse was just on the back of their series against the Warriors. In 2018, their playoff relative net rating was a fair bit worse than in the regular season, but it was definitely higher than the regular season until they met the Warriors. And, given the margin that year between their playoff and RS net ratings, I’m essentially certain that Rockets still had a higher playoff relative net rating than their regular season net rating until the games where CP3 was out (not to mention that the 2018 Warriors were coasting in the regular season and Steph had missed 31 games, making relative-net-rating a bit harsh on their opponents). The only year where we could actually say they performed meaningfully worse in the playoffs than in the regular season was in 2016. But that was also easily their worst regular season, and it’s not like they had any expectations going into those playoffs.

More generally, with only one exception, those Rockets won every series they were the favorites in and lost every series that they were not the favorites. The only exception was the 2014 series against the Blazers, but they were not at all big favorites in that series (not to mention that that was a very different roster from 2018 and Harden was still on the ascendance). And they won a couple series that there were barely favorites in (2020 vs. OKC and 2015 vs. LAC), so they actually did fine in the toss-up series they were in—basically going 2-2 in those series (counting the 2018 Warriors series as a toss-up series that they lost as well).

Where are you getting those net ratings from? There is no way that some of those are accurate.

Regular season I have all the same numbers, but for playoffs I have +0.8 for '20, +3.3 for '19, +1.9 for '18, +1.2 for '17, -19.1 for '16, -2.4 for '15 which are all considerably worse. They underperform consistently in every single season from my numbers.

I got the numbers from the Thinking Basketball database. The playoff net ratings are *relative* net ratings—i.e. they account for how good the opponent is. So, for instance, if you have a +5 net rating against a team that was itself a +3 net rating team in the RS, then that’d be a +8 relative net rating. This is a much better way of comparing regular season and playoff performance, since playoff opponents are generally far better than the average team played in the regular season.

[RCM88x]

I’m not sure it’s actually true that those Rockets teams tended to underperform in the playoffs compared to their regular season. Here’s their regular-season net rating vs. playoff net rating each year Harden was there:

2012-13: +3.6 RS vs. +3.7 playoffs
2013-14: +4.7 RS vs. +4.5 playoffs
2014-15: +3.6 RS vs. +4.4 playoffs
2015-16: +0.2 RS vs. -8.4 playoffs
2016-17: +5.7 RS vs. +5.7 playoffs
2017-18: +8.7 RS vs. +6.4 playoffs
2018-19: +4.8 RS vs. +8.5 playoffs
2019-20: +2.8 RS vs. +4.3 playoffs

So, in those 8 years, their playoff relative net rating was better than their regular-season net rating in 4 years, and they were exactly the same in 1 year. And one of the years the regular-season number was better was by a tiny margin (i.e. 2014 at +4.7 vs. +4.5). The two other years their playoff relative net rating was worse was just on the back of their series against the Warriors. In 2018, their playoff relative net rating was a fair bit worse than in the regular season, but it was definitely higher than the regular season until they met the Warriors. And, given the margin that year between their playoff and RS net ratings, I’m essentially certain that Rockets still had a higher playoff relative net rating than their regular season net rating until the games where CP3 was out (not to mention that the 2018 Warriors were coasting in the regular season and Steph had missed 31 games, making relative-net-rating a bit harsh on their opponents). The only year where we could actually say they performed meaningfully worse in the playoffs than in the regular season was in 2016. But that was also easily their worst regular season, and it’s not like they had any expectations going into those playoffs.

More generally, with only one exception, those Rockets won every series they were the favorites in and lost every series that they were not the favorites. The only exception was the 2014 series against the Blazers, but they were not at all big favorites in that series (not to mention that that was a very different roster from 2018 and Harden was still on the ascendance). And they won a couple series that there were barely favorites in (2020 vs. OKC and 2015 vs. LAC), so they actually did fine in the toss-up series they were in—basically going 2-2 in those series (counting the 2018 Warriors series as a toss-up series that they lost as well).

Where are you getting those net ratings from? There is no way that some of those are accurate.

Regular season I have all the same numbers, but for playoffs I have +0.8 for '20, +3.3 for '19, +1.9 for '18, +1.2 for '17, -19.1 for '16, -2.4 for '15 which are all considerably worse. They underperform consistently in every single season from my numbers.

I got the numbers from the Thinking Basketball database. The playoff net ratings are *relative* net ratings—i.e. they account for how good the opponent is. So, for instance, if you have a +5 net rating against a team that was itself a +3 net rating team in the RS, then that’d be a +8 relative net rating. This is a much better way of comparing regular season and playoff performance, since playoff opponents are generally far better than the average team played in the regular season.

Okay so initially it appears you're comparing two completely different numbers and trying to pass one off as something it's not to make the argument more convincing.

If you're explaining correctly, those ratings do not incorporate Houston's expected team strength, making them effectively worthless. You can't just give opponents their net rating from the regular season and not also give Houston their own, right?!

For example. If a +10 team plays a +1 team to a (+1) point differential, that is not be a +2 adjnet rating, that should be a -8 adjnet rating.

Let apply this to 2013:

Houston (+3.6) plays OKC (+9.8), to a net of (-6.2)

Adjusted net should be -3.6+9.8-(-6.2) = 0.0

It should NOT be 9.8 - 6.2 = 3.6 (or 3.7 because of rounding I'm assuming).

You cannot just ignore expected team strength when calculating relative adjusting net ratings, that is just silly.

If we're going to compare a regular season points differential to this ""relative"" point differential we need to do that for every team now and see what the results are. I am going to feel pretty confident that Houston's performance is still below average here. We should do the same comparison with the Warriors, Cavs, Spurs, Raptors, Celtics, etc... from the same era and see what those results are (I do not subscribe to this database so I cannot).

EDIT: Just to display more of how silly this is.

'16 Warriors (+10.7) played '16 Cavs (+6.4) to a (-0.6) differential

According to this Thinking Basketball stat as you explained it, Warriors are apparently a +5.8 adjusted rating (6.4 - 0.6)??

Absolutely not, that should be a -3.7 (-10.7 + 6.4 -(-0.6)) adjusted rating because they significantly underperformed what was expected based on their existing team nets.

[Doctor MJ]

Suppose Houston somehow gets by GSW in 18', do they win the finals over Cavs? Suppose Chris Paul is back by game 3

If the Rockets are healthy, the Rockets win. The Cavs were a top 2 playoff team the prior 3 years, but not in '17-18.

[lessthanjake]

Where are you getting those net ratings from? There is no way that some of those are accurate.

Regular season I have all the same numbers, but for playoffs I have +0.8 for '20, +3.3 for '19, +1.9 for '18, +1.2 for '17, -19.1 for '16, -2.4 for '15 which are all considerably worse. They underperform consistently in every single season from my numbers.

I got the numbers from the Thinking Basketball database. The playoff net ratings are *relative* net ratings—i.e. they account for how good the opponent is. So, for instance, if you have a +5 net rating against a team that was itself a +3 net rating team in the RS, then that’d be a +8 relative net rating. This is a much better way of comparing regular season and playoff performance, since playoff opponents are generally far better than the average team played in the regular season.

Okay so initially it appears you're comparing two completely different numbers and trying to pass one off as something it's not to make the argument more convincing.

If you're explaining correctly, those ratings do not incorporate Houston's expected team strength, making them effectively worthless. You can't just give opponents their net rating from the regular season and not also give Houston their own, right?!

For example. If a +10 team plays a +1 team to a (+1) point differential, that is not be a +2 adjnet rating, that should be a -8 adjnet rating.

Let apply this to 2013:

Houston (+3.6) plays OKC (+9.8), to a net of (-6.2)

Adjusted net should be -3.6+9.8-(-6.2) = 0.0

It should NOT be 9.8 - 6.2 = 3.6 (or 3.7 because of rounding I'm assuming).

You cannot just ignore expected team strength when calculating relative adjusting net ratings, that is just silly.

If we're going to compare a regular season points differential to this ""relative"" point differential we need to do that for every team now and see what the results are. I am going to feel pretty confident that Houston's performance is still below average here. We should do the same comparison with the Warriors, Cavs, Spurs, Raptors, Celtics, etc... from the same era and see what those results are (I do not subscribe to this database so I cannot).

EDIT: Just to display more of how silly this is.

'16 Warriors (+10.7) played '16 Cavs (+6.4) to a (-0.6) differential

According to this Thinking Basketball stat as you explained it, Warriors are apparently a +5.8 adjusted rating (6.4 - 0.6)??

Absolutely not, that should be a -3.7 (-10.7 + 6.4 -(-0.6)) adjusted rating because they significantly underperformed what was expected based on their existing team nets.

You’re just shifting numbers around. The playoff relative net rating value I gave is aimed at telling us how well the team did, while adjusting for the strength of the opponent (which is a pretty standard way of assessing how well a team played in the playoffs—hence why Thinking Basketball provides it). I am then reporting out that number alongside the Rockets’ regular season net rating, so you can compare them and see which one is better. All you’re proposing is to take the two numbers I provided and subtracting one from the other, so that we can specifically get a measure of how well the Rockets did in the playoffs (adjusted for strength of opponent) compared to their regular season performance. But you can literally just get that number by taking the playoff number I provided and subtracting from it the regular season value I provided. And the discussion I gave of the numbers explicitly compared the playoff and regular-season values, so I was effectively making that same comparison.

Anyways, if you really want that number, then the numbers would be the following (with a positive number meaning the Rockets’ playoff relative net rating was higher than the Rockets’ regular season net rating):

2012-13: +0.1
2013-14: -0.2
2014-15: +0.8
2015-16: -8.6
2016-17: 0.0
2017-18: -2.3
2018-19: +3.7
2019-20: +1.5

So yeah, again, if we look at net rating, the Harden Rockets did better than the regular season in 4 out of 8 playoffs, and did exactly the same in one playoffs. In the other three years, they (1) barely did worse than the regular season (-0.2 in 2013-14), (2) had a negative value in 2017-18 that I’m pretty sure was a positive number until CP3 got injured; and (3) had one year getting destroyed by the Warriors in a series that the Rockets had +4000 betting odds in.

I don’t think it’s a fair portrayal to look at those numbers and say the Rockets underperformed in the playoffs. And the same is true if we look at how they did compared to what the betting odds were in all the series they played. They won every series they were significant favorites in, lost every series they were significant underdogs in, and went 2-2 in the four series where the odds were very close. Just like the net rating data, this looks like a team that did pretty much exactly as well in the playoffs as we’d expect.

[RCM88x]

I got the numbers from the Thinking Basketball database. The playoff net ratings are *relative* net ratings—i.e. they account for how good the opponent is. So, for instance, if you have a +5 net rating against a team that was itself a +3 net rating team in the RS, then that’d be a +8 relative net rating. This is a much better way of comparing regular season and playoff performance, since playoff opponents are generally far better than the average team played in the regular season.

Okay so initially it appears you're comparing two completely different numbers and trying to pass one off as something it's not to make the argument more convincing.

If you're explaining correctly, those ratings do not incorporate Houston's expected team strength, making them effectively worthless. You can't just give opponents their net rating from the regular season and not also give Houston their own, right?!

For example. If a +10 team plays a +1 team to a (+1) point differential, that is not be a +2 adjnet rating, that should be a -8 adjnet rating.

Let apply this to 2013:

Houston (+3.6) plays OKC (+9.8), to a net of (-6.2)

Adjusted net should be -3.6+9.8-(-6.2) = 0.0

It should NOT be 9.8 - 6.2 = 3.6 (or 3.7 because of rounding I'm assuming).

You cannot just ignore expected team strength when calculating relative adjusting net ratings, that is just silly.

If we're going to compare a regular season points differential to this ""relative"" point differential we need to do that for every team now and see what the results are. I am going to feel pretty confident that Houston's performance is still below average here. We should do the same comparison with the Warriors, Cavs, Spurs, Raptors, Celtics, etc... from the same era and see what those results are (I do not subscribe to this database so I cannot).

EDIT: Just to display more of how silly this is.

'16 Warriors (+10.7) played '16 Cavs (+6.4) to a (-0.6) differential

According to this Thinking Basketball stat as you explained it, Warriors are apparently a +5.8 adjusted rating (6.4 - 0.6)??

Absolutely not, that should be a -3.7 (-10.7 + 6.4 -(-0.6)) adjusted rating because they significantly underperformed what was expected based on their existing team nets.

You’re just shifting numbers around. The playoff relative net rating value I gave is aimed at telling us how well the team did, while adjusting for the strength of the opponent (which is a pretty standard way of assessing how well a team played in the playoffs—hence why Thinking Basketball provides it). I am then reporting out that number alongside the Rockets’ regular season net rating, so you can compare them and see which one is better. All you’re proposing is to take the two numbers I provided and subtracting one from the other, so that we can specifically get a measure of how well the Rockets did in the playoffs (adjusted for strength of opponent) compared to their regular season performance. But you can literally just get that number by taking the playoff number I provided and subtracting from it the regular season value I provided. And the discussion I gave of the numbers explicitly compared the playoff and regular-season values, so I was effectively making that same comparison.

Anyways, if you really want that number, then the numbers would be the following (with a positive number meaning the Rockets’ playoff relative net rating was higher than the Rockets’ regular season net rating):

2012-13: +0.1
2013-14: -0.2
2014-15: +0.8
2015-16: -8.6
2016-17: 0.0
2017-18: -2.3
2018-19: +3.7
2019-20: +1.5

So yeah, again, if we look at net rating, the Harden Rockets did better than the regular season in 4 out of 8 playoffs, and did exactly the same in one playoffs. In the other three years, they (1) barely did worse than the regular season (-0.2 in 2013-14), (2) had a negative value in 2017-18 that was a positive number until CP3 got injured; and (3) had one year getting destroyed by the Warriors in a series that the Rockets had +4000 betting odds in.

I don’t think it’s a fair portrayal to look at those numbers and say the Rockets underperformed in the playoffs. And the same is true if we look at how they did compared to what the betting odds were in all the series they played. They won every series they were significant favorites in, lost every series they were significant underdogs in, and went 2-2 in the four series where the odds were very close. Just like the net rating data, this looks like a team that did pretty much exactly as well in the playoffs as we’d expect.

Shifting numbers around? I'm explaining to you how SRS works and why this adjusted number (which is the definition of shifting numbers around) is silly. I don't care what Thinking Basketball provides if it's a silly number relative for this comparison.

Okay, so now we have proper adjusted net ratings. Overall, really only one season they performed meaningfully better than expected (2019). and underperformed in the prior 3 years (love how somehow we're using 2013-2015 numbers now too for some reason despite those being completely different team construction, coaches and league environment, and clearly not within the scope of this discussion but whatever.

Then... betting odds?? How is that relevant at all? Those odds are not set based exclusively on regular season performance indicators, they have expected playoff underperformance and overperformance baked in. That's why the 2018 Rockets weren't favorites against GSW in 2018 despite having superior RS indicators. Besides, being an even 500 (if we use your categorizations) against betting odds kind of proves my point no, a good playoff team probably would be expected to overperform betting odds (unless they are favorites in every series natrually), not perform as expected in them.