Sansterre's Top 100, #96-100. 1991LAL, 2015CLE, 1975WAS, 1988DET, 1990PHO

[colts18]

We've hit our first team that probably should have been rated higher in the 1988 Pistons! And now for the obligatory bump for the addition of team #96, the 1990 Phoenix Suns!

Incidentally, the 1993 Suns are *not* on this list, which may seem weird because their enshrined in everyone's memory for having played Jordan's Bulls.

Their regular Season SRS of +6.27 isn't great for this list, but it isn't awful either. The hard part was their playoffs:

Round 1: Los Angeles Lakers (-1.2), won 4-1 by +3.8 points per game (+2.6 SRS eq)
Round 2: San Antonio Spurs (+2.4), won 4-2 by 0 points per game (+2.4 SRS eq)
Round 3: Seattle Supersonics (+6.0), won 4-3 by +0.1 points per game (+6.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Chicago Bulls (+9.5), lost 2-4 by 0 points per game (+9.5 SRS eq)

For all I know the '93 Suns were effort savants, that always played their competition tight, but were capable of playing the '93 Bulls to a standstill. But what the formula sees is a team that barely skates by multiple average teams, and probably shouldn't have made the Finals in the first place. Your mileage may vary.

The problem for the 93 Suns was injuries in the regular season. Kevin Johnson only started 47 games. He also had an uncharacteristic down year where he averaged 16-8 after averaging 21-11 for the previous 4 years. Barkley also missed 6 games (1-5 record in those games). With both KJ and Barkley in the lineup, the Suns had a 34-9 (65 win pace) record and a +7.1 point differential. I don't really know what to make of KJ's 93 season. A clear down year. If he was at his peak that year, the Suns would have looked so much better.

[FrogBros4Life]

Their regular Season SRS of +6.27 isn't great for this list, but it isn't awful either. The hard part was their playoffs:

Round 1: Los Angeles Lakers (-1.2), won 4-1 by +3.8 points per game (+2.6 SRS eq)
Round 2: San Antonio Spurs (+2.4), won 4-2 by 0 points per game (+2.4 SRS eq)
Round 3: Seattle Supersonics (+6.0), won 4-3 by +0.1 points per game (+6.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Chicago Bulls (+9.5), lost 2-4 by 0 points per game (+9.5 SRS eq)

Just wanted to point out that the '93 Suns defeated the Lakers in the first round 3-2, not 4-1 as you have listed.

[Odinn21]

Their regular Season SRS of +6.27 isn't great for this list, but it isn't awful either. The hard part was their playoffs:

Round 1: Los Angeles Lakers (-1.2), won 4-1 by +3.8 points per game (+2.6 SRS eq)
Round 2: San Antonio Spurs (+2.4), won 4-2 by 0 points per game (+2.4 SRS eq)
Round 3: Seattle Supersonics (+6.0), won 4-3 by +0.1 points per game (+6.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Chicago Bulls (+9.5), lost 2-4 by 0 points per game (+9.5 SRS eq)

Just wanted to point out that the '93 Suns defeated the Lakers in the first round 3-2, not 4-1 as you have listed.

Yeah.

A note for sansterre about NBA playoffs format;
The 1st rounds have been best of 7 since 2003. Up until 2007, the division leaders were guaranteed a top seed. This was changed after the Spurs and the Mavs played against each other in the 2nd round in 2006 while having the top 2 records in the conference.
1st rounds were best of 5s between 1984 and 2002.
Between 1977 and 1983, top 6 teams made the playoffs and and the top 2 seeds on each conference directly made it to the 2nd round, skipping the 1st round.
In 1975 and 1976, top 2 seeds in each division and the next best record in the conference made it to the playoffs. 5 teams per conference. AFAIK, 1976 is the only season teams worse records made the playoffs a team with better record. The Lakers won 40 games, missed the playoffs. The Bucks and the Pistons made the playoffs by winning 38 and 36 games.
In 1975, the 1st round - conference quarter finals was introduced as best of 3.
Before that, there was no 1st round matchups and teams with best 4 records made the playoffs in each conference.

[sansterre]

Their regular Season SRS of +6.27 isn't great for this list, but it isn't awful either. The hard part was their playoffs:

Round 1: Los Angeles Lakers (-1.2), won 4-1 by +3.8 points per game (+2.6 SRS eq)
Round 2: San Antonio Spurs (+2.4), won 4-2 by 0 points per game (+2.4 SRS eq)
Round 3: Seattle Supersonics (+6.0), won 4-3 by +0.1 points per game (+6.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Chicago Bulls (+9.5), lost 2-4 by 0 points per game (+9.5 SRS eq)

Just wanted to point out that the '93 Suns defeated the Lakers in the first round 3-2, not 4-1 as you have listed.

Yeah, sorry. I'd just been doing a writeup for a more modern team, I saw "5 games" because that's what I have in my spreadsheet, and translated it to 4-1. My bad.

[freethedevil]

Thank you for pointing out the injuries to the Bucks; I hadn't known about that. I look forward to writing this up in the '89 Pistons' section.

At the same time, we have the following matchups:

'88 Bullets vs '89 Celtics. Celtics are probably better, right?
'88 Bulls vs '89 Bucks. I'll give this one to the Bulls.
'88 Celtics vs '89 Bulls. I think this is pretty similar.
'88 Lakers vs '89 Lakers. The '89 Lakers played objectively better through the whole season, but lost Magic for half the series. I can see choosing '88 here.

I guess, I've definitely been persuaded that the gap between their opposition isn't as extreme as it looked, even if I'm not sold that one was "a joke" compared to the other. I appreciate the insight.

1988 Celtics were better at every measurable level than 1989 Bulls. Maybe you mistaken them with 1990 Bulls?

Losing Magic for one game would make 1988 Pistons champions. Losing Magic for half of the series (while playing half of this half injured) would make Pistons sweep the Lakers in 1988. You can argue their competition was comparable based on RS, but when you look at playoffs 1989 Pistons faced extremely weak competition - probably among worst ever.

Mostly I'm giving the '89 Bulls credit because they seriously punched above their weight in the playoffs. Beating the +8 SRS Cavs by +0.8 a game and the +3.8 SRS Knicks by +4.2 a game are both pretty solid results. At that point in the playoffs the '88 Celtics outscored the +0.1 SRS Knicks by 11.2 a game and were outscored by the +3.5 SRS Hawks by 1.6 points. It's only two series, but I don't see a huge difference. Your point is well-made however.

Not nearly as solid when you realize mark price was injured. The win against the knicks was solid tho. But yeah, the bulls were pretty clearly at their limit vs the cavs getting basically the identical situation that doomed the 73 win warriors. I really wouldn't give that much weight on taking the bulls out.

[freethedevil]

Well, it made it to six games but they weren’t close, with the Warriors winning by 7.2 points per game. LeBron posted another eye-bleeding stat-line (36/13/9 with -5.7% shooting) but the Cavs shot 29% from three and that was that. Cleveland’s wins were by 2 and 5 points, Golden State’s wins were by 8, 21, 13 and 8 points. Cleveland actually played excellent defense in this series (and through the playoffs), but their offense really struggled in the playoffs (compared to the regular season). I have to say, how badly LeBron shot through these playoffs is hard to ignore, though I’m sure that the lack of spacing with Love out didn’t do him any favors.

Framing it like this without the timeline of the series somewhat misrepresents it. The first three games of that series...were...essenitally a deadheat. The warriors scrape out a win in overtime and the cavs go ahead and win the next two. The warriors..taking over...essentially coinicides with the debut of the death lineup, something that would largely contribute to the warriors finding another tier the next year.

So really, saying, "ah well it wasn't close" undercuts both the cavs and the warriors here. Against the warriors everyone else in the nba played, the cavs were perfectly good competition, but the warriors hit another gear. These playoffs are also a good example of why only listing scoring numbers+effiency+slashline misrepresents induvidual play. Lebron had a 52.7 ast% to an 8% tov ratio vs the Warriors despite the cavs essentially not shooting from 3. (by the same token, you largely overstate durant's 12 finals performance by only focusing on the scoring when again, the creation looks pretty awful, at least from a box perspective)

For all the handwringing about scoring effiency, the cavs didn't really struggle in the postseason, even devoid of love or kyrie. Lebron essentially passed and defended the cavs to 60-65 win postseason play.

Finally the regular season numbers here are somehwat misleading, because the cavs didn't reallly finalize their roster until a third of the way through the season where they essentially blew up the team beyond the big three. From that point on they won at a 60-win pace which tracks pretty well with them going 12-3 in the east without kevin love and going punch for punch with the 67 win warriors before they pulled out their 73 win trump card.

[sansterre]

Well, it made it to six games but they weren’t close, with the Warriors winning by 7.2 points per game. LeBron posted another eye-bleeding stat-line (36/13/9 with -5.7% shooting) but the Cavs shot 29% from three and that was that. Cleveland’s wins were by 2 and 5 points, Golden State’s wins were by 8, 21, 13 and 8 points. Cleveland actually played excellent defense in this series (and through the playoffs), but their offense really struggled in the playoffs (compared to the regular season). I have to say, how badly LeBron shot through these playoffs is hard to ignore, though I’m sure that the lack of spacing with Love out didn’t do him any favors.

Framing it like this without the timeline of the series somewhat misrepresents it. The first three games of that series...were...essenitally a deadheat. The warriors scrape out a win in overtime and the cavs go ahead and win the next two. The warriors..taking over...essentially coinicides with the debut of the death lineup, something that would largely contribute to the warriors finding another tier the next year.

So really, saying, "ah well it wasn't close" undercuts both the cavs and the warriors here. Against the warriors everyone else in the nba played, the cavs were perfectly good competition, but the warriors hit another gear. These playoffs are also a good example of why only listing scoring numbers+effiency+slashline misrepresents induvidual play. Lebron had a 52.7 ast% to an 8% tov ratio vs the Warriors despite the cavs essentially not shooting from 3. (by the same token, you largely overstate durant's 12 finals performance by only focusing on the scoring when again, the creation looks pretty awful, at least from a box perspective)

For all the handwringing about scoring effiency, the cavs didn't really struggle in the postseason, even devoid of love or kyrie. Lebron essentially passed and defended the cavs to 60-65 win postseason play.

Finally the regular season numbers here are somehwat misleading, because the cavs didn't reallly finalize their roster until a third of the way through the season where they essentially blew up the team beyond the big three. From that point on they won at a 60-win pace which tracks pretty well with them going 12-3 in the east without kevin love and going punch for punch with the 67 win warriors before they pulled out their 73 win trump card.

I don't necessarily disagree with anything you say here.

If you're saying "The list is underrating how good that team was because of injuries" that's almost certainly true.

Injuries represent a massive problem for lists like this. The '15 Cavs get ranked this low because, given how they actually played, this is appropriate. If we consider how they'd be healthy, you've got to figure them at least in the Top 50; they can't have been that much worse than the '16 Cavs. But how can you make such an adjustment intelligently? The Pistons *lost* the '88 Finals. Without Isiah's injury they probably don't. But it still happened. How to handle that?

At the end of the day, all I think a responsible list-maker (who's trying to be objective) can do is to put the teams in the ranking that they earned by their play (injuries or not) and then put in an asterisk saying "the healthy version of this team was obviously better, but that's not the version we saw". Otherwise you run the risk of making a list about how teams 'would' have played not about how they actually did play. Sort of like how with the '89 Pistons I had to say "they're ranked high here, but given how injured their opponents were, you have to take all of it with a grain of salt".

[freethedevil]

Well, it made it to six games but they weren’t close, with the Warriors winning by 7.2 points per game. LeBron posted another eye-bleeding stat-line (36/13/9 with -5.7% shooting) but the Cavs shot 29% from three and that was that. Cleveland’s wins were by 2 and 5 points, Golden State’s wins were by 8, 21, 13 and 8 points. Cleveland actually played excellent defense in this series (and through the playoffs), but their offense really struggled in the playoffs (compared to the regular season). I have to say, how badly LeBron shot through these playoffs is hard to ignore, though I’m sure that the lack of spacing with Love out didn’t do him any favors.

Framing it like this without the timeline of the series somewhat misrepresents it. The first three games of that series...were...essenitally a deadheat. The warriors scrape out a win in overtime and the cavs go ahead and win the next two. The warriors..taking over...essentially coinicides with the debut of the death lineup, something that would largely contribute to the warriors finding another tier the next year.

So really, saying, "ah well it wasn't close" undercuts both the cavs and the warriors here. Against the warriors everyone else in the nba played, the cavs were perfectly good competition, but the warriors hit another gear. These playoffs are also a good example of why only listing scoring numbers+effiency+slashline misrepresents induvidual play. Lebron had a 52.7 ast% to an 8% tov ratio vs the Warriors despite the cavs essentially not shooting from 3. (by the same token, you largely overstate durant's 12 finals performance by only focusing on the scoring when again, the creation looks pretty awful, at least from a box perspective)

For all the handwringing about scoring effiency, the cavs didn't really struggle in the postseason, even devoid of love or kyrie. Lebron essentially passed and defended the cavs to 60-65 win postseason play.

Finally the regular season numbers here are somehwat misleading, because the cavs didn't reallly finalize their roster until a third of the way through the season where they essentially blew up the team beyond the big three. From that point on they won at a 60-win pace which tracks pretty well with them going 12-3 in the east without kevin love and going punch for punch with the 67 win warriors before they pulled out their 73 win trump card.

I don't necessarily disagree with anything you say here.

If you're saying "The list is underrating how good that team was because of injuries" that's almost certainly true.

Injuries represent a massive problem for lists like this. The '15 Cavs get ranked this low because, given how they actually played, this is appropriate. If we consider how they'd be healthy, you've got to figure them at least in the Top 50; they can't have been that much worse than the '16 Cavs. But how can you make such an adjustment intelligently? The Pistons *lost* the '88 Finals. Without Isiah's injury they probably don't. But it still happened. How to handle that?

At the end of the day, all I think a responsible list-maker (who's trying to be objective) can do is to put the teams in the ranking that they earned by their play (injuries or not) and then put in an asterisk saying "the healthy version of this team was obviously better, but that's not the version we saw". Otherwise you run the risk of making a list about how teams 'would' have played not about how they actually did play. Sort of like how with the '89 Pistons I had to say "they're ranked high here, but given how injured their opponents were, you have to take all of it with a grain of salt".

Well, my main disagreement was with the warriors series, irregardless of injuries, but if you're counting injuries along as part of the pie, then yeah, though some sort of weighting for competition would probably be useful. Performing better against a +2 team probably just isn't nearly as valuable in a purely emperical championship calculation as performing better against a +8 team.

[sansterre]

Well, my main disagreement was with the warriors series, irregardless of injuries, but if you're counting injuries along as part of the pie, then yeah, though some sort of weighting for competition would probably be useful. Performing better against a +2 team probably just isn't nearly as valuable in a purely emperical championship calculation as performing better against a +8 team.

Completely agreed sir.

One of the major problems with v1 is that SRS eq performances aren't really linear. A +10 SRS team playing a +2 SRS team in the playoffs doesn't beat them by 8, it will usually beat them by much more. So if you have two +10 SRS teams, where one plays all +2 teams until the Finals, and the other players all +6 SRS teams before the Finals, a straight SRS eq system (opponent SRS + MoV) will say that the team that played the +2 teams is generally better.

One of my real goals for v2 is to figure out an adjustment to the formula that accounts for that skew.

[freethedevil]

Well, my main disagreement was with the warriors series, irregardless of injuries, but if you're counting injuries along as part of the pie, then yeah, though some sort of weighting for competition would probably be useful. Performing better against a +2 team probably just isn't nearly as valuable in a purely emperical championship calculation as performing better against a +8 team.

Completely agreed sir.

One of the major problems with v1 is that SRS eq performances aren't really linear. A +10 SRS team playing a +2 SRS team in the playoffs doesn't beat them by 8, it will usually beat them by much more. So if you have two +10 SRS teams, where one plays all +2 teams until the Finals, and the other players all +6 SRS teams before the Finals, a straight SRS eq system (opponent SRS + MoV) will say that the team that played the +2 teams is generally better.

One of my real goals for v2 is to figure out an adjustment to the formula that accounts for that skew.

ElGee might have done some of that work for you

[sansterre]

Well, my main disagreement was with the warriors series, irregardless of injuries, but if you're counting injuries along as part of the pie, then yeah, though some sort of weighting for competition would probably be useful. Performing better against a +2 team probably just isn't nearly as valuable in a purely emperical championship calculation as performing better against a +8 team.

Completely agreed sir.

One of the major problems with v1 is that SRS eq performances aren't really linear. A +10 SRS team playing a +2 SRS team in the playoffs doesn't beat them by 8, it will usually beat them by much more. So if you have two +10 SRS teams, where one plays all +2 teams until the Finals, and the other players all +6 SRS teams before the Finals, a straight SRS eq system (opponent SRS + MoV) will say that the team that played the +2 teams is generally better.

One of my real goals for v2 is to figure out an adjustment to the formula that accounts for that skew.

ElGee might have done some of that work for you

Are you talking about "Healthy" rosters or the SRS-skew that happens in the playoffs?

[freethedevil]

Completely agreed sir.

One of the major problems with v1 is that SRS eq performances aren't really linear. A +10 SRS team playing a +2 SRS team in the playoffs doesn't beat them by 8, it will usually beat them by much more. So if you have two +10 SRS teams, where one plays all +2 teams until the Finals, and the other players all +6 SRS teams before the Finals, a straight SRS eq system (opponent SRS + MoV) will say that the team that played the +2 teams is generally better.

One of my real goals for v2 is to figure out an adjustment to the formula that accounts for that skew.

ElGee might have done some of that work for you

Are you talking about "Healthy" rosters or the SRS-skew that happens in the playoffs?

both, he essentially used srs sstudies to caculate weightings of health/when performance dips on championship odds. theroetically, you should be able to extroplate weightings from that

[sansterre]

ElGee might have done some of that work for you

Are you talking about "Healthy" rosters or the SRS-skew that happens in the playoffs?

both, he essentially used srs sstudies to caculate weightings of health/when performance dips on championship odds. theroetically, you should be able to extroplate weightings from that

That sounds awesome; where can I find that?

[freethedevil]

Are you talking about "Healthy" rosters or the SRS-skew that happens in the playoffs?

both, he essentially used srs sstudies to caculate weightings of health/when performance dips on championship odds. theroetically, you should be able to extroplate weightings from that

That sounds awesome; where can I find that?

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