Comments on: BBR Rankings: 2009-12-11

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:57:29 +0000

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=4267

It could be a W-L vs. point differential thing. For Sagarin's base rankings, I don't know if he uses MOV in his SOS calculation; this SOS ranking, though, is pure, 100% MOV, with no regard to W-L %.

Evidence of this is the fact that the Raps jumped to 4th in SOS in the new BBR Rankings today after playing 4 teams who average +4.00 in standard SRS since last Thursday.

By: khandor

khandor — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:19:23 +0000

Neil,

According to Jeff Sagarin's SOS ratings for NBA games played thru Dec 16 2009, the Toronto Raptors had the most difficult schedule to that point. But, according to your SOS Rk for Dec 11, 2009, the Toronto Raptors were rated as having played the 16th most difficult schedule.

Can you please explain this disparity?

Thanks, in advance.

By: khandor

khandor — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:52:24 +0000

Neil,

At what point today will you be publishing your BBR Rankings: 2009-12-18?

By: kevin

kevin — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:22:41 +0000

Why were the Lakers ranked first when they had played so few road games? Are they not taken into account? If not, they should be.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:30:55 +0000

Re: DSMok - Here are the SRS scores that generate the rankings (remember, no MOV in the team's base score, but SOS does include MOV in its calculation):

team_id	Base	SOS	SRS1
ORL	6.73	-0.60	6.13
LAL	5.77	0.31	6.08
BOS	7.12	-1.21	5.91
ATL	4.63	0.26	4.89
PHO	5.32	-0.65	4.67
DAL	4.38	-0.64	3.74
HOU	2.09	1.58	3.67
CLE	4.38	-1.20	3.18
DEN	4.83	-2.55	2.28
OKC	0.77	1.45	2.23
UTA	1.41	0.49	1.89
MIA	0.77	0.61	1.38
POR	2.28	-1.35	0.93
NOH	-0.37	0.67	0.30
SAS	-0.68	0.70	0.02
DET	-1.02	0.85	-0.17
TOR	-1.29	0.25	-1.04
CHA	-1.46	0.08	-1.38
CHI	-2.67	1.25	-1.41
MEM	-1.11	-0.53	-1.64
MIL	-0.70	-1.14	-1.84
SAC	-1.76	-0.18	-1.95
GSW	-3.24	0.55	-2.69
WAS	-3.36	0.60	-2.76
LAC	-2.42	-0.75	-3.17
NYK	-4.38	0.84	-3.54
IND	-4.30	-0.23	-4.53
PHI	-5.79	0.72	-5.07
MIN	-8.45	0.55	-7.90
NJN	-8.53	-0.07	-8.60

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:28:26 +0000

For SOS, it's the Simple Rating System (with home-court factored in). I fixed the link above to send you to the detailed explanation, but the rankings are basically set up where the "margin of victory" portion of SRS actually ignores point differential (handing out generic margins for home wins, home losses, road wins, & road losses), but the SOS portion is purely based on point diff. This has the effect of crediting teams for beating strong opponents, but not encouraging blowouts/poor sportsmanship. It's the kind of ranking they originally used in BCS calculations before the powers that be forced them to take margin of victory completely out of the equation.

By: serhat

serhat — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:11:53 +0000

Would you explain how the SOS rankings are calculated?

By: DSMok1

DSMok1 — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:15:42 +0000

Could you show the actual number that the teams are ranked by? It would be nice to actually see it!

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:10:48 +0000

I got rid of it. Sometimes I can get too carried away, in case anyone hadn't noticed...

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:06:44 +0000

Ha, yeah, the AP poll thing is kinda dumb. In my defense, I did decide to have a weekly ranking in the first place after reading the poll progressions in the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, so I wanted to pay homage to the polls somehow. This wasn't the right way, obviously. :)