The Other Worlds Shrine

Your place for discussion about RPGs, gaming, music, movies, anime, computers, sports, and any other stuff we care to talk about... 

  • sabermetrics and basketball doesn't mix

  • Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
 #149876  by Don
 Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:07 pm
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings

This is featured prominently on ESPN's NBA homepage, so it's not like some random guy came up with something. The Lakers have a better record and point differential (which is what John Hollinger always harps on). In fact the Lakers actually won every one of their game but is ranked lower than Miami due to SOS (Strength of Schedule). Now I realize that as a concept but you can't say losing to a good team is better than beating a bad team when the team won every game. The Rockets at 1-5 are ranked #9 because they managed to lose to all the good teams and therefore getting a great SOS.

I think if you take John Hollinger's basketball stuff and make it into a manga, it'd put even the craziest sports manga to shame because usually even in manga you have to win something to be at the top, but here you can clearly get to the top by losing. Or maybe ESPN's Insider is a way to banish crackpot theories, but I wouldn't know since I don't have an Insider subscription.