Game Thread GAME# 30: BLAZERS @ CLIPPERS - DECEMBER 17, 2018 - MONDAY, 7:30 PM, NBCSNW

I love when people make blanket statements without adding any context or reasoning.

It's a fact that we've played a really hard schedule. RPI isn't perfect, out of anyone on this forum, I'd know that best (I do bracketology).

 

I figured that's why you titled your statement with "Fun Fact"

 

Kinda, but the SOS thing is pretty accurate.

Out of the bottom 5 teams in the league, weve played 2 of our total of 12 games against them.

Weve played 5 of our total of 10 games against the top 5 teams in the East. Weve played 6 of our 20 against the bottom 10 teams in the East.

 

You can say that and yes even believe it but this conversation has been going on for years. SOS is based little on fact and circumstance. It ends up making intelligent people sound like they are completely dumbfounded by what goes on during a season. If someone is basing any part of their discussion on SOS they might as well be saying " We beat the Raptors and the Raptors just beat the Warriors so we are better than the Warriors". We are talking 20 plus years of discussion about SOS on multiple boards with literally hundreds of different posters. RPI is just as bad.

In the end STATS are simply stats. They work well to prove a point that people perceive to be correct. But no stat ever tells the whole story.

 

If Mavs lose to Kings, Grizzlies lose to Warriors, and we beat the Clippers, we will be 5th in West.

 

I have Aminu's.

 

I disagree. SOS matters. The Bulls, Hawks, and Cavs suck. We haven't gotten to play any of them yet. The East teams get play them four times each. That's 12 bonus wins for a team like Toronto. There's only one crappy team in the West and we've only played that team once. The record of the teams that have played those four teams a lot this season must be taken in context.

By the way, did BonesJones or anyone else ever say that any stat tells the whole story?

 

The fact that you have actually made my point eludes you.

 

Swanigan = Sprewell ?

 

What is rpi ?

 

What? Simply put, RPI is results based, that goes further than a W/L record to rank teams, since W/L record can be deceiving because of a number of factors, including SOS.

Simply put, if we played an average schedule so far, we'd likely be 18-11 instead of 16-13. It also says we'll face easier teams over the rest of the season than other teams will. How in the world does that compare to "We beat TOR, TOR beat GS, so we're better than GS"?

 

Ratings Percentage Index. The formula is 25% team winning percentage, 50% opponents' average winning percentage, and 25% opponents' opponents' average winning percentage.

While it may seem weird that average opponent winning percentage makes up 75% of the formula, you have to remember that individual winning percentage is going to have a lot more deviation than an average winning percentage of multiple teams.

 

RPI has been used in college basketball as a main factor in determining and seeding NCAA Tournament teams each year. They scrapped it for a new "NET" rating this year, we'll see how that works. The flaw with using RPI to rank college teams is that it can overrate mid-majors due to major scheduling differences among groups of teams. This isn't the case in the NBA, since everyone plays nearly the same schedule after the season, and there's a much smaller talent disparity between NBA teams than there is between, say, Duke and Missouri State. Therefore, I'd argue that RPI is a more valid stat in the NBA than it is in college.

 

I call bullshit on this. At the end of the season it's how many games you won. Everybody has the exact same SOS when the season is over. You can try to butter it up anyway you want but it's all about W/L record at the end of the season. Trying to say what the record would be if they played different teams is absolutely ridiculous at very best.
The same thing goes for the Playoffs. When all is said and done how many games did you win. Last year they got swept. If they make the playoffs this year they have a chance to try again. That is why it's called the second season. Even more so if you are going to try to make an assumption on how a team will do by looking at RPI or SOS you are again being ridiculous at very best. Playoff basketball never equates to season performance.

And furthermore.Trying to compare NCAA rankings to Pros is off the charts Apples and Oranges. Because there is way way less a talent disparity it doesn't even compute close to the same as College and is why it can only really find a place in college. It's what they use to justify the obscene disparity in rankings for the NCAA Tournament which is another money grab that is another topic altogether.

***Sorry Bones we are gonna have to agree to disagree on this. I ain't gonna budge on RPI or SOS. In my humble opinion they both suck as a stat to base anything worthwhile on. ***

 

Not necessarily, but close. You have East vs. West, and then differences in strengths of divisions where you guaranteed 4 games instead of 3 or 4 against other conference teams. But yes, it is very similar at the end of the season.

RPI becomes more and more reflective of actual W/L record the further you go into the season, because opponents winning percentage evens out to .500.

I'm not saying to base post-season performance off of RPI, for the reasons you stated. I'm saying it can be accurately reflective of how a teams performed compared to it's schedule over a stretch of regular season games. If you play the best 10 teams in the league over 10 games and go 5-5, that's better than playing the bottom 10 teams in the league over 10 games and going 7-3. The 1st team would be most likely (accurately) rated higher by RPI.

And what are you talking about with "Trying to compare NCAA rankings to Pros is off the charts Apples and Oranges. Because there is way way less a talent disparity it doesn't even compute close to the same as College and is why it can only really find a place in college"? Did you misunderstand what I was saying? Please clarify.

So you don't think that a team going 16-13 over a the hardest schedule in the league is more likely to finish with a better record than a team that went 17-12 over the easiest schedule in the league?

 

I'm saying exactly what i said. But again you seem to have left off the main point?

The NCAA uses the tournament as a money grab. They use this stat to establish the rankings and seeds for the tournament. They deem certain programs more marketable than others and make decisions for revenue. That is and has been the true use for RPI. It doesn't translate well for teams in college and it most certainly should never be used for translation in the NBA. The way it is interpreted can be manipulated in too many ways.

*** But again these are my opinions.***

 

Need take care of business on la

 

You guys see who is standing WAAAAAAAAY down there by the tree?? It’s him!