I want someone to clearly explain this to me...

I want to know the rationale of these two situations:

If we win against teams we're supposed to beat, we're not good enough because it was at home; we lose to those teams... then we're a bad team

If we win against elite teams at home, we're not good enough because we have to see if we beat them on the road. However, if we lose to them on our court, we're bad. However, that elite team just lost to us on our court, but they are still better than us?

I mean, I understand wanting to have an agenda... but at least be logical about it. All I'm asking.

 

Winning thread! Crazy how people think in this way huh?

 

Listen the same thing was said about the 1998-99 team. We would go on these winning streaks and fans would say "well it's because of this or that". "They can't sustain it". Shit like that. Happened until we beat Utah in the semis. Then people started to believe.

 

Sustained success = benefit of the doubt.

Anyway - who cares? Having the media jump on the bandwagon won't make the team any better.

 

It is. I just want to see people's thinking behind it. There must be something I'm missing.

 

I wasn't talking about the media. I was talking about the fans.

 

Ah...gotcha.

 

It's mindboggling, and frankly, illogical.

 

This. You do it in the playoffs and people will believe.

 

No, wanting to blow up the team after losing the first game of the season is mindboggling and illogical.

 

People posting in this thread care. If no one is suppose to care, do they really need you to imply that they shouldn't care? Having the media, or so-called Blazer fans, jump on the bandwagon won't make your post any better.

 

Counter example: I believe, and they have yet to do it in the playoffs. Clearly, a Blazer fan is the exception.

 

Here's another head scratcher for you...

John Hoillinger's current power rankings are as follows:

OKC - 23-5
IND - 23-5
LAC - 20-11
SAS - 23-7
POR - 24-5

So, Portland has the best overall record and is the only team to have beaten all of the other top 5 teams. Here's each team's record against the other 4:

OKC - 4-2
IND - 2-2
LAC - 2-3
SAS - 0-5

OK, I know Hollinger's rankings are based on a formula that heavily favors strength of schedule and margin of victory, but at some point you'd think better overall record and head-to-head match-ups would carry some weight. The Clippers have lost over twice as many games as the Blazers, just lost to us head-to-head and have a losing record against the other top 5 teams, but they are ranked two spots ahead of us? We also have two fewer loses than the Spurs, beat them head-to-head and they don't have a single win against another top 5 team, while we have 4 such wins and ZERO defeats. Yet, the Spurs are ranked ahead of us?

I know Hollinger is constantly revising his formula to try to make it more accurate. He may have a lot more revising to do after this season.

BTW, its not just the Blazers. He also ranks the 13-15 Timberwolves ahead of the 20-11 Rockets, who beat the TPups by double digits in their one head-to-head meeting.

Crazy shit.

BNM

 

Great post BNM

 

It's only crazy if you put all your faith in his man-made formula. Statistics is an art, as it relates to predicting and evaluating NBA basketball, not a science. Hollinger's power rankings paints a mediocre picture.

 

Even the computers don't give us any respect! Us against the world (both real and cyber) baby!

BNM

 

Haha, well at least we are proving that the computer program is wrong.

On a side note, Charles picked OKC as the hands down favorite, with spurs a distant second and us distant from the spurs.

It's weird since the spurs haven't even beaten a contending team yet.

 

Like he does?

He makes a big deal about how accurate his formula is, but is constantly revising it - and he gets paid a lot of money because of it. Still, their are exceptions almost every year, or as he'd call them statistical anomalies. I guess we're this year's anomaly - so far anyway.

Does anyone know of a location that archives Hollinger's past power rankings. I'd be curious to know just how accurate they actually are, and what other past anomalies have occurred.

BNM