NBA Watchability Index

¹²³ · Sep 29, 2010

For NBA teams, there's more to being the best than being the best. At least, that is, if you're talking about inspiring fans to watch your games in the dark, cold winter of the NBA season. Some take this to mean that we need fewer games; these are the same ones who throw up their hands and exclaim, like a man in solitary, "no basketball is better than this basketball." We call these people fools. Tapping into the mother lode of subjective goodness, The Works has put together the definitive measure of whether or not a team will be worth your hard-earned League Pass dollars.

Quality: Projected wins taken from the 2010-11 Pro Basketball Prospectus. It's difficult to watch mediocrity on the regular, so quality turns out being the most important (and heavily weighted) aspect of Watchability.

Pace: Speed of play, based on last year's statistics and any coaching or major personnel changes. Up-tempo teams are more fun to watch. That's science.

Star Power: This is a league of stars. Is there one guy you will watch on every play?

Long-Term Potential: Everyone likes to gaze into the future and say he was there first.

Style: Style points don't win games, but they count for something.

Narrative: Is there a story here, a hook that lends itself to playoff intros?

Spirituality: Where amazing happens, you love this game, and any weeknight can give you chills like the Finals buzzer.

And now, with help from Kevin Pelton and the 2010-11 Pro Basketball Prospectus, the NBA Watchability Index '10-11:

The most watchable teams trend toward the upper-right quadrant. The least watchable teams trend toward the bottom-left. Teams in the other two (white quadrants represent entities best left to personal taste. Some notes:

* The watchable teams of the '10-11 season are the Heat, Thunder, Blazers, Magic, Bulls, Lakers, Mavericks, Knicks, Kings, Bucks, Celtics and Jazz. The Hornets, Spurs, Warriors and Nets just missed the cut.

* The unwatchable teams of the '10-11 season are the Pistons (sorry, Matt), Clippers, Wolves, Pacers, Cavs, 76ers, Raptors, Grizzlies, Bobcats and Hawks. These teams all double as among the worst clubs in the NBA, per Pelton's SCHOENE projections for Prospectus. In other words, if your team is too far to the left for your liking, don't blame us. (For the record, Pelton's record is pretty darn good.)

* The Heat are must-watch TV for serious fans every single time out, according to the Index. It'll be interesting to see to what degree casual fans agree. Could it be the first team since Jordan's Bulls that fans of all interest levels become enamored with?

* There's an obvious relationship between quality and interest level before we even input the SCHOENE projections, owing largely to the "star power" and "long-term potential" categories, but also "narrative." Mikhail Prokhorov and the Nets can have a compelling narrative on a bad team, but that's not typically the norm. (BS + TZ)
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¹²³ · Oct 22, 2010

NBA Watchability Scale 2.0: Helping You Decide Which Teams To Follow This Season

Shapecity · Oct 22, 2010

Interesting article. I'm surprised the Milwaukee Bucks ranked in the top quadrant and Detroit so low. Is Brandon Jennings/Andrew Bogut that big of a draw?

With the talk of contraction from David Stern maybe he should start with eliminating the Clippers franchise. They don't even have their own venue.

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NBA Watchability Index

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