"Golf" Scores and Other Assorted 2010-2011 Team Rankings
For several years now, I have posted about "golf scores" over at LMF. Basically, I track where the playoff teams rank in three essential categories: offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, and rebounding differential. I add those three rankings to come up with a "golf score" for each playoff team. For the 2010-2011 season thus far, here are the numbers:
Team | Offense | Defense | Reb Diff | Golf Score |
Orlando | 8 | 4 | 2 | 14 |
San Antonio | 2 | 8 | 8 | 18 |
LAL | 1 | 11 | 7 | 19 |
Boston | 6 | 3 | 15 | 24 |
New Orleans | 15 | 1 | 13 | 29 |
Dallas | 11 | 6 | 12 | 29 |
Chicago | 21 | 9 | 1 | 31 |
Miami | 5 | 7 | 20 | 32 |
Indiana | 18 | 5 | 10 | 33 |
Atlanta | 4 | 18 | 19 | 41 |
Oklahoma City | 7 | 20 | 16 | 43 |
Portland | 13 | 17 | 17 | 47 |
Denver | 10 | 13 | 26 | 49 |
Utah | 12 | 10 | 28 | 50 |
New York | 9 | 22 | 23 | 54 |
Cleveland | 28 | 16 | 22 | 66 |
The sample size is still too small to draw too many conclusions about how things will end up, but it's encouraging to see Dallas doing so well defensively. We'll see, but it doesn't appear to be a fluke to me as I watch the games.
There has been some discussion over the years about how the "golf score" compares to other rankings, either as a predictor of future success or as an accurate ranking of how teams currently stack up. Just for the heck of it, I thought I'd put together a table that compared it with other well-known rankings (if you see any that I left out that you'd like me to include, let me know and I'll put into the next update that I do). Also, I've included a composite average of all of the various rankings so that you can see how the Mavs stack up in that respect as well:
Team | Golf Score | Win % | Expected Win % | Point Diff. | Eff. Diff. | Sagarin | Hollinger | SRS | Composite Average |
LAL | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1.88 |
San Antonio | 2 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2.25 |
Boston | 4 | 4.5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3.56 |
Orlando | 1 | 4.5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 5.31 |
New Orleans | 5 | 4.5 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 5.31 |
Dallas | 6 | 4.5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5.31 |
Miami | 8 | 13 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 10 | 9 | 4 | 6.63 |
Chicago | 7 | 10.5 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 11 | 8.44 |
Utah | 14 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 6 | 7 | 10 | 9.5 |
Denver | 13 | 10.5 | 12 | 11 | 9 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 10.31 |
Indiana | 9 | 14.5 | 11 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 11 | 8 | 10.56 |
Atlanta | 10 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 11 | 15 | 14 | 14 | 11.75 |
Oklahoma City | 11 | 8 | 15 | 13 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 11.88 |
Portland | 12 | 12 | 18 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 13.25 |
New York | 15 | 14.5 | 13 | 17 | 15 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 17.19 |
Cleveland | 16 | 16 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 24 | 25 | 24 | 23 |
Labels: Golf Scores, Rankings