A week or so ago I added playoff probabilities for each round to my daily NBA rankings (see the columns on the right). Much like my playoff seed projections from the regular season, these are based on simulating the remainder of the playoffs (5,000 times), using my team rankings as the basis for the outcome probability of each future game.
I have now also added a visual display of those probabilities over time (I called this the Bird's Eye view last season). You can find the graphs here. Each team is represented by a color on the graph (I tried to use official team colors). The legend on the right is in the same order of the stacking, and you can also just mouseover the graph for the detail. Here is a smaller version of the graph for reference:
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
The Point Spread, Home Court Advantage, and the Playoffs
At Wages of Wins, Ed Feng posted recently on the impact of home court advantage in the playoffs. He found that home court advantage seems to have a bigger impact in the playoffs, even after correcting for relative team strength (e.g. 1 seeds vs. 8 seeds, etc.).
Feng found that home court advantage is worth 4.5 points in the playoffs, compared to 3.2 points in the regular season. I had noticed a similar phenomena in the Vegas point spreads during last year's playoffs. When a playoff series would switch venues, I was expecting a 6.5 point swing in the point spread (the betting market values home court at 3.25 points in the regular season). Instead, the spread was swinging by 7 to 9 points. For example, in last year's Lakers-Nuggets first round series, the Lakers were favored by 4.5 points in their first two games in LA. But when the series moved to Denver for game 3, the Nuggets were favored by 4, instead of the expected 2 points.
In this post, I will quantify how much the betting market appears to value home court advantage in the playoffs. I will also take a deeper look into the stats to see what is driving this home court advantage differential.
Feng found that home court advantage is worth 4.5 points in the playoffs, compared to 3.2 points in the regular season. I had noticed a similar phenomena in the Vegas point spreads during last year's playoffs. When a playoff series would switch venues, I was expecting a 6.5 point swing in the point spread (the betting market values home court at 3.25 points in the regular season). Instead, the spread was swinging by 7 to 9 points. For example, in last year's Lakers-Nuggets first round series, the Lakers were favored by 4.5 points in their first two games in LA. But when the series moved to Denver for game 3, the Nuggets were favored by 4, instead of the expected 2 points.
In this post, I will quantify how much the betting market appears to value home court advantage in the playoffs. I will also take a deeper look into the stats to see what is driving this home court advantage differential.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Playoff Seeding Motion Charts - All Teams
Earlier this week, I posted a motion chart showing how the Lakers' playoff seeding probabilities evolved day by day since the All Star break. The probabilities come from my daily simulations of the remainder of the regular season, added as part of my daily team rankings in February.
With the regular season now finished, I have added all teams, accessible via the dropdown below. Each bar represents the team's probability, as of that date, of achieving that playoff seed.
The Lakers, Rockets, and Jazz show the most movement in their probabilities, especially for the last couple weeks of the season. The Heat's chart is interesting in a Zen kind of way.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Playoff Seeding Probabilities - In Motion
After the All-Star break, I added a new feature to my NBA daily rankings: Playoff Seed Projections. I used my rankings to simulate the remainder of the season 10,000 times, applied all of the seeding and tiebreaker rules, and summarized the probabilities for each team in a little sparkline-style chart.
Since I archive the projections each day, I can also use Google's Motion Chart API to show how those probabilities have evolved over time. The Lakers, out of all the NBA teams, have had the most ups and downs in their playoff fortunes since the All Star break. Click the play button on the chart below to see that in motion (flash-based, not mobile friendly).
Since I archive the projections each day, I can also use Google's Motion Chart API to show how those probabilities have evolved over time. The Lakers, out of all the NBA teams, have had the most ups and downs in their playoff fortunes since the All Star break. Click the play button on the chart below to see that in motion (flash-based, not mobile friendly).
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
2013 NCAA Tournament Bracket
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| Paul Dirac - Inventor of bra-ket-ology |
As I did last year, I have completed a bracket based on my rankings (for each matchup, I select the higher ranked team). Here is a pdf version of the completed bracket. I have also entered the bracket in Yahoo's Tourney Pick'em so I can track progress. Last year, I also created riskier brackets that attempted to pick the most likely upsets (if you're in a pool with a lot of people, you're going to have to take some chances in order to separate yourself from the pack). I don't have time to put those together this year, but I can highlight some potential matchups where an upset seems most likely.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Playoff Seed Projections - Updated Daily
I have added a new feature to the daily NBA team rankings. On the far right, there are two additional columns. The first column, labelled "Prob", represents each team's probability of making the playoffs. The second column, "Proj. Seed", is a bar graph displaying the team's playoff seeding probability distribution.
Each bar graph is scaled identically on the horizontal axis, from seed 15 to seed 1. In addition, the bars are color coded, with blue bars for seeds 1-8 (playoff teams) and red bars for seeds 9-15 (lottery bound). You can also mouseover the bar graphs to get the actual probabilities. See below for some examples:
Each bar graph is scaled identically on the horizontal axis, from seed 15 to seed 1. In addition, the bars are color coded, with blue bars for seeds 1-8 (playoff teams) and red bars for seeds 9-15 (lottery bound). You can also mouseover the bar graphs to get the actual probabilities. See below for some examples:
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Super Bowl Squares - Every Score Pays Out
2/3/2013 Update: A more mobile friendly version of the chart: Squares Payouts.
My most recent two posts covered the concept of in-game Super Bowl squares probabilities, based on score, time, field position, and down. I still hope to complete that project in time for the Super Bowl this Sunday, but there are only a few days left, and I saved the hard part (the 4th quarter score) for last.
As I indicated in my in-game squares post, there are plenty of sites out there which will give you the expected payout for each square, and many will give you the payouts for each quarter as well. However, I haven't seen any site that calculates the probabilities for a somewhat less popular version of the squares pool: The "Every Score Pays" pool.
My most recent two posts covered the concept of in-game Super Bowl squares probabilities, based on score, time, field position, and down. I still hope to complete that project in time for the Super Bowl this Sunday, but there are only a few days left, and I saved the hard part (the 4th quarter score) for last.
As I indicated in my in-game squares post, there are plenty of sites out there which will give you the expected payout for each square, and many will give you the payouts for each quarter as well. However, I haven't seen any site that calculates the probabilities for a somewhat less popular version of the squares pool: The "Every Score Pays" pool.
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