NBA Team Rankings - April 14, 2012

Derrick Rose 2
Derrick Rose
Here are the NBA Betting Market Team Rankings as of April 14, 2012. These rankings use the Vegas point spreads from recent games to derive an implied measure of team strength (Generic Points Favored, or GPF).  By combining the point spread information with the betting over/unders, I can also decompose team strength into its offensive and defensive components (oGPF and dGPF). For more detail, see the Methodology page.


The Thunder retain the top spot this week.  Both the Celtics and the Hawks moved up in the rankings significantly.  The Hawks, in particular, are an interesting case.  Despite having a top 10 Win/Loss record for most of the season, they were consistently ranked in the 15-20 range according to the point spreads.  And then they jump 3 points in GPF in the course of a week (see for yourself on The Ticker).  It's as if the market suddenly snapped to attention.


The Bulls have once again started climbing back up, improving from 4.5 GPF to 6.5. The Bulls' fortunes have risen and fallen in accordance with Derrick Rose's presence in the lineup.  See below for a graph of how the their GPF ranking has varied with Derrick Rose in and out of the lineup.


Embed this Chart:

A pretty clear illustration of Derrick Rose's value to the Bulls (although I imagine looking at more standard metrics like winning percentage or average margin would tell a similar story).  Just eyeballing the peaks and valleys of that graph, it appears that the market values Derrick Rose at about 3 points.  Put another way, Derrick Rose would take a team that wins 50% of its games and turn them into a team that won 60% of the time.


The Rankings (glossary below)


Rank Team LstWk GPF oGPF dGPF GOU W-L GWP
1  OKC 1 8.0 6.0 2 2.0 10 199 8 43-16 2 0.78
2  CHI 4 6.5 -0.5 19 7.0 2 187 27 45-14 1 0.73
3  SAS 2 6.5 7.5 1 -1.0 18 203 4 41-16 3 0.72
4  MIA 3 6.0 3.0 7 3.0 7 194 17 41-17 4 0.72
5  LAC 6 4.0 -0.5 16 4.5 5 190 23 36-23 7 0.65
6  BOS 10 4.0 -3.5 24 7.5 1 184 30 34-25 10 0.64
7  MEM 7 3.5 -1.0 20 4.5 4 189 25 34-24 9 0.64
8  DAL 9 3.0 0.0 15 3.0 8 191 20 34-26 12 0.62
9  ATL 19 3.0 -0.5 18 3.5 6 190 22 35-24 8 0.61
10  LAL 5 2.5 1.0 10 1.5 12 194 16 38-22 5 0.60
11  PHI 13 2.0 -4.0 25 6.0 3 185 29 31-28 15 0.58
12  IND 8 2.0 1.0 11 1.0 14 194 15 37-22 6 0.57
13  PHX 15 2.0 4.0 6 -2.0 21 201 5 31-28 16 0.57
14  HOU 14 1.5 1.0 9 0.5 16 195 12 32-27 14 0.56
15  NYK 12 1.5 0.0 14 1.5 13 193 19 31-28 17 0.56
16  MIL 16 1.5 6.0 3 -4.5 25 205 2 29-30 19 0.56
17  DEN 11 1.5 5.5 4 -4.0 24 204 3 32-27 13 0.56
18  UTA 17 1.0 2.0 8 -1.0 20 198 9 31-29 18 0.53
19  ORL 18 -0.5 -2.5 22 2.0 9 190 24 34-25 11 0.49
20  POR 20 -1.5 -0.5 17 -1.0 19 195 13 28-32 20 0.44
21  SAC 22 -4.0 4.5 5 -8.5 30 208 1 19-41 27 0.35
22  DET 25 -4.0 -4.0 27 0.0 17 190 21 22-37 23 0.35
23  TOR 26 -4.5 -5.0 28 0.5 15 188 26 21-39 25 0.33
24  MIN 21 -4.5 0.5 12 -5.0 28 201 6 25-35 21 0.33
25  GSW 23 -5.0 0.5 13 -5.5 29 200 7 22-36 22 0.32
26  NOH 27 -5.0 -7.0 30 2.0 11 186 28 17-42 28 0.32
27  NJN 24 -5.0 -2.0 21 -3.0 22 196 11 22-38 24 0.31
28  WAS 28 -7.5 -3.0 23 -4.5 26 196 10 14-45 29 0.24
29  CLE 29 -8.0 -4.0 26 -4.0 23 194 14 19-38 26 0.23
30  CHA 30 -10.5 -5.5 29 -5.0 27 194 18 7-51 30 0.16

GLOSSARY



  • LstWk - The BTM ranking from last week.
  • GPF - Stands for "Generic Points Favored".  It's what you would expect the team to be favored by against a league average opponent at a neutral site.
  • oGPF - Stands for "Offensive Generic Points Favored".  The component of a team's total GPF attributable to its ability to score points (per game).
  • dGPF - Stands for "Defensive Generic Points Favored".  The component of a team's total GPF attributable to its ability to prevent the other team from scoring points (per game).
  • GOU - Stands for "Generic Over/Under".  It's what you would expect the betting over/under to be for the given team when playing a league average opponent.
  • W-L - The team's win/loss record (and win percentage rank)
  • GWP - Stands for "Generic Win Probability".  I converted the GPF into a win probability using the following formula: 1/(1 + exp(-GPF/6.5)).

  • Additional Key Factors:
    • League Average Points Scored (APS): 97.0 points
    • Home Court Advantage (HCA): 3.25 points
    • Back to Back Penalty (B2B): -1.25 points (see here)
    How to Use This Table to Build Point Spreads and Over/Unders
    • Point Spread (in favor of home team) = HCA  + (B2Bhome - B2Baway) + (GPFhome - GPFaway)
    • Over/Under = 2*APS + (oGPFhome + oGPFaway - dGPFhome - dGPFaway)
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