If the Pistons played in the West, would they still be an elite contender or just another good team? DBB reader Mike Z. tackled that problem in an interesting email he sent me last week (note: his final numbers don’t include Sunday or Monday’s games), using Detroit’s actual winning percentage against Western Conference teams to calculate a hypothetical “adjusted” winning percentage for the season, based upon the fact that NBA teams play 52 regular-season games within their own conference and 30 games with the other conference. In any case, here’s what he came up with:
A lot of people, in fact most, probably say that the Pistons would not have had as good a record over the last 6 years (The 5 ECF Finals plus this year) if they had been playing in the Western Conference rather than the Eastern Conference.
So I went to Yahoo Sports NBA standings and did some analysis of what the Pistons record has been from 2002-03 through today vs what it would have been if they had played in the Western Conference.
I did this by computing the winning percentages that the Pistons have had against each conference over the 6 year period through today by year and in total for the 6 years. I projected this year’s winning percentages to 82 games. I then took the total Pistons wins by year by conference over the 6 year period and added up the wins and losses by year to come up with a 6 year winning percentage by conference along with a total 6 year won and loss record.
I then reversed the 52-30 arrangement and gave the Pistons a 30-52 (East/West) and applied the actual winning percentages by conference for each of the 6 years to come up with an adjusted winning percentage and wins and losses by conference and in total for each of the 6 years based upon the 30-52. I then added up the adjusted wins and losses by year for the each of the conferences and in total and came up with an adjusted won/loss percentage in total for the 6 years.
The actual won loss percentage for the Pistons over the 6 years has been .678, which has resulted in 333 wins over 482 games. The adjusted numbers over the 6 years projected though the end of this year are .665 and 327 wins. This amounts to only 6 less wins over the 6 years, or 1 less win a year.
Of course depending on which team was exchanged for the Pistons (i.e. moved to the East) it is possible that the Pistons may have actually had a better record over the last 6 years by playing in the Western Conference. Who would have thought it?
If you want to check his math, this is the data he used:
2007-08 Total to Date 49-19 vs East 30-11 vs West 19-8
2006-07 Total 53-29; vs East 36-16; vs West 17-13
2005-06 Total 64-18; vs East 39-13; vs West 25-5
2004-05 Total 54-28; vs East 35-17; vs West 19-11
2003-04 Total 54-28; vs East 37-17; vs West 17-11
2002-03 Total 50-32; vs East 35-19; vs West 15-13Total 2002-08 is 324-154 = .678 (Projected based upon 82 games this year)
vs East 212-93 = .695
vs West 112-61 = .647If the Pistons played in the West, the adjusted winning percentage since 2002-03 (based upon 30-52 rather than 52-30 East/West games) would have been .665, rather than what it has been at .678
There are 492 games over a 6 year period
Actual winning percentage of .678 = 333-159
Adjusted winning percentage of .665 = 327-165
I can see a lot of ways to poke holes in this hypothetical argument (for instance, would the wear and tear of facing Western teams 52 times a year result in a reduced winning percentage?), but it’s certainly a different (and surprising) way of looking at things. Just like the Pistons don’t take sub-.500 teams quite as lightly as anecdotal evidence suggests, they also fare better against the superior conference than one might guess.
Update: Now that we know the winning percentage, what about the playing seed? Mike ran the numbers again and provided this quick and dirty table:
Actual seed in East; Projected seed in West
2007-08 2nd; 1st
2006-07 1st; 6th
2005-06 1st; 1st
2004-05 2nd; 4th
2003-04 2nd; 5th
2002-03 1st; 7th
This is just a quick estimation based upon the previous numbers — as Mike pointed out, obviously the seeds could (and likely would) be different had Detroit played in the West since all the other teams would have slightly different records, as well.
Our Western record’s going to be pretty nice. Currently 20-8 . . . Detroit holds 2 games left vs. Minnesota to finish. Awww yeah, bench minutes!
Nice work Matt.
…and Matt Z.. The Pistons are damn good any way you slice it.
…Mike Z.. I’m not doing well today.
Great work with the stats. The Pistons would do just as well if they were in the West. The reason is because of their big men, who provide much better interior defense than most Eastern Conference teams have had over the last few years. Hard to believe they went 25-5 against the west in 05/06.
Living on the West Coast, I can assure you that the totally unfounded concept of Western supremacy is alive and well (though to be fair, it’s not a unanimously held bias, just held by the majority of my friends who are Lakers fans). Plenty of people out here think that if the Pistons (or Boston) played in the West their record would be different. The truth is, it wouldn’t. If you pit the record of all the teams in the East, 1-15 v. all the teams in the West 1-15 (ie: 1 v. 1, 2 v. 2 … 15 v. 15), The West wins 9 and the East wins 6. The only closer it could be with 15 teams is 7-8, so the balance isn’t that far off. 11-5 would be pretty unbalanced, 9-6 is minor. Further, the Celtics (grrrrr) are so far beyond the Western Conference teams in record it’s just silly to propose they wouldn’t be ahead in the West. Hell, they took care of the Texas triangle (including an absolute waxing of Houston which broke Houston’s streak) in 4 nights. They can’t hang with the West? Really? That’s just stupid. And the Pistons would do just fine too. joejoejoe has it locked, “The Pistons are damn good any way you slice it.” Watch the East (*cough* Pistons *cough*) take home the Larry O’Brien trophy this year. Suck it, West.
“Suck it, West.”
Truer words have not been spoken.
Last I checked, whether or not the ‘hoops’ are located East or West of the Mississippi is irrelevant … as the basket is still 10 feet from the floor … regardless of its locale.
When healthy … there are a swack of good teams in the NBA this year,
i.e. Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Golden State, Houston, LA Lakers, Orlando, Phoenix (with Shaq), Portland, New Orleans, San Antonio, Utah and Washington
… with an expanding group of others
i.e. Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Indiana, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Sacramento and Toronto.
… that, on any given day, can jump up and beat one of the aforementioned Top 15.
The Playoffs are going to be absolutely TERRIFIC!
The arguments disparaging Boston or Detroit for being in the east are ridiculous. A more legitimate complaint is that the Eastern finalist will probably have an easier road to deal with than the Western finalist. The western playoffs are going to be a thing to behold. The east should have its share of good series past the first round as well.
i hope everyone noticed the sixers-celts game last night. thing of friggin’ beauty. i think iguodala dunked on pierce 3 or 4 times. i wish one of our guys would dunk on pierce. over and over and over….
DBBers,
Who would you rather face in the first round? Toronto or Philly?
Toronto seems like the easier opponent. But would it be better in the long run to face a better defensive team in preparation for the next round. Is Toronto too easy?
QD: Put my chips on Toronto. I know that this team struggles with complacency, but in a series against Toronto (a team that is markedly worse than us) would we really blow it? Come on, we’d get the W fairly quickly. I’d rather make our guys work harder less often than work harder all the time. Even with the reduced minutes, the last few years show that the easier the early path, the more likely for advancement to the Finals.
We’d still beat Philly too. Come on, their team may be playing well, but it’s got about 3-4 guys who can actually ball. I just don’t want us to deal with their Herculean effort on defense lately because that’s exhausting.
Toronto.
Let Philly almost or beat a lesser team instead of pushing Detroit’s buttons. I like blowouts, and nothing makes me happier than a rolling 20 or greater on some pathetic club that shouldn’t even have the nerve to step in the Palace in the first place.
No, I don’t kick puppies.
I guess I probably should have included Washington in the discussion (and the return of Gilbert Arenas).
So again…
Toronto, Philly, or Washington?
Oh, and my thing with Toronto was that I was afraid the Pistons would blow it. I was thinking more of the “running up the score on Denver and then having to face a good defensive team in Cleveland” thing.
When the Pistons beat the Lakers, they had faced a good defensive team in New Jersey and a great one in Indiana. Then when the Lakers came along, they were shocked at how many open looks they had all series.
Is there something to “if it ain’t rough, it ain’t right?”
*was not that I was afraid
Wow. Nice maths!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MiMWJ1xBo8w
Oh, and CWebb is retiring right now. Good thing we didn’t take him! *thumbs up and wink*
QD, I feel you. I didn’t mean to imply that you worry we’d blow it. But I think in today’s NBA landscape with all these teams jumping out to 60 win seasons and all these superstar-laden teams (rich get richer, poor get poorer), it’s exhausting. These Pistons (not to be confused with top-of-his-game Ben era Pistons) step up when they need to and when they have the energy to. If we preserve the energy, we’ll have to deal w/a bit of Jekyll and Hyde, but any of the big guns that we match up well against we should blow out of the water (Boston makes me mildly nervous, but not too much).
That being said … I like us against Washington with Gilbert more than us against Washington without Gilbert. I think Gilbert’s kinda a selfish player, and we can handle that. Either way, Washington doesn’t scare me in a seven game series, but they annoy me quite a bit more than Toronto, because Washington has some grit (unlike the All-World Softie Raptors).
Last year Cleveland had pushovers in the first two rounds (was last year’s New Jersey team that great on D?), and they put a beatdown on us (presumably a strong defensive team). After leveling us they didn’t exactly ride the wave to a title. Long story short: I’d rather take easy than hard for the first two rounds. These guys know they’ll see a challenge in the ECF (They probably really thought Cleveland was nothing last year), and I think they’ll step it up accordingly. The more they have left in the tank, the better.
Still Toronto.
Detroit played soft-as-it-gets Milwaukee in 2004’s first round. 4-1, on to the next. Toronto’s defense isn’t as soft as that Indiana’s team, but I think I can enjoy at least a couple rolling-20s out of Toronto, especially at the Palace.
C-Webb has retired…
don’t want to play washington. their record against the top 4 in the east is kind of disturbing. they’re going to give whoever they play in the first round a tough time.
i think we’d ultimately beat philly, but hard to ignore the roll philly’s been on over the last month. win AT palace, win AT phoenix, win AT boston, beat denver, beat the champs, beat orlando. beat chicago in chicago down 18 in the 4th. they’re the type of team that’s going to exhaust a first round opponent.
i’d rather play toronto, but ask me after tonight. the raptors are like a poor man’s suns. they’ll let our offense go wherever it wants for 48 minutes. i think we’d buzzsaw through them.
My problem with facing Washington is that they can get into a helter-skelter, nothing-to-lose mode when their backs are on the line. They still don’t play too much defense, but they’d get both an emotional lift and real-word boost by getting Gilbert Arenas back right before the playoffs.
If I had my druthers, I say Toronto, and not just because Sam Mitchell is probably the most amusing coach to talk to in the league.
“backs are on the line”? I think you’re mixing metaphors, Matt.
Yeah, that’s bad …
Don’t worry Matt, you’re still awesome to me. And even awesome people make mistakes. Just ask Mark Cuban about how that trade for Jason Kidd is going.