Archive for the 'Rankings' Category

Pre-pre-season rankings, now with 100% less logic

Published by Matt Watson on August 14, 2008 in Around the Internets and Rankings. 73 Comments

I rarely pay attention to preseason rankings, but seeing as it’s the middle of August without much happening in Pistonsville, I’m going to make an exception. So, Marty Burns of Sports Illustrated, what say you about the East?

1. Boston
2. Cleveland
3. Magic

Bold! You bumped Detroit out of your top 3! Boston obviously belongs there and Cleveland did get better by getting Mo Williams. I’m not entirely sure what Orlando did to make the jump, but sure, it’s your list, I’ll play along …

4. Philadelphia

Okay, I see what you did there. You must be an Elton Brand fan, but, um, aren’t you forgetting someone?

5. Washington

Yeah, that’s not who I was talking about …

6. Detroit

Seriously? Sixth? Explain yourself, man!

Logic says they should be ranked higher, since they suffered no significant losses (other than coach Flip Saunders) from a team that won 59 games last season. But even president Joe Dumars seemed to think this present group had run its course at the end of last season and needed some new blood. Kwame Brown isn’t likely to light a fire under anybody. And how will all those Pistons vets react to hearing their names in trade talks all summer? Unless Dumars has something else up his sleeve, the Pistons just seem like a team headed for a decline.

Dumars thinks some “new blood” might help the team make the jump from losing a contested Conference Finals to hoisting the Larry O’Brien — it’s not like he’s worried this team will suddenly turn in a .500 record. The Raptors finished sixth in the East last year by going 41-41 — do you really think a few veterans hearing their names mentioned in trade rumors will cost this team 18 games?

That’s crazy talk. All of a sudden, I just remembered why I avoid these things. Let me save you five minutes: 7. Raptors; 8. Pacers; 9. Hawks; 10. Bobcats; 11. Heat; 12. Bucks; 13. Bulls; 14. Nets; 15. Knicks.

Where do the 2007-08 Pistons rank all-time?

Published by Matt Watson on April 18, 2008 in Rankings. 15 Comments

The predictions and rankings below are from an email I received from Kyle Wright, author of the book The NBA from Top to Bottom, which undertakes the daunting task of ranking every single team in NBA history using a mathematical formula that has correctly predicted the champion 56% of the time. The 1970-71 Bucks are ranked No. 1 and the 1992-93 Mavericks are dead last.

(I’m not spoiling too much — the interesting stuff is in the middle, such as his rankings of the most dominant teams never to win a title, the worst teams to ever stumble into a title, and, as our friends in Miami might be interested to learn about, the worst teams in NBA history to ever take the court.)

The book covers every NBA season through 2006-07, but Kyle updated his rankings to include this season below, as well as predict this season’s eventual winner. His predictions for this year aren’t all that encouraging for Pistons fans (his formula has the Pistons losing to the Celtics in the Conference Finals), but it’s still food for thought, especially his updated rankings: he has Boston’s run this year pegged as the seventh-most dominant season all-time, while Detroit’s season ranks 63rd. Take it away, Kyle …

______

THE NBA FROM TOP TO BOTTOM’S 2007-08 PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS

East first round: Boston over Atlanta; Detroit over Philadelphia; Orlando over Toronto; Cleveland over Washington
East semifinals: Boston over Cleveland; Detroit over Orlando
East finals: Boston over Detroit

West first round: Los Angeles Lakers over Denver; New Orleans over Dallas; Phoenix over San Antonio; Utah over Houston
West semifinals: Los Angeles Lakers over Utah; New Orleans over Phoenix
West finals: Los Angeles Lakers over New Orleans

NBA Finals: Boston over Los Angeles Lakers

THE NBA FROM TOP TO BOTTOM’S ALL-TIME RANKINGS FOR 2007-08 NBA TEAMS

All-time ranking (of 1,183) Team
7 Boston Celtics
44 Los Angeles Lakers
61 Utah Jazz
63 Detroit Pistons
124 New Orleans Hornets
142 Phoenix Suns
143 San Antonio Spurs
158 Orlando Magic
162 Houston Rockets
170 Dallas Mavericks
232 Denver Nuggets
339 Toronto Raptors
365 Golden State Warriors
580 Philadelphia 76ers
657 Cleveland Cavaliers
662 Washington Wizards
671 Portland Trail Blazers
799 Indiana Pacers
815 Sacramento Kings
834 Atlanta Hawks
912 Chicago Bulls
1000 Charlotte Bobcats
1031 New Jersey Nets
1069 Memphis Grizzlies
1092 Minnesota Timberwolves
1095 New York Knickerbockers
1104 Los Angeles Clippers
1109 Milwaukee Bucks
1141 Seattle Supersonics
1151 Miami Heat

_________

If you’re interested in learning more about the book, visit iuniverse.com or sportsfromtoptobottom.com. And thank you to Kyle for the review copy as well as these updated rankings.

Does Detroit take losers lightly?

Published by Matt Watson on March 13, 2008 in Rankings. 75 Comments

From DBB reader Brad in reaction to last night’s loss:

We’re missing something. A championship level team mows these teams down with little to no effort (reference Boston.) We just don’t have it this year.

Is he on to something? Have the Pistons reverted back to their ways of not giving a consistent effort every night? And if so, is this a problem unique to Detroit? (I could have picked any number of comments to highlight, but chose Brad’s for succinctly making his point.) I admit that it appears to be a problem lately, but for the most part I’d say the Pistons have made progress changing their complacent ways. But to be honest, I don’t know this for a fact, so I decided to look at some numbers.

According to hoopsstats.com, the Pistons are 30-8 this year against sub-.500 teams, which equates to a .789 winning percentage. But while the Pistons can boast the second-best record in the league overall, they’re actually just seventh in the league against losers. Not surprisingly, Boston is first with a 33-3 record (.917), followed by San Antonio (.903), the Los Angeles Lakers (.871), New Orleans (.839), Houston (.833) and Phoenix (.818).

Last year the Pistons were 6th in the league (.727) — while their ranking has slipped, their winning percentage has increased, so they have made some improvement. In 05-06, the Pistons were first (.878), and in the two years they were in the Finals in 04-05 (.735) and 03-04 (.762), they were 11th and 8th, respectively.

So what’s this all mean? Eh, not much. I guess they don’t mow down tomato cans like some of the other elite teams do, but I’m more concerned about their record against winning teams, and this year, only the Celtics (18-9, .667) and Jazz (21-13, .618) have a better record than the Pistons (.16-10, .615) against teams with a plus-.500 record. That’s an improvement from last year when they ranked fifth (15-15, .500), though not quite as good as 05-06 when they were tied for first (21-10, .677).

I looked all of this up because I was curious, but I honestly don’t think any of these rankings, percentages or trends will actually matter come the playoffs. There’s no way around it: if the Pistons play as poorly in the postseason as they did last night, their playoff run will be a short one, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. The “c” word — complacency — gets tossed around all the time by the fans, but it hasn’t been a real problem in a long, long while.

All of the Conference Finals losses are starting to run together in my mind, too, but to their credit the Pistons kicked off the playoffs last year with seven consecutive wins — they were as locked in and focused as I’ve ever seen them. They eventually ran into a wall in Cleveland, but it wasn’t because they were bored or unmotivated. They lost because the Cavs completely kicked them out their rhythm with their physical defense, a little-known rookie getting hot (and all the calls) and LeBron James dominating. Complacency had nothing to do with it, just like losing the Sixers in March has nothing to do with how this team will fare in April and May. The Pistons are on pace to win 59 games, which is damn impressive, but it still means there will be 23 games the team will go home losers.

Pistons still atop BPR’s

Published by Matt Watson on January 17, 2006 in Alley-Oops and Rankings. 0 Comments

The newest BPR’s are up — top three spots remain the same, but the bottom has sure seen a lot of movement. In case you’re interested, here’s my ballot.

Pistons still No. 1 in BPR rankings

Published by Matt Watson on January 5, 2006 in Rankings. 0 Comments

Head over to YAYsports! for the latest edition of the NBA Blogosphere Power Rankings. Not surprisingly, the Pistons are still the unanimous pick for the top spot, followed by the Spurs, Mavs and Heat. What do the rest of the rankings look like? Check it out. As usual, my ballot is available below the fold.

Continue reading ‘Pistons still No. 1 in BPR rankings’

Week 5 BPR Power Rankings

Published by Matt Watson on December 6, 2005 in Rankings. 3 Comments

The newest BPR’s have been posted up at YAYsports! — minus one delinquent blogger’s ballot:

Also, this week’s screwed up ballot goes to Detroit Bad Boys, who voted after the deadline and will have their ballot count in the next one two weeks from now. We gave special warning and told you not to do that…but we still love you. Sort of.

So what really happened? Was it a) the result of my never being on time for anything in my life, or b) all just a ploy to get some free publicity on what’s bound to be Tuesday’s most linked item in the sports blogosphere? Option B makes me sound smart, but I’d have a hard time convincing that to anyone that actually knows me.

But, because of my gaffe, I’m now able to offer the readers of this blog an absolute exclusive not available anywhere else: my power rankings!

Continue reading ‘Week 5 BPR Power Rankings’

Week 3 BPR Power Rankings

Published by Matt Watson on November 22, 2005 in Rankings. 0 Comments

The latest edition of the Blogosphere Power Rankings have been released. Not surprisingly, the Pistons jumped up a spot to take over the No. 1 spot. Where do the Spurs fit in? Or the red-hot Cavs? Squint really hard and find out for yourself:

NBA BPR - Week 3

Or, you know, just head over to YAYsports! for the full-sized, legible list. In case you’re curious, my ballot is below the jump:

Continue reading ‘Week 3 BPR Power Rankings’

Week 1 BPR ballots revealed

Published by Matt Watson on November 10, 2005 in Rankings. 0 Comments

I mentioned earlier that the YAYsports! Blogosphere Poll Rankings were posted, but at the time it was just a jpeg of the overall finally tally. Well, it looks like they threw the code monkies an extra banana or two, because the fully clickable version which reveals each of the individual ballots is now working. Enjoy.

Week 1 NBA BPR Rankings

Published by Matt Watson on November 8, 2005 in Rankings. 1 Comment

As you may have noticed by the logo that appeared on the right-hand side of this site a week or so ago, your favorite Detroit Pistons blog is a full-fleged voting member of the YAYsports! Blogosphere Poll Rankings, affectionately dubbed the BPR’s. I’ll post my ballot every week, or at least until the folks over at YAYsports! follow through on their promise to make it visible on their end:

  1. San Antonio
  2. Detroit
  3. Indianapolis
  4. Dallas
  5. Milwaukee
  6. New Jersey
  7. Phoenix
  8. Washington
  9. Miami
  10. LA Clippers
  11. Houston
  12. LA Lakers
  13. Memphis
  14. Sacramento
  15. Utah
  16. Golden State
  17. Seattle
  18. Denver
  19. Cleveland
  20. Minnesota
  21. New Orleans
  22. Boston
  23. Chicago
  24. Charlotte
  25. Philadelphia
  26. New York
  27. Portland
  28. Orlando
  29. Atlanta
  30. Toronto

Part of me really wanted to vote the Pistons No. 1, and I would have felt partially justified with the Spurs already suffering a loss. But the champs are the champs, and I don’t think the Pistons have really played anyone quite yet. As it turns out, the rest of the voting members agreed, as the Spurs and Pistons place first and second in the Week 1 rankings, with Indiana, Dallas and Miami rounding out the top five.

NBA BPR Week 1 - 11.08.05 [YAYsports!]