At the Allstar break, it's clear that West is Best and East is Least

[Fafnir]

The West has more decent teams, fewer awful teams.

The East has more great teams, more awful teams.

Whether you think the East or the West is best depends on what you think matters most.

It also depends on your definition of "great teams"...

In that case, I'd say it's the Spurs, Celtics and Mavs - 2-1 West!

Of course, those on the "It's not wins that matter, it's point differential would say the Mavs differential isn't high enough.

(Fafnir, my post above came before I read the last link from pro-football-ref.com, sorry to waste your time. I would certainly say that this method of adjusting for SOS as a predictive model - that is only accurate 54% of the time - isn't particularly earth-shaking).

Where do you get the 55% number?

[nba is the worst]

The West has more decent teams, fewer awful teams.

The East has more great teams, more awful teams.

Whether you think the East or the West is best depends on what you think matters most.

It also depends on your definition of "great teams"...

In that case, I'd say it's the Spurs, Celtics and Mavs - 2-1 West!

Of course, those on the "It's not wins that matter, it's point differential would say the Mavs differential isn't high enough.

(Fafnir, my post above came before I read the last link from pro-football-ref.com, sorry to waste your time. I would certainly say that this method of adjusting for SOS as a predictive model - that is only accurate 54% of the time - isn't particularly earth-shaking).

Where do you get the 55% number?

"If you'd read the links (you gave me), you'd have the answer".
 

It's somewhere on the bball-ref.com blogs, but as I spent at least a hour reading there I'm not sure which page it's on.

What Paine did was apply his formula to every NBA title winner in history and the model predicted the eventual champion 54% of the time (not 55% - do you do this editing on purpose)?

[libermaniac]

The West has more decent teams, fewer awful teams.

The East has more great teams, more awful teams.

Whether you think the East or the West is best depends on what you think matters most.

It also depends on your definition of "great teams"...

In that case, I'd say it's the Spurs, Celtics and Mavs - 2-1 West!

Of course, those on the "It's not wins that matter, it's point differential would say the Mavs differential isn't high enough.

(Fafnir, my post above came before I read the last link from pro-football-ref.com, sorry to waste your time. I would certainly say that this method of adjusting for SOS as a predictive model - that is only accurate 54% of the time - isn't particularly earth-shaking).

Mavs? Bwahaha!  That's the only team of the 7 listed, that, IMO has NO chance of winning it all.  They will fold in the second round like they always do.  You know it.

Here's my rank on odds to win the title.  Not based on any stats, just my feel of who will be there when it matters:

Serious Contenders:

Heat
Celtics
Lakers
Spurs

Might get it done:

Bulls


No real shot, but just for inclusion:

Magic
Mavs

[nba is the worst]

The West has more decent teams, fewer awful teams.

The East has more great teams, more awful teams.

Whether you think the East or the West is best depends on what you think matters most.

It also depends on your definition of "great teams"...

In that case, I'd say it's the Spurs, Celtics and Mavs - 2-1 West!

Of course, those on the "It's not wins that matter, it's point differential would say the Mavs differential isn't high enough.

(Fafnir, my post above came before I read the last link from pro-football-ref.com, sorry to waste your time. I would certainly say that this method of adjusting for SOS as a predictive model - that is only accurate 54% of the time - isn't particularly earth-shaking).

Mavs? Bwahaha!  That's the only team of the 7 listed, that, IMO has NO chance of winning it all.  They will fold in the second round like they always do.  You know it.

Here's my rank on odds to win the title.  Not based on any stats, just my feel of who will be there when it matters:

Serious Contenders:

Heat
Celtics
Lakers
Spurs

Might get it done:

Bulls


No real shot, but just for inclusion:

Magic
Mavs

Ha, you're right - I don't take the Mavs seriously at all - but they're better than the heatles.

to me, it's Spurs, Celtics, and Lakers, in that order as the only "true" contenders.

Time will tell.