Having said that, after a good bit of work on it, I've developed my own mathematical formula for ranking NBA teams. I'll leave the specifics of how I formulate scores to myself, but I'll share a little about how I wanted to develop them:
And, that's it. I debated a few other factors, like margin of victory, or superstar presence, but decided those would be less unbiased and less helpful in predicting the best teams in the league. I'm hoping to keep up with it, and keep publishing my rankings periodically.
So, here they are, my first rankings, to share with you:
Rank | Team | score
1. Boston 2.72
2. Utah 2.37
3. LA Lakers 2.2
4. Atlanta 1.87
5. New York 1.87
6. Houston 1.78
7. Phoenix 1.26
8. Orlando 1.21
9. Toronto 1.21
10. Miami 1.04
11. Indiana 0.94
12. Cleveland 0.92
13. Detroit 0.88
14. Denver 0.71
15. Chicago 0.64
16. Golden State 0.5
17. Portland 0.38
18. Minnesota 0.38
19. New Jersey 0.28
20. San Antonio 0.08
21. Philadelphia -0.12
22. Sacramento -0.36
23. New Orleans -0.45
24. Dallas -0.45
25. Charlotte -0.45
26. Milwaukee -0.69
27. Memphis -0.69
28. Washington -0.78
29. LA Clippers -1.64
30. Oklahoma City -2.61
