December 1 - 2004

I will be ranking the NBA teams on a weekly basis using a statistical model to estimate a score based on each team's schedule and the outcomes of every game. The power of the model is that it adjusts for the difficulty of every team's schedule, including the difficulty of playing on the road (home-field advantage). This model assesses the performance of every teams since day 1, and treats each game as equal regardless of whether they occured at the beginning of the season or the end. It is possible to weight more recent games more heavily, however, I'm not convinced of the best weighting strategy. For now, I'm going to keep it objective and treat every game equally. Also, a victory is simply seen as a victory, that is, there is no distinction between a 20 point blowout and an overtime win. In the future, there may be a distinction for decisive games, but at at this point I'm not convinced that the outcome is proportional to the final score difference.

Score / W - L / Team

1. 2.10 / 13 - 3 / San Antonio Spurs
2. 2.08 / 14 - 3 / Seattle SuperSonics
3. 2.01 / 13 - 2 / Phoenix Suns
4. 1.14 / 10 - 5 / Sacramento Kings
5. 1.12 / 10 - 5 / Indiana Pacers
6. 0.98 / 9 - 5 / Minnesota Timberwolves
7. 0.95 / 10 - 6 / Dallas Mavericks
8. 0.55 / 8 - 6 / New York Knick
9. 0.54 / 10 - 6 / Miami Heat
10. 0.54 / 8 - 5 / Washington Wizards
11. 0.53 / 10 - 6 / Los Angeles Clippers
12. 0.50 / 9 - 6 / Cleveland Cavaliers
13. 0.36 / 7 - 10 / Toronto Raptors
14. 0.34 / 6 - 8 / Philadelphia 76ers
15. 0.29 / 9 - 5 / Orlando Magic
16. 0.28 / 8 - 6 / Portland TrailBlazers
17. 0.25 / 8 - 6 / Denver Nuggets
18. 0.13 / 6 - 8 / Boston Celtics
19. 0.06 / 7 - 7 / Detroit Pistons
20. -0.10 / 9 - 7 / Los Angeles Lakers
21. -0.27 / 8 - 8 / Utah Jazz
22. -0.50 / 6 - 10 / Houston Rockets
23. -0.56 / 5 - 11 / Memphis Grizzlies
24. -0.99 / 4 - 9 / Milwaukee Bucks
25. -1.42 / 3 - 12 / New Jersey Nets
26. -1.64 / 2 - 10 / Chicago Bulls
27. -1.92 / 3 - 10 / Charlotte Bobcats
28. -2.07 / 3 - 11 / Golden State Warriors
29. -2.18 / 2 - 12 / Atlanta Hawks
30. -3.10 / 1 - 13 / New Orleans Hornets

Home-field Advantage = 0.73