The Best and the Worst Offenses and Defenses of the NBA in 2008-09

By far the best among relatively easy ways to grade and rank offenses and defenses is to use efficiency, which is the number of points scored (offense) per 100 possessions, or the number of points allowed (defense) per 100 possessions. This is the scoring rate, so differences in pace (how fast teams choose to play) are washed out (corrected for).

You can not simply use points per game because this makes the offense of fast pace teams look better than it is and the defense of fast paced teams look worse than it is. And the reverse would be true for slow paced teams.

The fact that there are more than 6,000 offensive and defensive possessions for NBA teams during a regular season means that even tiny differences in efficiency are significant and have a real world impact. Even if there is just a 0.1 difference between two teams, it is still valid to say that the higher team had the better offense or defense. A difference of 2 points is actually a fairly major difference, and in real life will often mean the difference between a team that has a possibility of winning a Championship and a team that does not.

Yes, I'm giving you a hard stare right now, Denver, laugh out loud. You were good but you were not Championship material this season, and your defense was, when all was said and done, overrated.

OFFENSIVE EFFICIENCY OF NBA TEAMS
2008-09 REGULAR SEASON
Rate of Scoring: Points Scored per 100 Possessions
Even extremely small differences are significant and meaningful

1 Portland Trail Blazers 113.9
2 Phoenix Suns 113.6
3 Los Angeles Lakers 112.8
4 Cleveland Cavaliers 112.4
5 Boston Celtics 110.5
6 Dallas Mavericks 110.5
7 Denver Nuggets 110.4
8 Utah Jazz 110.1
9 Golden State Warriors 109.5
10 Atlanta Hawks 109.3
11 Orlando Magic 109.2
12 New Orleans Hornets 108.7
13 San Antonio Spurs 108.5
14 Houston Rockets 108.4
15 Chicago Bulls 108.4
16 New Jersey Nets 108.3
17 Indiana Pacers 108.1
18 New York Knicks 108.1
19 Philadelphia 76ers 107.9
20 Miami Heat 107.8
21 Detroit Pistons 107.4
22 Toronto Raptors 107.0
23 Milwaukee Bucks 106.7
24 Minnesota Timberwolves 106.1
25 Sacramento Kings 105.5
26 Washington Wizards 105.4
27 Charlotte Bobcats 104.7
28 Memphis Grizzlies 103.5
29 Oklahoma City Thunder 102.9
30 Los Angeles Clippers 102.3

The Portland Trailblazers were the best NBA team this year if you look only at offense. The Phoenix Suns were very close behind. The Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers trailed those top two offenses by a small amount.

Remember, do not be fooled by the seemingly small differences, because remember we are talking about the rate of scoring across more than 6,000 possessions of the ball. This is a huge statistical sample, so even seemingly extremely small differences are significant in the real world.

So the Dallas Mavericks, the Boston Celtics, and the Denver Nuggets (5th, 6th, and 7th, respectively) were good offenses but they were clearly not as good as the top four.

The Utah Jazz had the 8th best offense.

Rounding out the top ten were those perennial runner-gunners the Golden State Warriors (9th) and the much slower paced Atanta Hawks (10th); these two were slightly less offensively powerful than the Utah Jazz.

The Orlando Magic finished outside of the top 10 by the slimmest of margins.

We are only specifically mentioning the top 10 and the bottom three. For the middle and lower tiers, see the list.

The worst offensive teams in the NBA in 2008-09, in order from really bad to worst of all, were the Memphis Grizzlies (28th) the Oklahoma Thunder (29th) and the Los Angeles Clippers (30th) Happy lottery to those squads.

DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY OF NBA TEAMS
2008-09 REGULAR SEASON
Rate of Scoring Allowed: Points Scored by Opponent per 100 Possessions
Even extremely small differences are significant and meaningful

1 Orlando Magic 101.9
2 Boston Celtics 102.3
3 Cleveland Cavaliers 102.4
4 Houston Rockets 104.0
5 San Antonio Spurs 104.3
6 Los Angeles Lakers 104.7
7 Charlotte Bobcats 106.1
8 Denver Nuggets 106.8
9 New Orleans Hornets 107.0
10 Utah Jazz 107.2
11 Atlanta Hawks 107.6
12 Miami Heat 107.6
13 Portland Trail Blazers 107.8
14 Philadelphia 76ers 107.8
15 Milwaukee Bucks 107.9
16 Detroit Pistons 108.0
17 Dallas Mavericks 108.4
18 Chicago Bulls 108.7
19 Indiana Pacers 109.2
20 Oklahoma City Thunder 109.4
21 Memphis Grizzlies 109.5
22 Toronto Raptors 110.0
23 New York Knicks 110.8
24 New Jersey Nets 111.0
25 Minnesota Timberwolves 111.4
26 Phoenix Suns 111.6
27 Los Angeles Clippers 111.7
28 Golden State Warriors 113.3
29 Washington Wizards 113.6
30 Sacramento Kings 114.7

The best defense in the NBA in 2008-09 was by the Orlando Magic, who had a little better defense than did the Boston Celtics and the Clevaland Cavaliers, who were extremely close behind Boston as the 3rd best defense.

After a fairly large gap, you come to the next tier of defensive teams, which were the Rockets in 4th, the Spurs in 5th, and the Lakers in 6th.

After another substantial drop off, the Charlotte Bobcats were the 7th best defensive team in the NBA this year.

After a small but meaningful additional drop off, the Denver Nuggets were the 8th best defensive team, and they were followed closely by the Hornets (9th) and the Jazz (10th).

We are only specifically mentioning the top 10 and the bottom three. For the middle and lower tiers, see the list.

The worst defensive teams in the NBA in the 2008-09 season, going from really bad to the very worst defense of all, were the Golden State Warriors (28th) the Washington Wizards (29th) and the Sacramento Kings (30th). Happy lottery to those squads.

Note that the three worst offenses were completely different from the three worst defenses; no team had one of the three worst offenses and one of the three worst defenses at the same time!

Thank goodness for that, right?

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Houston Rockets Latest Videos & Playoff Stats

The playoff summary, the team statistics, and the short leader boards are here.

The latest playoffs players stats are here.

The playoff leader lists are here.

The latest Houston Rockets videos are right here:

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Happy Mama's Day to all

Hopefully your mama brought you up so that you foul hard and hang tough, but you don't get flagrant fouls and ejections. Mamas know the difference between the tough fouls and the flagrants, and they will teach you if you will only listen to them.

So always listen to them.

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Final NBA Real Team Ratings, 2008-09 Regular Season

Below you will see the final NBA Real Team Ratings (RTR) for the 2008-09 regular season. Although probably the most spectacular (as in wow factor) improvements were in the Real Player Ratings this NBA season, probably the most ultimately important improvements were made to the Real Team Ratings.

Remember that the RTR is NOT simply a rating of how well the teams did in the regular season. Rather, it is a rating system designed to reveal the capability of winning playoff games and series of each team. Several careful and statistically valid adjustments are made to allow the RTR to accurately reflect the known factors that impact winning in the playoffs.

The RTR CAN be roughly used to predict who will win playoff series. However, there are of course many factors not included in the RTR, one of which, injuries, by itself can change the outcome of a series. By far the factor not included in basic RTR that has the biggest impact on whether a series is won or lost is injuries. Therefore, we are developing a new injury adjustment for RTR, which is extensively described below.

A good example of how important injuries are is this year's Dallas-San Antonio series. As you can see below, RTR predicts that the Spurs would most likely defeat the Dallas Mavericks in a playoff series. But Dallas won it, and clearly it was at least substantially, probably almost entirely, and possibly completely due to the injury to Manu Ginobili, one of the best players in the NBA, and absolutely essential on offense. San Antonio was especially hammered by the unavailability of Ginobili, since they were already relatively short on great offensive players to begin with.

A SMALLER BUT STILL SIGNIFICANT FACTOR: COACHING THAT IS MORE SUCCESSFUL IN THE REGULAR SEASON THAN IN THE PLAYOFFS
Most factors not in the RTR other than injuries are believed to have much, much smaller impacts on whether playoffs are won or lost. However, there is one factor that may have an impact greater than small.

Coaching is largely reflected in the RTR, except that there are coaches such as George Karl and Nate McMillan who have track records of seeing their coaching succeed in the regular season much more so than in the playoffs.

In other words, and more broadly, it is believed by us here at Quest that how a team is coached, and what schemes it is using on offense and defense, can have a different impact in the playoffs than it did in the regular season. This would not be picked up by the RTR.

One of the primary objectives of the Quest for the Ring is to identify and explain offensive and defensive strategies that work better in the regular season than they do in the playoffs, and vice versa.

Fortunately for teams with coaches whose coaching works better in the regular season than in the playoffs, the negative impact on RTR of such coaching is believed to be not large, probably in the up to 15 RTR points range. On the other hand though, a 10-15 point hit would be plenty big enough to swing any close series. So such coaching is perhaps not ruinous overall to a team, because it will not automatically cause an upset to that team when it is heavily favored. But it will cost that team plenty of close series, and so that type of coaching will certainly be in the long run ruinous to the objective of going as far as possible in the playoffs.

For complete details regarding how the Real Team Ratings are designed and why they work, see the User Guide.

REAL TEAM RATINGS
NBA 2008-09 REGULAR SEASON FINAL
1 Cleveland Cavaliers 72.55
2 Los Angeles Lakers 64.37
3 Orlando Magic 57.62
4 Boston Celtics 54.40
5 Houston Rockets 25.55
6 Denver Nuggets 16.82
7 Portland Trail Blazers 13.71
8 San Antonio Spurs 12.53
9 Dallas Mavericks -5.17
10 New Orleans Hornets -6.00
11 Utah Jazz -8.77
12 Atlanta Hawks -9.49
13 Miami Heat -23.00
14 Chicago Bulls -24.02
15 Phoenix Suns -24.55
16 Philadelphia 76ers -24.91
17 Charlotte Bobcats -31.82
18 Detroit Pistons -32.00
19 Indiana Pacers -36.72
20 Milwaukee Bucks -38.51
21 New Jersey Nets -46.66
22 New York Knicks -53.90
23 Toronto Raptors -54.52
24 Golden State Warriors -60.88
25 Memphis Grizzlies -70.80
26 Oklahoma City Thunder -78.99
27 Minnesota Timberwolves -85.40
28 Washington Wizards -89.42
29 Los Angeles Clippers -94.43
30 Sacramento Kings -99.70

Congratulations to all NBA teams and all NBA players for a great year. Congratulations to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers for being the very best and therefore earning the position of highest Real Team Rating for 2008-09. LeBron James also will almost certainly finish with the highest Real Player Rating when those come out in early July. So LeBron has cleaned up here at Quest this year.

EXTENSIVE USER GUIDE EXCERPTS
We are placing about 60% of the extensively revised Real Team Ratings User Guide here, so that when we go over playoff series the rest of the year, and refer to the Real Team Ratings, both the Ratings themselves and detailed explanations of what we are doing to adjust those ratings will be accessible at the same place, right here, by anyone who is interested. For that matter, anyone can use the ratings above and the system below to do series projections themselves, both for actual series and for hypothetical series that never took place for one reason or another. Moreover, any user can change specific factors we use, even if they are using the system as a whole.

So we will now reprint many sections of the extensively updated User Guide for Real Team Ratings. The sections dealing with base RTR are NOT shown below, most of which are unchanged from a few months ago. However, there actually was a revision, a relatively small one but not a very small one, to the base RTR calculation, to the wins and losses against playoff teams specifically, which is described at the complete User Guide. The complete User Guide is here.

ADJUSTING BASE RTR FOR FACTORS NOT INCLUDED IN BASE RTR THAT CAN BE MAJOR FOR DETERMINING WHO WINS PLAYOFF SERIES
Of all the popular American sports Leagues, the NBA is the one where the better team is most likely to avoid being upset in the playoffs. Therefore, the RTR system can be used to gain knowledge of which team is most likely to win playoff series. It can also be used to determine whether how good various players played led to an upset or not, and to get a general idea of how much better or worse than expected teams played in playoff series.

In order to do these things, however, it is necessary to modify base RTR for at least two factors that can not be directly embedded in it: home court advantage and players unavailable or playing badly due to injuries.

Even just to start with, due to a small amount of unavoidable statistical error remaining in the base RTR, there has to be a 7-12 points difference between teams before you can start to have any big confidence that one team will defeat another in the playoffs. More importantly, there are also factors unknown until close to or exactly when the series is actually being played, especially what the injury situation for each team is.

Another factor that becomes a big one when two teams with very similar ratings are playing is home court advantage. Home court advantage is estimated to be worth between 5 and 7 points.

Even if it were not for the injury wild card factor, use of RTR to predict playoff series prior to March 1 would not be very useful, due to the need for a fairly high percentage of the season to be over before the projections in base RTR are statistically meaningful, and due to the fact that the ratings are not relative to time, but rather expand with time.

MAJOR FACTORS DETERMINING WHO WINS PLAYOFF SERIES NOT BUILT IN TO THE BASIC RTR

1.HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
The home court advantage in RTR terms is believed to be 5 to 7 points

2. PLAYERS UNAVAILABLE (OR PLAYING POORLY) DUE TO INJURES
The impact relative to RTR is believed to be mathematically anything from almost 0 to 100 points for each injured and unavailable player who played during the regular season, depending mostly on how good the injured player is and depending on to what extent other players are able to step up and replace the injured player or players. Although the mathematical range of impact is 0 to 100, the realistically true and common relevant range covering the loss of starters and key reserves, is about 10 to 60 RTR points.

Players who were injured the entire season are irrelevant, except of course they are relevant in the hypothetical sense of how the season could have been different. Players who were injured relatively early in the regular season, in November or December, are only slightly relevant, and the loss of them would be a much smaller number of reduced RTR points than when the loss is later. Players who were injured late in the season, from mid-February to mid-April, have the most relevancy to whether playoff series can be won or lost, and the RTR reduction for them is much higher.

INJURY ADJUSTMENT TO RTR DIFFERENTIALS (DEVELOPMENTAL BUT HAS PASSED INITAL REVIEWS)
This adjustment is under development and review. However, it has passed initial approvals, which means it is very likely to be officially adopted in the near future.

The base or starting point is the quality of the player, as shown by the Real Player Ratings including the defending adjustment.

BASE FOR THE DOWNWARD ADJUSTMENT TO RTR DUE TO INJURY/UNAVAILABLILTY OF PLAYERS
Almost Perfect Player: 125
Historical Superstar: 113
Superstar: 98
Star: 81
Outstanding/Solid Starter: 64
Major Role Player: 49
Role Player: 36
Minor Role Player: 25
Very Minor Role Player: 16
Poor Player: 9
Very Poor Player: 4
Extremely Poor Player: 1

Remember, the base is just the hypothetical maximum possible impact, and is not a relevant real world outlook by itself. The RTR impact and the real world impact of the loss is determined by many variables, the most important of which are when the player was lost, and to what extent the other players can make up for the loss of that player.

DOWNWARD ADJUSTMENT FACTORS TO THE RTR INJURY ADJUSTMENT BASE

FACTOR FOR TIME IN THE SEASON WHEN THE PLAYER WAS LOST
November .1
December .25
January .45
February .70
March .95
April 1.0

FACTOR FOR TO WHAT EXTENT OTHER PLAYERS CAN MAKE UP FOR THE UNAVAILABLE PLAYER
We currently have to describe this adjustment generically:
(1)The player or players getting the lost minutes are close in quality (no more than one Real Player Rating category lower) and also close in terms of basketball position played, to the lost player: .4 to .6
(2)The player or players getting the lost minutes are close in quality, but are not close in terms of the position(s) played: .55 to .75
(3)The player or players getting the lost minutes are not close in quality, but are close in terms of the position played: .7 to .9

FACTOR FOR IMPORTANCE OF PLAYER TO THE TEAM (SHOWN BY MINUTES PER GAME)
32 mpg and more: 1.0
28 to 31.1: .9
24 to 27.9: .8
20 to 23.9: .7
16 to 19.9: .6
12 to 15.9: .5
8 to 11.9: .4
4 to 7.9: .3
Less than 4: .2

AN EXAMPLE OF HOW BASE RTR IS ADJUSTED FOR INJURIES: THE 2009 BOSTON CELTICS
Ok, now lets consider an example to see how all of this works. We have this year Kevin Garnett, one of the very best players in the NBA, not available to the Celtics due to injury. Garnett is in the almost perfect player range, so you start with 125 points as the unadjusted impact of the Garnett loss to the Celtics' Real Team Rating.

Now we need to breakdown that 125 gross number. First, we need the when the player was lost factor. Although Garnett came back for a few games in March, he was essentially lost for the season in February, so the factor to use is .70.

Next we need the stepping up of other players factor. Rajon Rondo has responded by being even better than he was in the regular season, which already was at the superstar level. And Rondo overall is playing as good as Garnett would be if he were playing, at the almost perfect level to be exact. So this turn of events would put the Celtics in the (2) situation above, so the factor to use would be between .55 to .75. Based on how extremely well Rondo is playing, and based on the overall resiliency of the Celtics, we will use .60 as the factor.

The third and final factor to use on the gross injury base RTR adjustment is how important the player is to the team, as shown by minutes per game. Garnett was about 31 minutes a game this season, so the factor to use is .9.

Now we can calculate by how many points we should downgrade the Celtics' RTR due to the loss of Kevin Garnett:

125 *.60 *.70 *.90 = 47.3

LEON POWE
Now we need to figure out how much the Celtics have lost due to Leon Powe not being available. Because the Celtics are also without Leon Powe, a very underrated 17 minutes a game forward, whose 2008-09 quality level was major role player.

Since he is a major role player, we start with 49 points. He was lost at the very end of the season, so the when lost factor is 1.0. Due to the simultaneous loss of Garnett and Powe, the Celtics are severly depleted upfront, which means you can positionally replace Garnett but not both Garnett and Powe at the same time, which in turn translates into a factor of about .75 for the to what extent other players can replace Powe factor. Finally, Powe played about 17 minutes a game this season, which means you should use a factor of .6 for importance of the player to the team.

Now we can calculate about how many RTR points the Celtics have lost due to Leon Powe not being available:

49 * 1.0 * .75 * .60 = 22.1

The two losses cost the Celtics roughly 47.3 + 22.1 = 69.4 points.

The Celtics' 2008-09 RTR unadjusted for injuries was 54.4. The Chicago Bulls' RTR was -24.02. So the difference between the two teams started out as 78.42. But the loss of Garnett and Powe cost the Celtics roughly 69.4 RTR points, leaving them with only a measly 9 points advantage over the Bulls, or 15 points once you add on the 6 points for home court advantage.

According to the Guidelines for Interpreting Differences in Real Team Ratings (which is reprinted from the overall User Guide below) a 15 points difference means there was somewhere between a 72% and an 80% that the Celtics were going to win the series.

So in real life, the series played out exactly as the RTR predicted that it would, at least once you have adjusted the RTR for players not available!

So what has to be done to figure out the real differences between any two playoff teams is to start with RTR, and then use the under development but destined to become officially approved Injury Adjustments. So we will have RTR-IA to use to predict playoff series, and to judge whether a series has been an upset or not, and also to judge just how heroic players such as Rajon Rondo are. (Note: always remember to add in about 6 points for the home court advantage, too.)

Bottom line for the Celtics: Rajon Rondo has been out there making up for both Kevin Garnett and Leon Powe. He has been a hero, not only for that, but also because he was already a superstar in the regular season, and then he had to get even better than being a superstar.

How would you like someone to come up to you and say to you: "You are a superstar, but that is not good enouogh right now. Now you have to be better than a superstar, you have to be almost perfect." You might be thinking to yourself: "Yeah right, I'm going to be able to suddenly be even better than I already am. I'll try, but I doubt it's going to happen; I'm not a miracle worker".

Whereas Rondo said: "No problem, I'm down with that." And then he proceeded to go out there and be almost perfect, as if that is as easy as waking up in the morning.

So Rajon Rondo is no doubt one of the heroes of the 2009 playoffs. And he has a very good chance of being the first ever Real Playoffs MVP here at Quest, which will be an honor given out to the player who did the most to help his team, regardless of exactly how many games and series the team won.

It's a good thing he already has a ring, because if he didn't fully earn it last year, he sure as hell earned one this year.

But the Celtics will need a miracle to defeat the Magic despite this.

GUIDE TO INTERPRETATION OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEAMS' REAL TEAM RATINGS
In the numeric interpretaton guide that follows, the word "roughly" is repeatedly used in front of the probability numbers, as a reminder about the small amount of unavoidable statistical error, and to emphasize that unknown factors, especially injuries, will in some cases result in substantially different actual probabilities.

The probability percentages are based on the historical results in the NBA:

REMEMBER:
In order to realistically compare teams using RTR, particularly if your objective is to know who is most likely to win playoff series, you MUST add 5 to 7 points to the RTR of the team that has home court advantage (HCA), and you MUST use the Injury Adjustment (IA) for all injured players on all teams evaluated. The injury adjustment is under development, is in beta currently, and is described extensively above. In other words, for any and all teams being evaluated, you MUST use RTR + HCA + IA

The following guidelines assume that the HCA and all injury adjustments have been correctly done.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 0 AND 5.9
The series is a complete toss-up, when statistical error is considered. There is a strong possibility of a 7 game series. The higher team has a 50% to 57% chance of winning, depending on what exactly the difference is. These probabilities are too low for anyone to have any confidence in using adjusted RTR to say who will win. All series of this type are decided quite simply by who plays better, by who coaches better, or both.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 6.0 AND 11.9
The series can easily go either way, although the higher team has a slight edge, and has between a 57% to 66% chance of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. There is a very substantial chance of a 7-game series. If the lower team wins, it is nothing more than a very minor upset. Either slight differences in the quality of coaching, certain players playing a little better or a little worse than they did in the regular season, or both, could be responsible for an upset at this level.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 12.0 AND 17.9
The series can go either way, and this type of difference gives a substantial chance for a 7-game series. But the higher team has a clear edge. The higher team has between a 66% and a 76% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. If the lower team wins, it is an upset, though just a small upset. Either slight differences in the quality of coaching, certain players playing a little better or a little worse than they did in the regular season, or both, could be responsible for an upset at this level.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 18.0 AND 23.9
The higher team has roughly between a 76% to 84% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. There is still a chance, but a relatively small one, for a 7-game series. If the lower team wins, it is clearly an upset, though generally not a major upset. Either coaches, certain players, or both could be responsible for an upset at this level.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 24.0 AND 29.9
The higher team has roughly between an 84% to a 91% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. In this kind of series, often the only way the lower team can win the series is by extending the series out to 7 games and then somehow winning the 7th game, thus taking the series 4 games to 3. However, it is not uncommon, assuming there is an upset in this type of series, for the lower team to so severly disrupt the favored team that the lower team upsets the higher, favored team 4 games to 2. Whichever way it does it, if the lower team does win coming in down by this amount, it should be considered a major upset. In many such cases, the coaching would have to be very wrong and/or negligent.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 30.0 AND 35.9
The higher team has roughly between a 91% and a 95.5% probability of winning. depending on where in the range the difference is. In this kind of series, often the only way the lower team can win the series is by taking the series 7 games and winning the 7th game, thus taking the series 4 games to 3. However, there have been a tiny number of series where a team with this amount of a RTR deficit has won the series by so severly disrupting the favored team that it is able to win the series 4 games to 2. In the vast majority of such cases, the coaching for the higher team was severely wrong and/or negligent. Whether accomplished in 6 games or 7, the lower team winning despite being this far behind in RTR is extremely rare, and would be considered a very shocking, historical upset.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 36.0 AND 41.9
The higher team has roughly between a 95.5% and a 98% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. Obviously, an upset would be extremely rare, shocking, and historical. It would in most cases be caused substantially by incompetent and/or severely negligent coaching. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS 42.0 AND 47.9
The higher team has a roughly between a 98% and a 99.5% probability of winning the series. Obviously, an upset would be extremely rare, shocking, and historical. It would in most cases be caused substantially by incompetent and/or severely negligent coaching. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

DEFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS 48.0 OR MORE
It is close to a 100% certainty that the higher team will win the series. Obviously, an upset would be extremely rare, shocking, and historical. It would in the vast majority of cases be caused substantially by incompetent and/or severely negligent coaching. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

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Nene as a Superstar: The Latest Videos of the Nuggets' Center

We've got the latest Nene videos right here.

Nene is the starting center for the Nuggets if you don't know. In the 2008-09 regular season, Nene has been at or near superstar level. He is this year roughly the 35th best player in the NBA, plus or minus half a dozen positions. Nene, Chauncey Billups, and Carmelo Anthony were almost exactly equal in early March, but Carmelo Anthony apparently resumed his traditional spot as the best Nugget late in the season, but not by much.

The complete 2008-09 Real Player Ratings (adjusted for defending) NBA-wide and by team, are scheduled to be produced and published here no later than in early July.

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The New Design of the Quest for the Ring: More Powerful and More Useful Than Ever

The Quest for the Ring is only 2 1/2 years old as of May 2009. Actually, it's in effect only about 2 years old, because the reports in the first six months were relatively short and not all that earth shaking to be honest.

This site has come a very long way in a very short time. Especially considering that there are only two people who produce it.

The Internet is a very powerful communication system, so powerful that people who produce and post content to the world wide web are continuously developing their content and their editorial scheme. The guy behind the Quest is a creative and perfectionist type person, which means that he is always coming up with new ideas (most of which are quickly rejected) and that he is never completely happy with whatever the current Quest editorial strategy is. Therefore, it is no surprise that a decision was made recently to once again revamp the editorial strategy of the Quest.

A BRIEF HISTORY
The editorial scheme of the Quest started out very simply in late 2006: the site started out as "Nuggets 1," and was to be a simple basketball fan site for the Denver Nuggets. In the first two years, the size and the scope of basketball reports grew by leaps and bounds.

By early 2008, we had already outgrown the simple one-team fan site concept. The outgrowing of it was rapid, and the rapidity was due more than anything else to the amateur way the Nuggets were managing and coaching their team when Allen Iverson was on it. So by early 2008, the myriad mistakes of the Nuggets franchise were getting on our nerves, and also by then we realized that merely being a fan site for one particular team was not going to be enough for the long term. Not enough from a basketball perspective and not enough from a worthwhile web site that can generate good traffic perspective either.

As you can read about in detail elsewhere in the User Guide, the mission expanded to become a dedication to discovering and reporting on how basketball games are won. Since if you win more games than anyone else you win a Championship, and since in the NBA at least you are awarded a very sharp looking ring if you are a Champion, we decided during the summer of 2008 to drop the "Nuggets 1" name and to adopt the name "The Quest for the Ring."

Furthermore, it was decided during the summer of 2008 that we would compromise between on the one hand being a site for just one team, and on the other hand being a site which tries to cover the entire League. The former is too narrow and the latter is too broad.

If you are covering just one team, you can discover and report things that even the Coach and/or the managers of the team don't seem to know or understand, but by definition you can not know very much about other teams, nor can you do much true analysis of the League as a whole. If on the other hand your site is for the NBA as a whole, you can seldom if ever get detailed enough to be truly useful to readers who are trying to learn about exactly how and why basketball games are won.

So the objective, which at first we were thinking was more of a dream than an obtainable objective, was to compromise between the two editorial positions. Eventually, persistance showed that it is possible to compromise and avoid the two extremes.

It was considered a truism that if we attempted to cover every team in the NBA, our reports would have to be watered down and thus less useful. In other words, the reports would not have the detailed accuracy needed to help players, coaches, and managers to win basketball games, a detail that can only come if you limit the teams covered to no more than three.

So in early November 2008, we decided to cover two teams: the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets.

In October 2008 the name of the site officially became "The Quest for the Ring." However, the site remained, and still remains at this writing, located at the original Nuggets 1 blogspot web address. We plan to migrate the home page (including every report) to here in the summer of 2009, but the nuggets1.blogspot address will always of course link to the new address, and we may post the reports on both addresses for about a year.

TEMPORARY SUSPENSIONS OF PRODUCTION
As you can read about in detail in the 2008 Site News and History postings in this User Guide, there was a virtual suspension of production of reports during 2008, from April through September to be exact. This was due primarily to the real estate crash; that crash forced us to put in far more hours than we would have put in otherwise in real estate projects that were absolutely mandatory to achieve. Starting in October 2008, the site, now called The Quest for the Ring, sprung back into life. During October and into the first half of November or so, content that actually had been produced during the suspension was posted.

At the very beginning of March, 2009, we published the first ever Real Player Ratings (by Team) that included a statistically valid adjustment for "hidden defending," for another words defending not tracked by scorekeepers such as man to man defending.

Three short weeks after that milestone, a technological disaster, and simultaneously the necessity of completing another large-scale project, forced a suspension of production again. For the second year in a row, the suspension was at about the worst possible time during the year: just before the playoffs were to get underway.

The 2008 suspension was for 6 months, though content was actually being produced during 4 of those months but not posted to the site until October, as already explained.

Now, the 2009 suspension has been for 7 weeks, a little less than two months.

We apologize to readers for the suspension, particularly to any regular readers out there.

In 2008 we promised that, as we were then doing, we would in the future, whenever we were forced to temporarily suspend operations, always come back stronger than ever. As you will see, we really meant that!

NEW EDITORIAL DESIGN OF THE QUEST AS OF MAY 2009
Of course we are making no changes in the mission or the primary objectives of the Quest: to discover and explain exactly how basketball games are won and lost, and how teams and franchises are successful or unsuccessful. But we are making smart changes on how best to achive the mission and the objectives.

We are making two major changes. First, although we are continuing the two team specialization plan, the amount of freedom we have to choose which teams to specialize in is being reduced to very little. From now on, we will be covering the defending Champion and whichever team is considered (by basketball people we believe in including our self) to be the most likely to challenge the Champion in the next Finals.

However, we decided to, given that Kevin Garnett is not available to the Celtics, to technically violate the new rule for the few weeks between the beginning of new editorial policy and the 2009 finals. Starting in October 2009 and in each subsequent October, we will specialize in whatever team won the June Championship, and whichever team is considered most likely to challenge for the Championship in the next June.

But the other major change is even bigger, and means that the particular teams chosen for specialization will be somewhat less important than before, because we are increasing the overall League focus even more so than we did in the fall 2008 changes.

Now we will be dividing the year into two parts:

MID APRIL THROUGH MID DECEMBER
The playoffs will be broken down in detail. There will be reports on every single playoff game. The reports for the first round, which is really just a washout round, where a big thing which happens is that the teams with injuries are washed out, will probably be limited to mostly "Ultimate Game Breakdown" type reports, with Real Player Ratings being the most important component. We are planning to make the breakdowns even better by including with the Real Player Ratings key team statistics that you can not find in box scores, such as team offensive and team defensive efficiency and turnover analysis for the individual playoff games.

For second round (Conference Semis) third round (Conference Finals) and for of course the NBA Championship, we will be producing both the Ultimate Game Breakdowns and written article reports on each game.

In other words, we have decided to give the Quest a virtually unique detailed focus on NBA playoff games, the games where the best players and teams play.

In summary during this period from April to December, we will be spending much of our time on going over in great detail all of the playoff games that were played from Mid April through mid-late June.

MID DECEMBER TO MID APRIL
During this 1/3 of the year, the focus will shift to the regular season, and mostly to the two teams we are specializing in, as described earlier.

ANOTHER WAY TO EXPLAIN THE NEW PLAN
To make sure this is clear, let me describe the new editorial plan in a different way. From Mid April until Mid December, we will be focused largely on individual games, playoff games to be exact.

At this point we have decided, quite frankly, that analyzing regular season games in great detail is sort of a waste of time, assuming that you don't have enough time to do detailed breakdowns of every playoff game and some, many, or all regular season games of one or more teams, which you don't unless you have at least 60 hours a week. If and only if you have a staff of multiple part time writers, or at least a 60 hours a week full time writer, could you possibly do quality breakdowns of every single playoff game and also quality breakdowns of many or all of the regular season games of even one team.

So, given what we are working with right now, we have realized that it is much smarter to reverse the usual pattern of basketball sites. Almost all, and it honestly seems all, other basketball sites, including ones that have multiple writers, are making the mistake of over covering the regular season and under covering the playoffs. The breakdown of effort is backwards: too much stuff is done for the regular season and not enough stuff is done for the playoffs.

Instead of most of the writing and breakdowns being focused on the regular season, most of the writing and breakdowns here at Quest will be focused on the playoffs. Only from mid or late December until mid April will we be focused to any extent on the regular season. But even during these four months, we will seldom be doing game breakdowns of regular season games. Rather, we will be producing team reports for the teams we are specializing in, which will be the defending Champion and the most likely challenger, as explained above.

As before, these team reports will look at individual games to some extent, but will mostly look at what the team and individual players are doing right, and what they are doing wrong, with respect to the objective of winning playoff games.

In other words, the team reports during these four months will focus on the regular season itself only to what extent what is happening in the regular season matters for the playoffs beginning in April.

In summary the focus of the Quest for the Ring will always be on the playoffs up to and including the Championship. This will be the World Wide Web's best "NBA Playoffs Site". From mid April until mid December, the focus will be on the actual playoff games that were played from mid-April until mid to late June. You will not be able to find out what exactly happened in those games in greater detail anywhere else other than right here. Then from mid December until mid April, the focus will be on how well teams, especially the teams specialized in, are preparing for the upcoming playoffs.

We hope you agree that this is by a good margin the best idea yet for the editorial plan for the Quest for the Ring. This was one creative brainstorm that should not and did not go into the trash can.

At this time we plan to maintain the new banner design indefinitely. At all times in the Quest banner, the banners and most important players of the teams we are specializing in will appear.

You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The Lakers Lose Game 1 at Home to the Rockets, but Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant are not About to Panic, or Even to Worry

[This is a fast break type of posting, a short post needed to be pushed out the door quickly to be timely. Remember that many Quest reports have much more detail than this one; Quest for the Ring prides itself on game, team, and League breakdowns that are as long as necessary to make and prove the points.]

Kudos to Kobe and Phil Jackson for not only not panicking but for not even worrying for a minute about their game 1 loss to the Rockets in that best of seven games Western Semi-Final. They have only begun to fight, and they are not about to change, just because of a single loss, what gave them far more wins than anyone in the West this season.

A team in the Lakers' situation needs to man up but not to change up. One win is just 1/4 of the wins needed to win a series, hardly anything to pressure you to make changes in the way you play basketball, given that the way you play made you best in the West this regular season.

And I can't think of a better way for the Lakers to prepare for those defensive terrors, the Denver Nuggets, than by having to deal the Rockets, who are actually more talented defensively than the Nuggets, though not as fast. Had the Trailblazers defeated the Rockets, the Lakers playing the Blazers would not have been anywhere near as good a preparation for what awaits them in the West Conference Final: the ferocious and fast Nuggets' defense, otherwise known as the second coming of the gold rush to Colorado. And also known as the Broncos' temporary replacement.

Early in a best of seven series, never worry and especially never panic. If you go down 2 games to 0, you may tinker with your rotation and your schemes, but even then, do not panic, and do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Rather, if early in a series you are down 1-0 or 2-1, increase the intensity, even the aggression if you have to. If for example the referees are calling a lot of touch fouls against you, you have nothing to lose by fouling harder and eliminating the possibility of the layup and the plus one free throw. At least you are then getting your money's worth from fouling.

The details are here.

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