NBA Rankings - 24 Jan

Before I go into this week's NBA rankings, I'd like to use the results of yesterday's games to provide an example of how each game affects the rankings. In the NFL, I picked Green Bay by 7 and Pittsburgh by 4 yesterday, and the actual results were 7 and 5. Because the results were nearly exactly as predicted, they made very little impact on the overall rankings. Any movement can be explained by changes in strength of schedule due to the results of the games, but even that was very minor. In the NBA, I picked Denver by 6, but they won by 14, so they got a little boost in the rankings. In college basketball, I picked Northwestern to upset Wisconsin by 3, but Wisconsin won the game by 32 points, a difference of 35 from the expected result, which resulted in large moves for both teams, but in opposite directions. The important thing to notice is that it's not the margin of victory that's important, it's how that margin compares to the predicted margin. If a team is picked to win by 34 and wins by 32, they would not get the boost that Wisconsin got, even with the same margin of victory.

Now, on to the NBA rankings. Miami has been struggling, but so has San Antonio. None of the top teams seem like they want to run away with it this season, which should make for a very interesting series of matchups in the playoffs. Here are the current rankings, with team name followed by weekly record, overall record, rating, and previous ranking.

1. Miami (1-1) (30-13) -7.67 (2)

2. San Antonio (2-1) (37-7) -6.73 (1)

3. LA Lakers (2-1) (32-13) -6.52 (4)

4. Boston (3-1) (33-10) -6.45 (3)

5. Orlando (3-1) (29-15) -6.13 (5)

6. Chicago (3-1) (30-14) -4.79 (6)

7. New Orleans (4-0) (29-16) -4.65 (9)

8. Denver (2-1) (25-18) -3.52 (7)

9. Dallas (2-2) (28-15) -3.13 (8)

10. Atlanta (3-1) (29-16) -2.36 (12)

11. Oklahoma City (1-2) (28-15) -2.29 (11)

12. Memphis (2-2) (21-23) -1.74 (13)

13. Portland (4-0) (25-20) -1.44 (14)

14. Utah (0-4) (27-17) -1.30 (10)

15. Houston (2-2) (20-25) -0.75 (15)

16. New York (0-4) (22-21) -0.54 (16)

17. Philadelphia (2-2) (18-25) -0.21 (18)

18. Milwaukee (2-2) (16-25) 0.49 (17)

19. Phoenix (3-1) (20-22) 0.87 (20)

20. Indiana (0-4) (16-25) 0.96 (19)

21. LA Clippers (3-1) (17-26) 1.96 (21)

22. Golden State (3-1) (19-24) 2.42 (22)

23. Detroit (2-2) (16-28) 3.67 (25)

24. Charlotte (2-2) (17-25) 3.94 (23)

25. Toronto (0-4) (13-31) 4.46 (24)

26. New Jersey (2-2) (12-32) 5.84 (28)

27. Minnesota (0-2) (10-33) 5.06 (26)

28. Washington (2-2) (13-29) 5.27 (27)

29. Sacramento (0-3) (9-32) 6.00 (29)

30. Cleveland (0-3) (8-35) 9.96 (30)

Smoking:

The New Orleans Hornets have now won 8 straight games, including the last two by a combined 65 points over the Hawks and Spurs, despite being expected to lose both of those games. The Hornets will be favored in each of their next 5 games, so a 13-game winning streak is not out of the question.

Since losing 8 of 9 in mid-December, the Magic have now won 13 of their past 16, and those 3 losses came by a combined 7 points against the Hornets, Thunder and Celtics, all on the road. This week's highlight was a 40-point win over Toronto, in which Dwight Howard was able to earn the Player of the Day award despite sitting out the 4th quarter.

Since the trade rumors ended, New Jersey has been playing its best basketball of the season. They beat Utah by 8 and then Detroit by 15 before taking Dallas down to the wire in a 1-point loss. It seems that the Nets' players try harder when they know they're not being traded away tomorrow.

Out Cold:

The Utah Jazz were supposed to struggle with the Boston Celtics on their current road trip, but no one expected them to lose to New Jersey, Washington, and Philadelphia in the same week. The road trip ends with a visit to the Lakers, but the losing streak may extend farther, with San Antonio making the trip to Salt Lake on Wednesday.

Speaking of the Spurs, they were looking good and riding an 8-game winning streak into New Orleans on Saturday when something strange happened: the entire team came down with a case of the sucks. The first-place Spurs were led in scoring by 11th man Tiago Splitter, who scored 11 in mostly garbage time, and looked more like a lottery team than a championship contender.

Milwaukee would not have been here if they had just taken care of Memphis on their home floor. The Bucks were the last team to reach 41 games this year, so they weren't tired, unless winning two straight for the first time since before Christmas took it out of them, so I'm forced to put them on the cold list until they figure out what happened.

NBA Player of the Day

Carmelo Anthony - DEN - 36 pts, 8 reb, 14-27 FG, 6-8 3P, 2-5 FT

With only one game played last night, Anthony was the obvious choice with his highest-scoring game since November. It looks like the Nets weren't the only ones who were able to relax a little when the trade rumors were put to rest, at least for now.

Predictions - 24 Jan

Upset picks are in italics.

NBA

Suns at 76ers - 76ers by 4

Cavaliers at Nets - Nets by 8

Pistons at Magic - Magic by 13

Grizzlies at Raptors - Grizzlies by 3

Wizards at Knicks - Knicks by 9

Thunder at Hornets - Hornets by 5

Bucks at Bulls - Bulls by 8

Rockets at Timberwolves - Rockets by 3

Kings at Trail Blazers - Blazers by 10

Spurs at Warriors - Spurs by 6

College Basketball

(16) Notre Dame at (4) Pittsburgh - Pitt by 13

Baylor at (24) Kansas State - Kansas State by 7

Prediction Results - 23 Jan

NFL: 2/2 (1.000) 77/122 overall (.631)

NBA: 1/1 (1.000) 337/468 overall (.720)

College Basketball: 1/2 (.500) 319/383 overall (.833)

Upsets: 1/2 (.500) 84/134 overall (.627)