Introduction to the Extensively Updated and Expanded User Guide for Real Team Ratings
On December 31 Quest for the Ring (QFTR) published the first Real Team Ratings for the 2010-11 season. Ordinarily it would probably not be until mid or late February before the next one is posted. But look for the next one sometime in late January, because QFTR is eager to include a new factor for the first time: the Quality of Offense factor. This factor, all the other six factors, and every other aspect of the Real Team Ratings system are explained in detail in the User Guide to Real Team Ratings, fully updated and complete as of January 4, 2011.
The updated User Guide to Real Team Ratings is the biggest Guide ever produced by QFTR, which at over 12,200 words surpasses even the current User Guide to Real Player Ratings, which is about 9,200 words. The Guide is too long for many people to be able to read in one sitting. Only certain key people are going to read it in full regardless of how many days it takes them. The people who read it in full are going to be the people who really, really want to win games and especially playoff games (and hopefully make a lot of extra money in the process).
Regardless of whether you read it all or not, like all guides, this one is a carefully organized manual that can be used as needed. The Guide is conveniently divided into six sections and each section is further divided into clearly indicated sub sections. The section and subsection headers make it easy to find exactly what you want.
Alternatively, with the User Guide loaded on the QFTR Reference Site, you could use the Google blog search at the very top of that page, and/or you could use control / F to find what you are looking for.
Like all our User Guides, aside from being a Guide to the product (in this case Real Team Ratings) this Guide is also a very business like and very thorough explanation of very critical aspects of the game of basketball. For each point made in a User Guide, whether at one extreme the point is very well known by the general public or whether at the opposite extreme the public believes the opposite (or is simply totally unaware of the point) all the points are explained and in most cases proved beyond any shadow of a doubt. Moreover, User Guides such as this one are like "Super Reports" that are the equivalent of a lot of QFTR reports combined into one giant but carefully organized one.
Here is the Introduction Section for the new User Guide for Real Team Ratings, which hopefully will motivate you to read other sections and will at least explain the RTR system in general but important terms.
=====SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION=====
Real Team Ratings (RTR) is a custom designed, accurate way to rate and rank NBA teams during the regular season. It is designed to rank and rate the teams according to how they would (and in many cases actually will) do in the playoffs. It is not designed to rate and rank according to any theory about how basketball “should be” or “is supposed to be” played. Rating and ranking how easily each team can win playoff games is the one and only ultimate objective of RTR.
As with almost all Quest for the Ring (QFTR) systems, RTR is as complicated as it needs to be to meet the objectives for it and no more complicated than that. QFTR always makes sure models and systems are no more complicated than they have to be because the more complicated formulae, models, and systems are, the less robust they are and the more likely it is that they do not correctly and accurately reflect reality. Unfortunately, the vast majority of basketball statistics sites and seemingly all "statistics gurus" use formulae, models and systems that are needlessly and excessively complicated. There are some needlessly detailed assumptions embedded in those that do not accurately reflect reality. At the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, much of the general public thinks that statistics, whether simple or complicated, can never accurately reflect reality, and this is also dead wrong.
So where is the happy medium to be found? It’s found here at QFTR, which bridges the gap between on the one hand the big majority of the public and an even bigger majority of the general basketball sites which incorrectly think that statistics are not important and on the other hand a very small number of very statistically-oriented basketball sites (which are really academic sites with basketball as the subject matter for academic work). These statistical basketball sites very often go overboard with statistics and use unnecessarily complicated formulas and models. QFTR goes for and hits that sweet spot right down the middle that everyone else generally misses.
Quest spends a lot of time making absolutely sure that our formulas and models precisely reflect reality, whereas other statistical sites spend most of their time on the statistics themselves. We keep revising formulae and models to reflect the latest basketball knowledge up to including completely getting rid of those that don't stand the test of time, whereas the statistical sites virtually never get rid of any of their complicated formulae and models. To sum this up, at QFTR basketball comes first and statistics is just a tool whereas at other basketball sites that use statistics heavily it is the opposite: statistics comes first and basketball is just a tool.
BASKETBALL PLAYOFF RESULTS ARE RELATIVELY EASY TO PREDICT
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. In other words the NBA playoffs are more predictable than for any other major sport. There really are some right ways and many wrong ways for a team to play the game if the objective is defeating other teams in the playoffs. RTR is designed to identify and measure which basketball characteristics are the ones that will win playoff games and to rate and rank teams according to those characteristics.
RTR can therefore also be used to determine whether how good various players played led to an upset or not, to signal where coaching 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 general, factors that sometimes impact winning are NOT included; only factors that always or at least almost always impact winning are included.
Real Team Ratings (RTR) are NOT simply a system that shows how well the teams are doing in the regular season. Instead, it is a rating system designed to reveal the capability of winning playoff games and series of each team.
The ratings are calculated for all teams, even though 14 of the 30 NBA teams do not qualify for the playoffs. Even though they will not be playing any playoff games, the ratings for the lower teams nevertheless give an accurate measure of how well those teams would most likely do if they were in the playoffs. So for those lottery teams, RTR is an interesting hypothetical.
BRIEF HISTORY OF REAL TEAM RATINGS
Quite honestly this system started out in a more crude fashion than do most systems here at Quest for the Ring. Therefore, there were several major changes to the system historically.
For example, in 2009, the RTR rating system was much improved from prior versions. It was improved to make absolutely certain that you can predict the outcome of the playoffs in advance as accurately as possible. All crucial factors except for home court advantage, the injury situation, and some aspects of coaching in the playoffs versus the regular season were now included and weighted very carefully. See below for how to adjust RTR scores for the first and second of these three items. Specifically, the biggest and most important improvement for 2009 and beyond was the introduction of points for wins over and points subtracted for losses to the top sixteen teams (which would be the playoff teams themselves.)
In 2010 RTR was upgraded substantially (but not quite as dramatically as in 2009). In early 2010 the important intermediate level factor Recent Wins and Losses began. In very late 2010 the Paint Defense factor started. The defense overweight factor remained so the net effect is that paint defense is over weighted relative to perimeter defense.
Finally, in late 2010 all of the factors were recalibrated to reflect state of the art knowledge of exactly how playoff games and NBA Championships are won. Recalibration is critical because that is how optimization is achieved. All of the pieces have to fit together in just the right way. Much iteration is involved. One of the highlights of the recalibration was that the smaller factors were upgraded to become not as small as they were. This was done mostly to reflect the real world reality that the smaller factors determine many playoff series (especially Conference and NBA finals) because the teams are very close after you look at the larger factors, so then the smaller factors decide it.
SECTIONS OF THIS GUIDE
This Guide is divided into six primary sections. Within each section there are sub sections indicated by headers in capital letters. The sections are:
Section One: Introduction
Section Two: Discussion of the Factors
Section Three: Technical Discussion of the Factors
Section Four: Interpretation of Ratings
Section Five: Cautions
Section Six: Manual Injury Adjustments
All six sections of the User Guide to Real Team Ratings are found here.