Schedule Imbalances Distorting Current Records

NBA teams are viewed as if they’ve played a fair schedule when it comes to games against winning teams and playing half their games at home.

But there is wild variance and this imbalance makes some teams seem much worse than they are and others much better.

I’ve long wanted to figure out a way to model these imbalances.

Home games are simple.

Every team should be assumed to have played 50% of their games at home.

Those way under or way over than number should be expected to win more or less games going forward.

The record against .500 teams is trickier. I

f you play in a strong division and conference, it’s not necessarily going to balance out.

In other words, this can remain unfair.

But we can still at least assess teams as if they played the league average percentage of games against losing teams, which right now is 43.4% of games.

Normalizing Home Games, Games vs. Losing Teams

So adding up these two numbers, the percentage of games at home and games vs. losing teams, the league average team should be 93.4.

Lower means they’ve had it harder and their current win total is suppressed.

I divided 93.4 by their number for an index and then multiplied their actual wins by that number to come up with expected wins. (Note all these numbers are through Monday’s games.)

If we look at home games through Monday, the Knicks have had it toughest with just 39% of their games at Madison Square Garden.

The Hawks (40%), Jazz (42%), Grizzlies (44%), Wizards (44%) and Pistons (44%) are all notable. Obviously, the Knicks are the big story here. They’re underrated.

On top of that, the Knicks may be better than their performance to date against their very tough schedule given their trade for OG Anunoby, never mind any reported trades that they still have a lot of chips to acquire (including expiring contracts, the underpaid and injured Mitchell Robinson, a very valuable Pistons first-round pick that could be as high as No. 8 overall eventually).

On the other side of the spectrum, the Rockets have played 60% of their games at home, followed by the Suns (59%), Warriors (58%), Kings (57%), Cavs (56%) and Pacers (56%).

The disappointing Warriors and Lakers aren’t that disappointing when you discover they’ve played only 25% and 27% of their games against losing teams, respectively (league average again, 43.4%). The Spurs are 34% but at five wins, who cares?

On the fortunate side, the Suns have played an absurd 62% of games against losing teams. Remember, they had 59% of games at home, too.

And they’re disappointing.

Expecting them to rebound seems irrational considering these facts.

The Heat (58%) and 76ers (54%) are also well over the expected portion of their schedule against bad teams.

Lakers, Knicks Better Than Their Record

I drew a line at schedule difficulty to date resulting in at least three fewer wins than you would have with a league-average schedule.

Similarly, I’m highlighting teams that have at least three more wins than they would have with a league-average schedule due to their schedule being ridiculously easy.

Add it all up and I have the Lakers at 4.17 more wins with a neutral schedule.

We all wonder how the Lakers could be struggling given that LeBron James and Anthony Davis have been healthy and playing well.

Well, here you go.

They should have about a .600 win percentage.

They probably don’t need to make the dramatic moves that many are suggesting to right the ship.

They just need to play the normal allotment of losing teams and home games.

The Jazz should have 3.33 more wins.

The Knicks 3.27 more (they’re playing like a 55-win team vs. an average schedule).

The Timberwolves are light by 3.19 wins and the Hawks by 3.02.

The Suns Unlikely To Rise

The Suns should have 4.42 less wins, or a 32.3-win pace over 82 games.

This seems crazy, I know.

They also haven’t been healthy. But that’s hardly a surprise, to be fair. Bottom line: fade the Suns.

The 76ers have benefitted by 3.25 wins because of an easy schedule and should be expected to be worse than the Knicks.

No other team is inflated by at least three wins, though Oklahoma City is close (2.81, more like a 50-win team than a 56-win team, their current pace).

Here’s the entire chart:

TEAM	W	L	WIN%	% Home	% vs. Losing	Index	Neutral wins	Adj win %	Exp. win/82 g
Lakers	18	19	0.486	49%	27%	1.23	22.17	0.599	49.13
Jazz	18	20	0.474	42%	37%	1.18	21.33	0.561	46.02
Knicks	21	15	0.583	39%	42%	1.16	24.27	0.674	55.27
Timberwolves	25	10	0.714	46%	37%	1.13	28.19	0.806	66.05
Hawks	14	21	0.400	40%	37%	1.22	17.02	0.486	39.87
Warriors	17	19	0.472	58%	25%	1.13	19.17	0.533	43.67
Grizzlies	13	23	0.361	44%	36%	1.16	15.02	0.417	34.22
Celtics	28	8	0.778	47%	42%	1.05	29.45	0.818	67.07
Hornets	8	26	0.235	47%	38%	1.10	8.81	0.259	21.25
Spurs	5	30	0.143	49%	34%	1.13	5.64	0.161	13.21
Wizards	6	30	0.167	44%	42%	1.09	6.53	0.181	14.87
Bulls	17	21	0.447	55%	37%	1.02	17.30	0.455	37.32
Nets	16	21	0.432	51%	41%	1.02	16.28	0.440	36.08
Pistons	3	33	0.083	44%	47%	1.02	3.05	0.085	6.95
Blazers	10	25	0.286	46%	49%	1.00	9.96	0.284	23.33
Raptors	15	21	0.417	50%	44%	1.00	14.94	0.415	34.02
Magic	21	15	0.583	47%	47%	1.00	20.91	0.581	47.63
Pacers	21	15	0.583	56%	42%	0.96	20.26	0.563	46.16
Clippers	23	13	0.639	53%	44%	0.96	22.19	0.616	50.55
Nuggets	26	12	0.684	50%	47%	0.96	25.09	0.660	54.14
Rockets	18	17	0.514	60%	40%	0.94	16.85	0.481	39.47
Pelicans	22	15	0.595	54%	46%	0.94	20.59	0.557	45.64
Mavericks	22	15	0.595	49%	51%	0.94	20.59	0.557	45.64
Kings	21	14	0.600	57%	46%	0.91	19.08	0.545	44.71
Cavaliers	21	15	0.583	56%	47%	0.91	19.08	0.530	43.47
Heat	21	15	0.583	44%	58%	0.91	19.08	0.530	43.47
Bucks	25	12	0.676	54%	51%	0.89	22.29	0.602	49.39
Thunder	24	11	0.686	54%	51%	0.88	21.19	0.605	49.65
76ers	23	12	0.657	54%	54%	0.86	19.75	0.564	46.27
Suns	19	18	0.514	59%	62%	0.77	14.58	0.394	32.31