"I think you don't
need 82 games to determine the best eight in each conference," - Dirk
Nowitzki, 10/16/2014, from ESPN.com
Since I started this
blog last fall, one of the questions I have been most eager to explore is
whether or not Dirk's assertion above is accurate (later in the ESPN article,
he posits the number of games in the regular season could be trimmed to
"mid-60s"). And while as a fan I would not favor a shorter
season, it did pique my interest to try and see if the NBA could, in fact,
have reasonably determined its set of playoff teams in less than 82 games, and,
if so, what was the "sweet spot" for number of games needed.
Effectively, I wanted to
find the point in each season after which no teams exited or entered the set of
playoff teams (top eight teams in each conference). To answer this question I
determined the earliest point in the season in which all eight eventual playoff
teams in each conference were seeded in those top eight spots AND remained in
the top eight spots for the remainder of the season (irrespective of
seeding changes within those eight spots) . This method accounts for fact
that a team could exit and re-enter the playoff set as the season progressed
(the 2014-15 Nets are a good example of this, as they bounced around between
the 8-11 seeds for a good portion of the season before ultimately clinching a
playoff spot in game 82).
To assess this, I built
a model that determined, for each non-shortened season from 2008-09 to 2014-15,
inclusive, what the NBA standings were after each team had played an equivalent
number of games; for example, the standings after each team had played exactly
one game, or 42 games, etc. (I started with the 2008-09 season because the
NBA slightly altered its playoff tiebreaker rules prior to
that season). In building this model to be accurate, I painstakingly coded in
every single one of the NBA's robust tiebreaker rules.
Here were the key
findings:
- On average for the full seasons between 2008-09 and
2014-15 (six seasons) it took 74.5 games to determine the point after
which no team entered or exited the playoff set. The earliest point at
which this happened was at the 60 game mark in 2010-11, and the latest
point was in the 82nd (final) game of the season in
2014-15.
- Three times in the Eastern Conference and two times in
the Western Conference, it took no more than 50 games to determine the
point at which no teams would enter or exit the playoff set for the
remainder of the season.
- If you look solely at teams that finished in the top-5
in each conference (no team seeded lower than 5 made the Conference Finals
from 2008-09 to 2014-15), each of those 60 teams entered AND stayed within
the playoff set by no later than game 63 (although game 63 was an outlier,
as 59 of 60 teams did this by no later than game 48).
- On average, it took just over 19 games for the 96
playoff teams (6 seasons x 16 playoff teams) to enter and subsequently
stay within the playoff set. The median, however, was much lower at
exactly 6 games.
This was a pretty
interesting study because while it does not prove Dirk's statement to be
precisely correct, it empirically shows that generally when it comes to
determining playoff teams there are many instances in which it does not take
anywhere near 82 games to determine the best eight in each conference. And the
overwhelming majority of teams that are most relevant in the playoffs (top-5
seeds) are firmly entrenched in the top eight in their respective conferences
well before the midway point of the season.
How to use table below:
· The team that finished the 2008-09 season as the
1 seed in the Eastern Conference entered and remained a Top-8 seed starting in
game 5 (meaning they never dropped below an 8 seed beyond game 5)
· The team that finished as the 8 seed in the
2014-15 season in the Eastern Conference did not enter and remain a Top-8 seed
until game 82 (they were a 9 seed entering game 82)
|
Eastern
Conference:
Latest
Game at Which Teams that Finished Season in a Top 8 Seed
Entered
and Remained in Playoff Set
|
||||||
|
|
Season
|
|||||
|
Final Seed
|
2008-2009
|
2009-2010
|
2010-2011
|
2012-2013
|
2013-2014
|
2014-2015
|
|
1
|
5
|
4
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
|
3
|
4
|
1
|
1
|
23
|
1
|
1
|
|
4
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
31
|
1
|
|
5
|
18
|
63
|
1
|
15
|
23
|
3
|
|
6
|
37
|
55
|
14
|
10
|
38
|
10
|
|
7
|
67
|
60
|
32
|
33
|
41
|
77
|
|
8
|
1
|
80
|
47
|
1
|
2
|
82
|
|
Western
Conference:
Latest
Game at Which Teams that Finished Season in a Top 8 Seed
Entered
and Remained in Playoff Set
|
||||||
|
|
Season
|
|||||
|
Final Seed
|
2008-2009
|
2009-2010
|
2010-2011
|
2012-2013
|
2013-2014
|
2014-2015
|
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
4
|
1
|
1
|
|
2
|
5
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
|
3
|
20
|
48
|
4
|
30
|
7
|
13
|
|
4
|
6
|
1
|
10
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
|
5
|
1
|
43
|
14
|
2
|
5
|
1
|
|
6
|
45
|
4
|
33
|
8
|
26
|
10
|
|
7
|
1
|
23
|
2
|
79
|
79
|
3
|
|
8
|
50
|
47
|
60
|
49
|
72
|
77
|
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