User Guide for Real Team Ratings as of January 2011

Note: This guide is fully updated and reflects the state of the art for Real Team Ratings (RTR) as of January 4, 2011. In general Quest for the Ring (QFTR) ratings systems do not change unless and until a new User Guide is available and is published. So until and unless this Guide is updated and republished, this Guide explains completely and accurately how RTRs at QFTR have been constructed.

Previous versions of this User Guide are no longer relevant and may be removed from QFTR Reference. Prior versions that are not removed, are clearly and at the top labelled as legacy versions.

=====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 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.

Meanwhile, 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 playoffs in 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 for, among other things, 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 good idea of how much better or worse than expected teams played in playoff series.

In general, factors that only sometimes impact winning are NOT included; only factors that always or at least almost always impact winning are included. Also and in general, factors that always or almost always impact winning that are major are included via a separate factor, whereas factors that always or almost always impact winning, but that are not major, are incorporated in (or "contained in") other factors.

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 and a special introduction to three of the 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 Seven Factors
--Section Three: Technical Discussion of the Seven Factors
--Introduction to Sections Four, Five and Six: How and When to use the Ratings and These Sections to Accurately Predict Playoff Series
--Section Four: Interpretation of Ratings and Predicting Playoff Series
--Section Five: Cautions
--Section Six: Manual Injury Adjustments

=====SECTION TWO: DISCUSSION OF THE SEVEN FACTORS=====
There are seven factors in all, three larger ones and three smaller ones.

LARGER FACTORS
--Net Efficiency
--Performance versus playoff teams
--Recent wins and losses

SMALLER FACTORS
--General defense overweight adjustment
--Paint defense
--Quality of offense
--Pace

NET EFFICIENCY
Efficiency in basketball is usually considered to be the number of points per 100 possessions. The original and continuing foundation of Real Team Ratings (RTR) is defensive and offensive efficiency. But sometimes, and more often than you think, there will be a team which has a high net efficiency (offensive minus defensive efficiency) but isn’t playing in the right or smart way for winning playoff games. Such a team wins a lot of regular season games against mediocre and bad teams but then gets bounced out in the first, second, or third round of the playoffs, sometimes by a team that didn’t win as many games against the middle and low end teams. Conversely, there are sometimes teams which have a surprisingly low net efficiency but end up in the NBA Championship, even possibly winning it. The best example of this is the 1994 and the 1995 Houston Rockets.

But the general rule is that net efficiency alone predicts who will win playoff games and the Championship. Therefore, net efficiency is the most important factor and it is the foundation of RTR. But since there are a substantial number of exceptions to the rule, other factors need to be identified and included in RTR.

Teams can have the same net efficiency with very different team makeups and/or strategies. For example, a team with a mediocre offense but the best defense in the League could have the same exact net efficiency as a team with the best offense in the League but only a mediocre defense.

There are two medium level factors. Both of them look at actual wins and losses. Since these factors combined are almost as important as net efficiency, anyone who claims that RTR does not consider actual wins and losses (but only performance statistics) is completely wrong. In fact, RTR blends both key performance measures and actual wins and losses in an optimal way.

PERFORMANCE VERSUS PLAYOFF TEAMS
The first of the two medium level factors is called “Performance Versus Playoff Teams” and as the name suggests is the ability of teams to win games against the better and the best teams. Wins versus losses against the 11th through the 16th best teams (out of 30 NBA teams) are weighted at one while wins and losses against the best 10 teams are double weighted.

Take two teams with about the same regular season records and maybe even about the same net efficiencies and beware, because you might actually be looking at two very different teams when it comes to the playoffs, one much better than the other. One reason is that some teams and some types of coaching do better against medium and lower teams in the regular season than they do in the playoffs against the best teams. But it is not simply that it is easier to win games against all teams in the regular season (which it is because the regular season is less intense than the playoffs). It is also that for the playoffs, the game of basketball itself shifts and becomes a game that is a little different. What teams do is awarded or penalized a little differently in the playoffs compared with the regular season. And even little changes will often determine who wins playoff series and the Championship when two closely matched teams are playing. When the game changes a little for the playoffs, the coaching, strategies, and tactics of some teams will now become more of an advantage than they already were. Meanwhile, other teams will be left “holding the bag”, unable to win the Conference Final or the Championship when their coaching, strategies, and tactics become more of a disadvantage.

RECENT WINS AND LOSSES
The Real Team Ratings system was substantially improved in April 2010 with the advent of the second of the two medium factors. This factor is called “Recent Wins and Losses” and it reflects recent performance (in about the last two months). This partially gets at several previously ignored items that will help determine who will win and lose in the playoffs.

The key features and attributes of the recent wins and losses factor are:

--Functionally it over weights the most recent performance, from the most recent 25 games.

--It factors in momentum and morale going into the playoffs.

--It factors in coaching strategies and tactics that have finally produced good (or bad) results just in time for the playoffs. In other words, it substantially but indirectly and roughly reflects the likelihood that coaching strategies and tactics will work or not in the playoffs

--It factors in the performance of new players acquired for the stretch run of the regular season and for the playoffs.

--It substantially but indirectly and inexactly reflects the current injury situation of teams. It especially factors in injuries that have occurred within the last couple of months or so and that may be carrying over into the playoffs. In other words, this factor is extremely useful for correcting RTR for injuries that occurred in February and March.

--The last five games of the Regular Season are ignored due to playoff coaches resting key players and due to other distortions. So the final Real Team Ratings for a season will cover from the 53rd game of a team through and including the 77th game of a team, while games 78 through 82 are ignored.

LIMITATIONS OF THE RECENT WINS AND LOSSES FACTOR
Injuries that occurred in the last few weeks are only partially corrected by this factor. Moreover, injuries occurring during the playoffs themselves remain completely outside of the RTR system. Finally, when one or more players were injured and unavailable in February / March but are completely ready to go for the playoffs, the new factor may inadvertently distort the rating of the team downward.

For these and other reasons, the "Manual Injury Adjustment" is essential. See Sections Five and Six for complete information about this.

ALTHOUGH SMALL, THE FOUR SMALLER FACTORS RATHER OFTEN DECIDE THE CONFERENCE FINALS AND THE CHAMPIONSHIP
There are four smaller factors. Since in most years the best teams are closely rated after the biggest three factors are calculated, the smaller factors are rather often going to decide who wins the NBA Championship. In other words, when you get to the Conference finals and the NBA Championship, the teams often have fairly close net efficiencies and fairly close wins and losses against top teams and fairly close wins and losses recently. When those things are very close, the smaller factors will decide who wins the Conference Finals and the NBA Championship.

Note that unfortunately injuries sometimes trump every single factor, large and small, and determine by default who wins playoff series. But injuries do not often decide who wins the Championship itself because most teams which reach the Championship do not have substantial injury problems.

GENERAL DEFENSE OVERWEIGHT ADUSTMENT
The first of the four smaller factors is “general defense”. Actually, the full name for this is “general defense overweight adjustment”. So many people know that defense is more important in the playoffs than in the regular season that it is practically common knowledge. This factor slightly over weights defensive efficiency, whereas the much larger net efficiency factor treats offensive and defensive efficiency equally. As a reminder, although numerically the general defense factor is relatively small, it often (along with other “small” factors) decides actual Conference and NBA Championships.

Aside from being a sub rating, this shows you exactly how the NBA teams rank defensively.

DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF OVERSTATING THE IMPORTANCE OF DEFENSE
Note that there is no corresponding general offense sub rating in RTR. This is on purpose of course because, again, defense is a little more important in the playoffs than is offense. Statistically, if there was a general offensive rating it would offset the defensive one and both of them would then be a meaningless waste of time.

But don’t fall into a trap here; don’t get carried away. In basketball defense is relatively less important than it is in many and very possibly most other sports. Basketball is designed to be a game that favors the offense more so than for many, many other sports.

The tightrope here is that on the one hand you have to realize that defense is more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. On the other hand you have to understand that in basketball exactly how important the defense can be is limited fairly strictly. Defense alone can not possibly win you a Championship in basketball.

By contrast, in American pro football the limitations on how important the defense can be are far weaker, meaning that unlike in basketball, you can win the Super Bowl Championship in football pretty easily with the best defense in the League but a below average offense. For example, the Pittsburgh Steelers have done this several times over the years. But in basketball it is extremely difficult to win the Championship (and you are going to need some luck) to win it with even the best defense in the League but only the 20th best offense (out of 30). What you really need in basketball to go along with the best defense in the League is at the very least the 15th best offense (out of 30); and to have a good chance you need at least the 10th best offense to go along with the best defense.

So even though in basketball defense is more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season, the magnitude of the change is not really all that large; in basketball defense is only a little more or, arguably in some cases, moderately more important in the playoffs than in the regular season.

Note also that, ironically, the teams that are the very best defensively in the regular season are unable to increase the quality of their defending in the playoffs as much as teams that come into the playoffs with lower ranked defenses. Coming into the playoffs, teams with one of the best two or three offenses in the League but whose defenses are down around 10th best are generally more likely to win the Championship then teams which come in with one of the top two or three defenses but only about the 10th best offense.

It’s obvious that teams have the opportunity to be better defensively in the playoffs than they were in the regular season; after all, this happens all the time. Defensively in the playoffs, it’s mostly a matter of doing the same things that were done in the regular season harder, faster, and/or smarter. But the opportunity for a team to be better offensively in the playoffs than it was in the regular season is very limited. In other words, offensively, what you saw in the regular season is pretty much all you are going to see in the playoffs. Teams should assume they can improve a little defensively but they should never ever assume they can get substantially better offensively when the playoffs come, because that is unlikely to happen.

This is indirectly another reason why teams that run slightly organized offenses are much smarter and more likely to win The Quest for the Ring than are the teams that run more street ball type offenses. Coaches who run the street ball type offenses often think that that strategy will work better in the playoffs than in the regular season. They may think that unlike a slightly organized offense a street ball type offense can be ramped up in the playoffs. And they may think that a street ball type offense is exactly what you want to try to offset the ramped of defenses you see in the playoffs.

All of these suppositions are false to one extent or another. First, street ball type offenses work less well in the playoffs against ramped up defenses than they do in the regular season against lesser defenses. Second, you can not substantially ramp up any type of offense in the playoffs including the street ball type. For offense more so than defense, it is crucial that in the regular season you are playing in a way that will allow you to win in the playoffs. For defense it is theoretically very recommended but not required that you in the regular season play in a way that will allow you to win in the playoffs. Third, ramped of defenses are relatively more effective against street ball type offenses than they are against slightly organized offenses.

PAINT DEFENSE
The second of the four smaller factors is paint defense. Paint defense is measured by how many points are scored by opponents from within the painted area. When defense is ramped up in the playoffs, it is ramped up even more so “in the paint” than outside it. In the playoffs defense in general is more important than in the regular season. At the same time, paint defense in particular is more important than perimeter defense relative to how important both were in the regular season.

QUALITY OF OFFENSE
Quest for the Ring is in the process of developing innovative quality of offense performance measures. Since these are not yet finalized and since even if they were there is no existing data bank for them, we now use for the Quality of Offense sub rating a sophisticated performance measure that fortunately is available on the Internet. We use the percentage of field goals that are assisted, which is going to closely track our custom designed measures and be a rough summary of them. For the sake of efficiency, we may indefinitely use this if we continue to think in the future that this measure reliably tracks what we are identifying.

Quality of offense is the newest factor and is being introduced as of the first RTR of 2011.

Numerically, quality of offense is equal to paint defense. So you can think of those two as the offensive and defensive “extra factors” which determine who wins playoff series and the Championship. Note that even though these two factors are offsetting as far as defense versus offense is concerned, the general defense factor (which remember is separate from the paint defense factor) maintains the reality that defense is a little more important than offense is in the playoffs. (There is no general offense factor to offset the general defense factor.)

The rest of the discussion of this factor refers to the QFTR development project in this area.

Both overall assists and who makes those assists make up this important factor.

From the early days of QFTR we have innovated in developing models and formulas for quality of offense. Look for the “rule of 10” in various future reports. (The rule of 10 actually appears in previous reports but not identified by that title). In 2009 QFTR formally introduced three quality of offense measures: Playmaking Identity, Playmaking Quality, and Playmaking Power. See this reference article for a full explanation of these.

Because neither the general public nor even “advanced” statistics sites recognize the concept of “Quality of offense,” this subject can be thought of as the frontier of basketball. Right now it seems to be QFTR or nothing for this area, and unfortunately, we have not so far had all the resources necessary to make huge progress in this area. To be blunt, we’ve had too many other things to do.

For one thing, since no one else even recognizes the concept (let alone think it to be important) we can’t rely on existing databases in any way, shape, or form for our quality of offense models and formulas. Instead, a lot of manual database construction is needed. This in turn means that unfortunately, we have not been able to come up with all the time necessary for developing this area.

The new factor appearing in Real Team Ratings is only a start, and more work needs to be done. But this new factor, called Quality of Offense, which is new as of the beginning of 2011, is a very important effort to bring quality of offense the attention it deserves.

PACE
The fourth of the four smaller (and overall the seventh of the seven) factors is the pace (or pace adjustment). Pace is number of possessions per game. This is the total possessions for both teams combined. (You can theoretically calculate offensive and defensive possessions but this would be largely meaningless and I have never seen anyone calculate or use this breakdown).

Teams that run a lot of fast breaks and/or take shots early in the 24 second shot clocks have fast paces, and vice versa.

The pace adjustment is a small but valid adjustment that slightly modifies the ratings of teams according to the effects of pace on ability to win playoff games. The best pace is a little below the League average pace.

Strictly speaking pace is neither an offensive nor a defensive factor. Instead, it is both. Actually, depending on what the pace is, it can be more or less an offensive and at the same time it can be more or less a defensive factor. In other words, how pace affects offense and defense is actually a rather complicated topic. Although the details may be complicated, we can determine which pace is the best pace for winning playoff games and Championship.

The reason for the pace adjustment is that there is a relatively small but definite correlation between slower pace and winning playoff series. It is a little more difficult, on average, for fast pace teams to win playoff series than it is for slow pace teams to win them. Therefore, a small adjustment called the pace overweight adjustment is factored in to RTR.

Why exactly do average and a little slower than average paced teams have a slightly easier job winning playoff series? Consider an example. For example, consider the Denver Nuggets. They are usually one of the fastest paced teams in the NBA during the regular season. If you just look at the efficiency measures, the Nuggets might appear to be almost identical to another, much slower team. But these two teams would be very different when you look at efficiency and pace together. In theory, slower paced teams can more reliably reproduce their nice regular season net efficiency in the playoffs than can faster paced teams, mostly because the playoffs feature a higher defensive intensity and aggressiveness, which automatically slows down the pace.

Suppose that in the playoffs, the fast paced Nuggets and a slow paced team play. Each team had almost exactly the same offensive, defensive, and net efficiency numbers during the regular season. By playing extra hard on defense, the slow pace team can automatically slow down the game to some degree, which will disrupt the offensive (and possibly the defensive) efficiency of the Nuggets, the team that was fast pace in the regular season. In other words, there will be fewer possessions for the fast pace team in the playoff games than it typically had in the regular season. This in turn means that the fast pace team will be disrupted from what they did during the regular season to one extent or another.

This means that for the fast pace team, both the offensive and the defensive efficiency could change in the playoffs from what it was in the regular season, due to all of the changes forced on the fast pace team by the change of pace. Both the offensive and the defensive efficiency might change, and each change could be either for the better or for the worse, but by far the most likely changes would be that the offense would be substantially less efficient, while the defense would not be changed much. A much less efficient offense, but about the same defense, is exactly what we have seen from the Nuggets in their numerous playoff series losses in recent years.

In extreme cases, such as the fastest pace team being slowed down dramatically in the playoffs by an extremely slow team, the pace adjustment may be inadequate, so that there may still be some forecast error even after everything we have done.

The bottom line is that in all known cases, faster paced teams do not do as well in the playoffs as they do in the regular season, all other things equal. If a fast paced team wants to win in the playoffs, it would be wise to do some things better in the playoffs than they did those things in the regular season, in order to compensate for being forced to operate at a slower pace.

But in 2010 it was realized that pace can be too slow also. Now we know that the optimal pace is a little slower than the League average. RTR awards the highest pace adjustment to the team with the 20th fastest pace (the one with the 10th slowest pace) out of the 30 teams. The team with the 20th fastest pace has the best possible pace for winning playoff games. The further from that a team is the lower the pace sub rating. The lowest rating possible is for the team with the fastest pace. The slowest team in the League has a moderate pace sub rating rather than the highest rating as in earlier versions of RTR.

See the technical section (immediately following) for more details on how the pace factor is calculated.

=====SECTION THREE: TECHNICAL DISCUSSION OF THE SEVEN FACTORS=====

This section takes each factor and first explains in words how that factor is calculated. And then the formulas are given.

After all the factors are technically explained, the overall or primary RTR formula (that combines all the factors) is shown.

The basic rationales behind the calculations are covered above in the Factor Discussion Section. But where appropriate, the more technical reasons behind calculations are included in this Technical Section.

The seven factors are discussed in order of on average how much weight they have toward RTR. However, for many teams the order of the factors by importance would differ from the average order. Also, the weights, or in other words the importance of the last four factors are extremely similar, so the order among the last four has very little significance or meaning.

1. NET EFFICIENCY
Offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency equals net efficiency. Offensive efficiency is points scored per 100 possessions. Defensive efficiency is points scored per 100 possessions. In the RTR formula, a weight of 3.0 is applied to net efficiency. This large weight reflects how crucial this factor is and correctly calibrates this factor with the others.

As an example, if a team has an offensive efficiency of 107.0 and it has a defensive efficiency of 104.6; net efficiency is 107.0 minus 104.6 equals 2.4. The net efficiency factor is them three times 2.4 which is 7.2.

2. WINS OVER AND LOSSES TO PLAYOFF TEAMS
Each team's win-loss record is accessed for games it played against the top sixteen teams and, separately, for games it played against the top ten teams. These two records are added together, which has the effect of double weighting wins and losses versus top ten teams while leaving wins and losses versus the 11th through the 16th best teams single weighted. So obviously the idea here is to look very, very closely at how well the team does against the teams that are the contenders to reach the playoffs, especially the Conference Finals and the Championship.

Next the winning percentage of the wins and losses combined as just explained is calculated to three decimal points (for example, .550). Next the difference between each team’s winning percentage and a base of .333 is calculated and then this difference is multiplied by 70. This process accurately reflects how important this factor is and correctly calibrates this factor with all of the others.

As an example, for the team with a winning percentage of .550, the factor added to RTR is (.550-.333) X 70 = .217 X 70 = 15.19.

Note that the base of .333 is approximately the actual threshold between playoff and non-playoff teams.

Note also that the use of the winning percentage as opposed to raw wins and losses almost completely corrects for different number of games played by teams against top teams.

This factor, wins over and losses to playoff teams, was the key 2009 improvement over the very early versions of RTR and helped to clearly establish Real Team Ratings as the most accurate playoff predictor possible. By counting in the overall formula actual wins and losses in games between the likely playoff teams, you have gone in a straight line directly to evidence for the question we are out to answer: how good are the teams really going to be in the playoffs, according to everything known now?

3. RECENT WINS AND LOSSES
The Real Team Ratings system was substantially improved in April 2010 with the arrival of a new factor that reflects recent performance (in about the last two months). The calculation here uses the win loss record from the last 25 games. The rating is simply the difference between wins and losses. Although in the future this raw difference may be modified with a factor and/or the winning percentage may be used, as of this date the calibration of the other factors is such that the straight up difference between the wins and losses in the last 25 games is accurate and correct.

For example, if in the last 25 games a team is 15-10, the Recent Wins and Losses factor is 5.0.

The last five games of the regular season are ignored since sometimes in those games when playoff positioning is set, lineups and playing times are distorted.

4. GENERAL DEFENSE OVER WEIGHT ADJUSTMENT
As discussed previously this is the way that RTR reflects what most people already know, that defense is more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. In summary, this adjustment gives an increase or a decrease in every team's rating in accordance with how each team ranks in defensive efficiency in the NBA.

Defensive efficiency is the number of points given up per 100 possessions (on average). First the teams are sorted by defensive efficiency. Then, using a range from 5.8 to -5.8, points are assigned, in equal increments of 0.4, to each team in order of how it ranks in defensive efficiency. Specifically, the team with the best defensive efficiency (fewest points allowed per 100 possessions) is given 5.8 points, the second most defensively efficient team gets 5.4 points, and the third most defensively efficient team gets 5.0 points, and so on, until the least defensively efficient team gets minus 5.8 points.

Here are some example scores according to how teams rank on defensive efficiency:

1st best 5.8
5th best 4.2
10th best 2.2
15th best 0.2
20th best -1.8
25th best -3.8
30th best -5.8

Note that any team with a better defense than average gets a positive score and that any team with a worse defense than average gets a negative score.

The amount of the adjustment is carefully calibrated to be sufficient without being excessive. Since for one thing almost all teams ramp up their defense in the playoffs to one extent or another (which means less relative advantage than if only the good defensive teams ramped up) you have to be careful here to avoid getting carried away and putting in adjustments that are too large.

5. PAINT DEFENSE ADJUSTMENT
This factor is sort of an adjustment of an adjustment, namely of the general defense over weight adjustment. In the playoffs, defense in general is more important than it is in the regular season. But the importance of paint defense goes up by more than the importance of defense in general, so that is why this is a valuable and important factor for RTR.

Paint defense is number of points given up in the paint per game (on average). First the teams are sorted by paint points surrendered per game. Then, using a range from 5.8 to -5.8, points are assigned, in equal increments of 0.4, to each team in order of how it ranks in paint defending. Specifically, the team with the best paint defense (fewest points allowed in the paint per game) is given 5.8 points, the second best paint defending team gets 5.4 points, and the third best paint defending team gets 5.0 points, and so on, until the team with the worst paint defense gets minus 5.8 points.

Here are some example scores according to how teams rank on paint defending:

1st best 5.8
5th best 4.2
10th best 2.2
15th best 0.2
20th best -1.8
25th best -3.8
30th best -5.8

Note that any team with a better paint defense than average gets a positive score and that any team with a worse paint defense than average gets a negative score.

Note also that numerically the paint defense adjustment is equal to the general defense adjustment. This means in reality that for the playoffs, paint defense is understood to be about twice as important as defense in general.

Finally, note that this factor is biased against teams with a fast pace (because their opponents have more possessions and get more points per game). This is one of the reasons why fast paced teams are at a disadvantage in the playoffs (and to a lesser extent in the regular season). It is often more difficult for fast paced teams to defend the paint. The last factor (#7 which is below) is pace. One of the reasons why that factor is kept small is that the paint defending factor already reflects it to some degree.

6. QUALITY OF OFFENSE ADJUSTMENT
As discussed above, this is an especially unique and innovative concept introduced and used by QFTR. It is “out on the frontier”. Here we show you how we calculate this. However, be aware that we would calculate it a little differently if resources permitted. Also be aware that future tweaking will probably slightly change this methodology.

Right now we are using a measure that closely tracks and is a rough summary of what the future QFTR quality of offense measure(s) will be. Right now we are using the percentage of field goals that are assisted. For example, if on average there is an assist for 6 out of every ten field goals a team makes it has a percentage of field goals assisted of .600 or 60%.

Although we could calculate that ourselves, we don't even have to, since it it is available on the Internet.

Every year most teams will be in the normal range for the percentage of field goals that are assisted. The normal range runs from .520 or 52% to .640 or 64%. Teams that are at 60% or higher have high quality offenses that are difficult to defend in the playoffs. Teams that are below 56% have low quality offenses that are easy to defend in the playoffs. Teams that are higher than 56% but lower than 60% are in the mid-range.

The team with the highest percentage of field goals assisted gets 5.8 points. The team with the second highest percentage of field goals assisted gets 5.4 points. The team with the third highest percentage gets 5.0 points. Each subsequent team gets 0.4 points less until the team with the lowest percentage of field goals assisted gets minus 5.8 points.

Here are some example scores according to how teams rank on quality of offense:

1st best 5.8
5th best 4.2
10th best 2.2
15th best 0.2
20th best -1.8
25th best -3.8
30th best -5.8

Here is a discussion of the nature of and the importance of this factor.

In basketball in general but especially in the playoffs, how well organized a team’s offense is is more important than many people, including many basketball coaches, think it is. It turns out that the ability of a team to fall back on tried and true offensive plays that they know like the back of the hand is more important than the element of surprise that comes from being very unpredictable. In other words, if a team is extremely good at running basketball plays that are components of its offensive organization, the fact that the other teams know you are going to run it, and even when during a game they know exactly when you are going to run them, does not prevent the team running those plays from using them to win playoff games. In other words, if you think that element of surprise (being unpredictable) will be enough to win you a lot of playoff games, you are wrong.

Number of assists is by far the most important factor showing offensive organization or lack of it. Seemingly very small differences in assists reflect big differences in how organized an offense is.

Whether a team can be too organized and how big a risk this is is something being carefully investigated these days. However, at this time there is no evidence at all that in real life a team can be “too organized”. Because what happens in real life is that when a team is playing “too organized” it automatically (and probably unconsciously) realizes this and becomes less organized. The risk all seems to be in the other direction. All of the risk seems to be that teams are not organized enough. And teams can easily lose in the playoffs, especially at the Conference Finals or NBA Championship, because their offense is not organized enough.

7. PACE ADJUSTMENT
As previously stated in the Discussion of Factors Section, pace is a small but important to include factor that, however, is already reflected in some other factors. For a complete discussion of why this factor is important for RTR, see that Section above.

Pace for each team is the average number of possessions per game for that team's regular season games. The first step in the calculation of this factor is that all the team paces are obtained and then the teams are sorted by pace.

Now points are awarded according to how the teams rank. The state of the art as of 2011 is that we now know that the optimal pace is a little slower than the League average. RTR awards the highest pace adjustment to the team with the 20th fastest pace (the one with the 10th slowest pace) out of the 30 teams. The team with this pace has the best possible pace for winning playoff games.

Teams even slower than this get progressively lower adjustments. The 25th fastest (5th slowest) team sill has a decent, positive pace adjustment. Teams slower than this, though, get very little, and the slowest pace team gets a pace adjustment of about zero. In other words, the slowest pace team in the NBA has a pace that is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage in the playoffs.

Teams faster than the 20th fastest in the NBA get progressively lower adjustments. The twelve fastest teams are at a disadvantage in the playoffs and they appropriately get negative pace adjustments. But only the fastest six teams or so get relatively large negative adjustments. The bottom line is that fast pace teams and especially the fastest pace teams do not do as well in the playoffs as they do in the regular season unless they have other things going for them to make up for the disadvantage of a fast pace.

Here are some example scores according to how teams rank on pace:

1st fastest -3.7
5th fastest -2.1
10th fastest -0.1
15th fastest 1.9
20th fastest 3.9
25th fastest 1.9
30th fastest -0.1

Note again that the 20th fastest team gets the highest score while the fastest team gets the lowest score.

CALCULATION OF REAL TEAM RATINGS USING THE SEVEN FACTORS: THE PRIMARY FORMULA
The easiest way to describe the final calculation of RTR is to give you the formula.

REAL Team Rating =
Net Efficiency X 5.0

Plus

Winning percentage versus the top 16 and versus the top ten teams combined minus .333) X 70

Plus

The difference between wins and losses in the last 25 games (with the last five games of the regular season ignored)

Plus

The general defense overweight adjustment (from +5.8 to -5.8 according to defensive efficiency rank)

Plus

The paint overweight adjustment (from +5.8 to -5.8 according to points surrendered in the paint rank)

Plus

The quality of offense adjustment (from +5.8 to -5.8 according to the formula detailed in the technical section of this guide above)

Plus

The pace overweight adjustment (from +3.9 to -3.7 according to the formula detailed in the technical section of this guide above)


INTRODUCTION TO SECTIONS FOUR, FIVE, AND SIX: HOW AND WHEN TO USE THE RATINGS AND THESE SECTIONS TO ACCURATELY PREDICT PLAYOFF SERIES
To predict the playoffs you need to interpret differences in ratings. Section Four is the primary section for interpreting ratings. But there are common circumstances where the Ratings and Section Four combined will NOT be enough for you or anyone else to be able to correctly predict a series. One or more injuries is the most common circumstance we are talking about here. 

SECTION FOUR DOES NOT RELIABLY APPLY WHEN THERE ARE RECENT INJURIES
Section Four shown below fully applies only if there are no injuries that are not reflected in the Ratings. Early season injuries are mostly reflected in the Ratings. But the more recent the injury and the more important the player injured the less this injury will be reflected in Real Team Ratings. Whenever there is an injury (or trade) after about February 1 to an average or especially to an above average player, use of Real Team Ratings and Section Four alone is definitely not recommended. You can still however start with the Ratings and with Section Four and then make adjustments as discussed in Section Five and especially in Section Six.

The same warning applies when players, especially above average players, have been traded away from or on to a team.

In other words the warning to not rely only on the Ratings and Section Four applies whenever an average or above average player was available for much of the regular season but is not available for the playoffs. And it applies on the flip side: the warning applies whenever there is a new average or above average player available for the playoffs who was not available for much of the regular season.

Whenever the warning applies you either have to quit trying to predict the series or you have to use Section Five and/or Section Six along with Section Four (and the Ratings). That is, when the warning applies, you start with the Ratings and Section Four and then you make any adjustments called for in Sections Five and Six.

Besides injuries there are two other factors that can not be included in Real Team Ratings that are sometimes involved in a series and that sometimes cause an upset to occur. These three factors leading to upsets are summarized and broken down as follows:

NBA PLAYOFF SERIES UPSETS BROKEN DOWN
--Total of all Upsets: 24.6% of all playoff games and series are upsets
--Upsets Due to Injuries: 48.7% of all upsets which is 12.0% of all playoff games and series
--Upsets Due to Coaching: 35.1% of all upsets which is 8.6% of all playoff games and series
--Upsets Due to Players: 16.2% of all upsets which is 4.0% of all playoff games and series.

Section Five of the User Guide (NOT shown below) concentrates on these three factors that cause upsets that are not now and may never ever be includable in Real Team Ratings. Section Six covers in detail how you adjust ratings for injuries, which as you can see is the biggest factor that is not included in the Ratings. There is a full adjustment procedure and a newer, quick adjustment procedure that takes just a few minutes to do.

As for adjusting for coaching and player performance that is NOT already reflected in Real Team Ratings, QFTR does this in text reports since this is at the very heart of the mission of QFTR. We quantify everything that can be quantified but for some things that can not be quantified the only way we can get at them and the only way you can know about them is to read QFTR Reports.

Although complete quantification of the coaching factor (and for that matter the player motivation and specific performance factor) are not now and will probably never be possible, Real Coach Ratings have been developed to the point where if they are used in conjunction with Real Team Ratings you can come very close to full quantification. However, there is as of yet no formal and quantifiable way to combine the use of Real Coach Ratings with Real Team Ratings so as of now any user including QFTR itself must use a combination system that he or she creates and that he or she thinks is reasonable.

Upsets occur in about 1/4 or about 25% of all series. So the Ratings and Section Four that follows will accurately explain how to predict about 3/4 or about 75% of all playoff series. For the other 1/4 or 25%, Sections Five and Six of this User Guide are very useful and are often but not always enough for correctly predicting series.
INJURIES ARE LIKE WARNING FLAGS FOR UPSETS TO COME
If you know for sure that NO recent (recent is roughly considered to be during or after January) injuries to average and above average players are affecting a particular series, it is much more likely but still not guaranteed that the combination of the Ratings and Section Four will correctly predict the series. If on the other hand there are one or more substantial injuries involved, especially ones occurring during or after January, the Ratings and Section Four become much less useful and in general can no longer be used to correctly predict the series.

The probabilities here in Section Four below are hedges for coaching factors NOT included in Real Team Ratings and for player performance in the playoffs above or below "what it should be." These probabilities in no way shape or form take into account injuries. In other words, Section Four and the probabilities in Section Four assume no injuries to average or above average players. To be more precise, they assume that every player who was available for much of the regular season is still available for the playoffs.

======== SECTION FOUR: INTERPRETATION OF RATINGS AND PREDICTING PLAYOFF SERIES ========
RTR can obviously used to see exactly how well or poorly teams are set up for the NBA playoffs. Note that teams with negative RTRs are roughly the very same teams who do not qualify to play in the playoffs. Beyond this, using RTR to predict particular playoff series is a very useful thing. When you see playoff series turning out in accordance with RTR, you will see that RTR is valid. The best way to use RTR to predict playoff series is as follows.

You start with Real Team Ratings (RTR) as reported here at QFTR and the first thing you do next is to add seven points to the ratings of the teams with home court advantage. You can stop right there and by using the Interpretation scales (just below) you will already have very good predictions for series where no major injuries are involved.

Were it not for injuries Real Team Ratings alone would correctly predict the outcome of most playoff series (about 88% of them). But if one or more significant injuries are involved RTR alone becomes much less valuable for predicting results. If you have the time and you want to be more accurate you need to do the full method manual injury adjustments shown in Section Six of this Guide as needed. There is a new shortcut manual injury adjustment which does not take much time to do at all. See the final section of this Guide, Section Six: Manual Injury Adjustments.

After you have adjusted the RTRs for home court and for injuries, you then compare them for the two teams playing and find out what the difference is. Finally you can now use either the "quick prediction scale" just below and/or you can use the descriptions in the "detailed guide" that you will see below the quick prediction scale.

QUICK PREDICTION SCALE FOR PLAYOFF SERIES
0 to 6.9 Complete toss-up: flip a coin
7 to 13.9 Roughly 60% chance the higher team will win
14 to 20.9 Roughly 70% chance the higher team will win
21 to 27.9 Roughly 79% chance the higher team will win
28 to 34.9 Roughly 87% chance the higher team will win
35 to 41.9 Roughly 94% chance the higher team will win
42 to 48.9 Roughly 97% chance the higher team will win
49 to 55.9 Roughly 99% chance the higher team will win
56 or more Roughly 100% chance the higher team will win

DETAILED GUIDE TO INTERPRETATION OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEAMS IN REAL TEAM RATINGSIn the detailed interpretation guide that follows, the word "roughly" is repeatedly used in front of the probability numbers, as reminders of the small amount of unavoidable statistical error and to emphasize that unknown factors, including injuries, especially injuries for which no manual adjustment has been made, will in some cases result in substantially different actual probabilities.

Whether or not you are doing manual injury adjustments, do not forget to add six points to the RTRs of the teams that have home court advantage. Injury adjustments are highly recommended unless neither of the teams have significant injuries.

The probability percentages in both the quick chart above and in the descriptions below are based on historical results in the NBA.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 0 AND 6.9
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 55% chance of winning, depending on what exactly the difference is. These probabilities are too low for anyone to have any confidence in using 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 7.0 AND 13.9
The series can easily go either way, although the higher team has a small edge, and has between a 55% to 65% 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 a small upset. 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 14.0 AND 20.9
The series can go either way and this type of difference gives a significant chance for a 7-game series. But the higher team has a clear edge. The higher team has between a 65% and a 75% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. If the lower team wins, it is a moderate upset. 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 21.0 AND 27.9
The higher team has roughly between a 75% to 85% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. There is a chance, but only a small one, for a 7-game series. If the lower team wins, it is a fairly big upset. Coaches, certain players, or both could be responsible for an upset at this level.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 28.0 AND 34.9
The higher team has roughly between an 85% to a 93% 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 severely 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 35.0 AND 41.9
The higher team has roughly between a 93% and a 97% 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 severely 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 major and very surprising upset.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 42.0 AND 48.9
The higher team has roughly between a 97% and a 99% 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 or by one or more major injuries. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS 49.0 AND 55.9
The higher team has a roughly 99% 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 or by one or more major injuries. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

DEFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS 56.0 OR MOREIt 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.


========  SECTION FIVE: CAUTIONS ========

Although Real Team Ratings is a state of the art system strongly believed to be the best basketball playoffs model in existence, it is not without its limitations. In this section, these imperfections are discussed along with some solutions to them.

BASE STATISTICAL ERROR
Due to a small amount of unavoidable statistical error in RTR, there has to be about a five point difference between teams before you can start to have any confidence at all that the higher team will defeat the lower in a playoff series. The base statistical error for the final, end of season RTRs is about 3 points.

Statistical error is of course greater with less data, which means that the earlier that Real Team Ratings come out during a season, the higher the base statistical error. The first RTR Report is scheduled to come out in the last week of December. The base statistical error at that point is about eight points. Aside from statistical error, of course there is the much larger fact that a lot can change between the end of December and late April that has nothing to do with statistical error.

COMPARABILITY AND EVOLUTION
Unlike academic statistical sites that use basketball data (and may appear to the casual observer to be basketball sites) QFTR makes major changes to its formulae and models over time. Therefore, the actual numerical ratings from RTR Reports between 2007 and 2011 are not comparable. Also, the RTR ratings from 2010 on are more reliable than those from prior to 2010.

On the other hand, starting with 2011 and going forward, RTR ratings are likely to be comparable from one year to the next, because it will most likely not be possible to substantially improve RTR from the evolved 2011 version of it. Eventually, once it is certain that the ratings have reached near perfection, an evaluation scale will be produced.

KEY FACTORS THAT CAN UNFORTUNATELY NOT BE COMPLETELY INCLUDED IN REAL TEAM RATINGS
RTR can be approximately used to predict who will win playoff series. However, there are factors not included in the RTR because their impact can not be known until the playoffs are played and/or because calculating those factors is extremely difficult (and has never been done by anyone anywhere). The RTR system is the best playoff prediction scheme that can be done during the regular season. But there are still some factors that can not be included in RTR itself that will help determine playoff series. To get even better accuracy than base RTR, you have to know exactly what the injury situation is at the time playoff games are played. You need to know who has home court advantage. And you also would want to know how specific coaching tactics in particular playoff series will work out (which technically is not completely possible because until the playoff series happens you don’t know for sure what the tactics of the coaches are going to be).

One factor not included can sometimes be huge and can easily flip a series: late regular season and during the playoffs injuries. Among factors not included in RTR that often impact winning playoff games and series, recent injuries is by far the biggest one. Injuries do not automatically change who wins playoff series but unfortunately they often do.

However, the great news is that the recent games factor partially but substantially accounts for injuries that occurred in the most recent two months. Injuries occurring more than two months ago were already and remain largely covered by RTR simply because the effects of long term injuries inevitably show up very well in the biggest factor: net efficiency. The remaining problem (and it can be a whopper) involves injuries that have occurred within the last few weeks.

Another factor not directly included in RTR is coaching. The really good news is that coaching is reflected in every factor of RTR (some more than others) and it is believed that coaching is substantially already included in RTR as a whole. In fact, you can look at RTR as a sort of rough but important coaching guide for coaching in the NBA playoffs.

However, the bad news is that there are some aspects of coaching, including ones Quest for the Ring likes to cover in Reports, which are not completely included in RTR. For example, if the coach switches lineups and/or playing times in the playoffs from what he had in the regular season (as from time to time mostly bad playoffs coaches who get nervous or upset about playoff coaching do) this would not show up in RTR. Similarly, if the coach is not a good morale booster or motivator, this would be much more of a disadvantage in the playoffs than in the regular season, but RTR would not be able to pick this up and show this in the ratings. There are any number of other playoffs coaching details that can not be fully reflected in RTR.

Obviously, home court advantage can not be included in RTR before it is known which team has that advantage. But obviously it is very easy to include it once you are looking at a particular series and know which team has the home court advantage. See Section Five: Interpretation of Ratings (above) for details.

In summary, the three main factors in basketball not fully covered by RTR are injuries, coaching, and home court advantage.

Of these three, manual adjustments are available for two of them: injuries and home court advantage. We now show you how when playoff time comes to adjust RTR for home court advantage and for the injury situation. Adjusting for home court advantage is extremely simple but adjusting for injuries is much more complicated and there is a separate section (#6) for this.

Note that there is no manual adjustment factor for coaching factors not included in RTR. However, many QFTR Reports cover in great detail these little known factors that sometimes decide playoff series and Championships. Precise quantification of these coaching details remain elusive.

COACHING IN THE PLAYOFFS VERSUS COACHING IN THE REGULAR SEASON
Certain coaches deploy offensive and/or defensive strategies in the regular season that do not work as well in the playoffs as they do in the regular season. A team using this kind of strategy makes the playoffs but sooner or later gets bounced in the playoffs by a team using one or more strategies rewarded the most by basketball.

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

The negative impact on RTR of coaching that works better in the regular season than in the playoffs is at this time believed to be between small and not so small, up to an absolute maximum of about 20 RTR points. But a 15-20 point hit would be plenty big enough to swing any close series. Coaches who coach well in the regular season but not in the playoffs will cost their teams’ playoff series they probably could have won, although this will not happen in every series. It will happen mostly in series where the RTR differential is between 5 and 25 points.

This type of coaching will certainly be in the long run ruinous to the objective of going as far as possible in the playoffs, simply because in every playoff run any playoff team will sooner of later face teams with similar base RTR ratings. In fact, the deeper in the playoffs, the closer the ratings of the teams playing. Often, RTR differences are extremely small in the Conference Championships and in the NBA Championship.

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.

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have any scheme, manual or otherwise, for quantifying coaching that is better or worse in the playoffs versus the regular season. However, we are working on it and there is a proposal to add a factor for this in RTR itself. If and when that happens, no manual adjustment for coaching would everl be necessary.

MANUAL ADJUSTMENT FOR HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
It is usually impossible to know who will have home court advantage in all of the round one playoff series until after the entire regular season is over.

Home court advantage is estimated to be worth between 6 and 8 points. You should generally add seven points to the team that has home court advantage, although you can add as few as six or as many as eight if you know for sure that the home court advantage is much less or much more important than usual.

There is an important exception. Due to the unusual format of the NBA Championship, the team with the home court advantage should receive only 4 or 5 points.

MANUAL ADJUSTMENT FOR PLAYERS UNAVAILABLE (OR PLAYING POORLY) DUE TO INJURES
This is by far the most important of the two manual adjustments to RTR that are needed to arrive at an almost perfect prediction of who will win playoff series. The injury adjustment can very easily be a much bigger adjustment than the home court advantage adjustment. Note that although injuries are by far the most common reason why players are not available, you can use this manual adjustment any time a player is not available for any reason.

With the advent of the “most recent developments” factor (aka the “last 25 games factor”) manual injury adjustments are now easier, smaller, and more statistically valid than before. As a result, manual injury adjustments can now be highly recommended. On the other hand, manual injury adjustments can not be and are still not very easy or quick to do. An entire section (#6) just below is devoted to manual injury adjustments.

POSSIBLE FUTURE TWEAKS TO REAL TEAM RATINGS
RTR will be tweaked further in the future as necessary, although we think the new 2011 version is “almost perfect”. As of 2011, RTR has already reached the point where most possible improvements would cost more than they benefit. The existing factors already cover all large and intermediate factors, and those factors encompass virtually all small factors that you could identity.

Having said that, there is a proposal to (perhaps in 2012) include a small adjustment for coaching, based on the annual Real Coach Ratings, which themselves were substantially improved in 2009 and were very substantially improved again in 2010. Any new coaching adjustment will be small since coaching is already reflected in all of the other factors, but a small adjustment to reflect playoff experience and playoff performance of coaches appears to be warranted and is on the drawing board.

Most of the future RTR tweaks will involve perfecting existing factors rather than introducing new ones.


=====SECTION SIX: MANUAL INJURY ADJUSTMENTS=====

SHORTCUT MANUAL INJURY ADJUSTMENTS
Beginning in 2011 we present this shortcut method which is a rough but reasonable approximation of correct manual injury adjustments. Following the mechanics of the shortcut method will be those of the regular, full method. The full method is recommended always, but especially so for series where the teams are close and for Conference Finals and for NBA Finals.

The obvious advantage of the shortcut method is that it can be done in less than five minutes, whereas the full method could take up to about half an hour. The disadvantage of the shortcut method is that it could lead to incorrect predictions of who is going to win series. The statistical error when using the shortcut method is usually small but in some cases it is not small. For very close series using the shortcut method could easily lead to the wrong team being predicted to win the series.

As you might suspect, the shortcut method is rather simple.

SHORTCUT METHOD STEP ONE
Determine who is injured and not available. You should consider all players listed as out and all those listed as doubtful as unavailable. You should consider all players listed as probable (and all those not on the injury list) as available. You will have to use your best judgment regarding players listed as questionable.

SHORTCUT METHOD STEP TWO
Using Real Player Ratings at QFTR determine the evaluation level of each player who is unavailable.

SHORTCUT METHOD STEP THREE
Count unavailable players as follows:

Major Historical Superstars 20
Historical Superstars 16
Superstar Players 13
Star Players 11
Very Good Players 9
Major Role Players 7
Good Role Players 5
Satisfactory Role Players 3
Marginal Role Players 1
Poor Players 0
Very Poor Players 0
Extremely Poor Players 0

SHORTCUT METHOD STEP FOUR
Add up the hits for all the unavailable players to get the total adjustment. Subtract this from the teams Real Team Rating to get the adjusted Real Team Rating.

Follow this same shortcut process for the opponent. Now you can compare the two teams with the players not available taken into consideration.

FULL SCALE MANUAL INJURY ADJUSTMENTS (RECOMMENDED)
Use the following instructions to adjust RTRs of teams for situations where players are not available due to injuries (or rarely, for other reasons) in the playoffs. The best manual injury adjustments can not be done until at least a day or two before a playoff series starts. In fact, due to the big and inherent uncertainty regarding injuries, manual injury adjustments often will need to be updated during or after game one of a series. This is because one or more of the players you thought would not play have played and / or one or more players you thought would play have not played due to injuries.

There are many complications involving the impact of injuries on who is going to win playoff games. I'll mention a few of them. One big complication is that the injury situation changes more rapidly than any of the other factors. Another complication is that early season injuries, even if the player never comes back, are not as bad for the playoffs as are late season injuries. Yet another complication is that there is very often conflicting information out there about just how bad different injuries are. For example, one source may say a player is probable (75-85% chance of playing) while another says the player is questionable (40-50% chance) while still another says doubtful (20-30% chance).

The overall magnitude of the injury adjustment will range from zero to 40 points for most NBA playoff teams, but it is theoretically possible for there to be as much as a 75 points downward adjustment for a totally devastated team. Many first round playoff series are nothing more than injury washouts, where teams heavily damaged or devastated by injuries are basically automatically defeated.

Among the most important variables regarding players who can’t play in the playoffs are:

-How good are the injured players? The QFTR Real Player Rating system is a perfect way to find out.

-To what extent are other players able to step up and replace the injured player or players? This depends mostly on how good the replacement(s) is or are and on how good the coaches are.

-For how long was the player injured? For players who never played at all, no adjustment in base RTR at all is necessary. The more the player played during the regular season, the GREATER the adjustment necessary.

Players who were injured the entire season are irrelevant, except of course they are very 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 manual injury downward adjustment to RTR for them is much higher.

MECHANICS OF THE INJURY ADJUSTMENT
The first thing to do of course is to find out which players are injured. For best results, use the Quest for the Ring injury page to get the latest information and to review by far the most sources of injury information.

1. MANUAL INJURY ADJUSTMENT BASE
The base or starting point is the quality of the player, as shown by his Real Player Rating (including the hidden defending adjustment.) The base adjustment is the Real Player Rating of the player minus .500 times 20. For example, if the player injured has a RPR of .700, the base manual injury adjustment is (.700 - .500) X 25 = .200 X 25 = 5. As another example, if the player is a superstar and has a Real Player Rating of .950, the base manual injury adjustment is (.950 - .500) X 25 = .450 X 20 = 11.25.

.500 is subtracted from the ratings because players whose ratings are below .500 are virtually worthless in the playoffs. If such players are not available but would play if they were available, it would be an advantage rather than a disadvantage not to have them.

We now for each injured player take the base and adjust it for variables regarding the injury. The variables are as follows. There are five variables numbered 2, 3, 4A, 4B, and 4C. (The base was numbered “1”).

2. STATUS (PROBABILITY PLAYER WILL PLAY) ADJUSTMENT
This adjustment is for manual injury adjustments to RTR when it is uncertain whether the player will be able to play in the game or not. Unfortunately uncertainty is the norm, not the exception.

Also unfortunately, sources of injury information sometimes conflict. When they do, you have to use your judgment as to which source is most correct, or else you can average out the designations.

The following tells you what to multiply the base manual injury adjustment base by based on the injury designation being reported.

Probable (There is about a 80% chance the player will play): multiply the base by .30

Game Time Decision (There is about a 60% chance the player will play): multiply the base by .55

Questionable (There is about a 45% chance the player will play): multiply the base by .75

Doubtful (There is about a 25% chance the player will play): multiply the base by .90

Out (There is about a 0% chance the player the player will play): multiply the base by 1.0

The status designations can be used not only as probabilities players will play but as rough but valid approximations of the severity of injuries, which in turn reflects the impact on the playoff series even if the player plays. Players who play slightly injured are seldom if ever going to be as good as they were with no injury at all. Therefore, the above adjustment factors not only reflect the probabilities the player will play but also the reality that even if the player plays, the team will be harmed by the injury situation.

3. WHEN IN THE SEASON THE PLAYER WAS LOST
Find out when the player became injured by checking game logs which are part of most statistical data sets for NBA players at most major sites including ESPN.

If the player has been unavailable on an on and off basis, assume the player was not available for the entire range of time, unless he was available at least 75% of the games within the range, in which case use the most recent date he became unavailable.

Use the following factors:
November .10
December .30
January .50
February .70
March .90
April 1.0

4. IMPORTANCE OF PLAYER TO THE TEAM
We actually have three separate adjustments which together show the importance of the player to the team.

4A MINUTES PER GAME OF THE INJURED PLAYER
At ESPN or another good site, find the minutes for the player for the current season. Be careful not to use minutes per game from any other season. Use the following adjustment factors:

30 mpg and more: 1.0
27 to 29.9: .9
24 to 26.9: .8
21 to 23.9: .7
18 to 20.9: .6
15 to 17.9: .5
12 to 14.9: .4
9 to 11.9: .3
6 to 8.9: .2
3 to 5.9: 1
Less than 3: 0

This factor indirectly gets at to what extent other players can make up for the player who is not available due to injury.

4B OVERALL DEPTH OF THE TEAM
Go to the latest Real Player Ratings Report for the team. Such Reports are posted at The Quest for the Ring for most or all playoff teams in late March or early April. Near the very beginning of such Reports you will see all the key players listed by category. Count the number of players according to category as follows, but DO NOT COUNT any players who are not available due to injuries or for any other reason.

Specifically, for purposes of this factor:

-Players listed as out should not be counted
-Players listed as doubtful should not be counted
-Players listed as questionable should be counted at 1/2
-Players listed as game time decision should be counted
-Players listed as probable should be counted

Note that in some cases you will be counting players as available even though you are calculating an injury hit on the team for them. This is paradoxical in the narrow sense but is part of a valid overall calculation.

Here are the team depth count factors:

Major Historical Superstars: Multiply the number of them by 10.
Historical Superstars: Multiply the number of them by 8.5.
Superstars: Multiply the number of them by 7.
Stars: Multiply the number of them by 6.
Very Good / Solid Starters: Multiply the number of them by 5
Major Role Players / Good Enough to start: Multiply the number of them by 4

Add it all up and then apply the following factors to the manual injury adjustment base:

50 and more: 0
49: .1
48: .2
47: .3
46 .4
45: .5
44: .6
43: .7
42: .8
41: .9
40 and less: 1.0

What this means is that if a team is so chock loaded that its remaining, available players add up to 50 or more points then it can completely make up for the injured player. If the sum of the remaining players is 40 or less, the team most likely can not at all make up for the injury.

In practice you will find that this test will often spit out the 1.0 factor since, unfortunately, few teams have enough good and great players to make an injury even partially irrelevant.

4C POSITION SHORTAGES
This factor is unique in that it can result in an increase rather than a decrease in the base manual injury adjustment factor. Find out if you don’t know already which position the injured player plays. Then check the depth chart for the team at ESPN or perhaps CBS Sports or Yahoo Sports. Find out how many available players there are at the injured players’ position.

The minimum reasonable number of players for each position for a completely healthy team is two and the maximum is four. A team impacted by one or more injuries at a position will have between zero and three players at the position following the injury. Use the following factors:

3 Players Still Available at the Position: .8
2 Players Still Available at the Position: 1.0
1 Player Still Available at the Position: 1.2
0 Players Still Available at the Position: 1.5

AN EXAMPLE: THE 2010 UTAH JAZZ
Ok, now lets consider an example to see exactly how this manual injury adjustment works.

EXAMPLE STEP ONE
Find out who is and who may be injured.

We have Carlos Boozer and Andrei Kirilenko, the second and third best players on the Utah Jazz, who are playing the Denver Nuggets in the first round, affected by injuries. Mehmet Okur may possibly be affected. According to two well regarded sources, here was the situation the day before the playoff series began (April 16, 2010):

-Carlos Boozer power forward, is questionable for Saturday's game against Denver due to a strained right oblique/rib cage.

-Andrei Kirilenko small forward, will miss at least the first round of the playoffs due to a strained left calf.

-Mehmet Okur, center, is probable with a strained left Achilles tendon.

In all of the calculations that follow: we round to the nearest tenth of a point; there is very little need to be more exact than that.

EXAMPLE STEP TWO
Obtain Real Player Ratings from QFTR for the injured players. Hopefully QFTR has published the current year ratings for the players you are investigating. If not, you can use last year’s ratings which in most cases are good approximations of this year’s.

EXAMPLE STEP THREE
Compute the base manual injury adjustments in accordance with (1) above:

Boozer: (1.005 - .500) X 25 = .505 X 25 = 12.6
Kirilenko: (.970 - .500) X 25 = .470 X 25 = 11.8
Okur: (.806 - .500) X 25 = .306 X 25 = 7.7

EXAMPLE STEP FOUR
Adjust for the status (probability the player will play) factor in accordance with (2) above:

Boozer is “questionable” so the factor to use is .75:
12.6 X .75 = 9.5

Kirilenko is “out” so the factor to use is 1.0:
11.8 X 1.0 = 11.8

Okur is “probable” so the factor to use is .3:
7.7 X .3 = 2.3

Note that although Okur is actually very likely to play, the Jazz will be at least slightly harmed by his minor injury whether or not he plays, so the small hit they will take on their Real Team Rating due to the minor injury for Okur is justified.

EXAMPLE STEP FIVE
Using the method described at (3) above, find out when in the season the player was lost (or mostly lost).

The Boozer situation just developed in April; the factor for April is 1.0, so the Boozer number remains 9.5.

The Kirilenko situation developed in March and the factor for March is .90. So for Kirilenko:

11.8 X .9 = 10.6

The Okur situation just developed in April and the factor for April is 1.0. So the Okur number remains 2.3.

EXAMPLE STEP SIX
Adjust for minutes per game of each player affected by injuries as shown in (4A) above.

Boozer’s minutes per game are 34.5 and the factor to use is 1.0 so Boozer’s number remains 9.5.

Kirilenko’s minutes per game are 29 and the factor to use is .9:
10.6 X .9 = 9.5

Okur’s minutes per game are 29.4 and the factor to use is .9:
2.3 X .9 = 2.1

EXAMPLE STEP SEVEN
Find the overall depth of the team not counting injured players.

Following the rules described (at 4B) above, Kirilenko is removed from the roster and we are left with:

-Deron Williams: major historical superstar, worth 10 points
-Carlos Boozer: historical superstar, worth 8.5 points
-Kyle Korver: star, worth 6 points
-Paul Milsap: star, worth 6 points
-Mehmet Okur: very good / solid starter, worth 5 points
-Ronnie Price: major role player / good enough to start, worth 4 points

Williams, Korver, Milsap, Okur, and Price are all available and they total 31 points. Boozer is questionable and he is a historical superstar. So he counts as 1/2 X 8.5 = 4.3. So the Jazz depth count is 35.3. So according to the table above, the factor to use (for all three of the Jazz players with injury situations) is 1.0, so the numbers of all three carry forward as what they were in the preceding step: Boozer: 9.5, Kirilenko: 9.5 and Okur: 2.1.

EXAMPLE STEP EIGHT
Check for position shortages as shown in (4C) above:

Boozer is a power forward and without him the Jazz have just one power forward so the factor to use is 1.2:

9.5 X 1.2 = 11.4

Kirilenko is a small forward and without him the Jazz have just one small forward so the factor to use is 1.2:

9.5 X 1.2 = 11.4

Okur is a center and without him the Jazz have two centers so the factor to use is 1.0:

2.1 X 1.0 = 2.1

EXAMPLE STEP NINE
Add up the manual injury adjustments for the three Jazz players:

11.4 + 11.4 + 2.1 = 24.9

EXAMPLE STEP TEN
Subtract the manual injury adjustment from the Jazz’ Real Team Rating to get the RTR adjusted for injuries:

39.6 – 24.9 = 14.7.

So the Jazz Real Team Rating once injuries are accounted for is 14.7. Then if you do the same thing for the Nuggets, you can compare the two and find out who is probably going to win this series and what the probability is. Then in turn you can evaluate how well the teams do in the series given the situation. You can for example find out how much of an upset it would be if the Jazz beat the Nuggets (assuming their injuries make them underdogs as is apparently the case).

As you can see, the manual injury adjustment is not a quick or easy thing. But once you have done a few you can almost always do them for a team in less than thirty minutes and usually you can do them for a team in less than 20 minutes.