This neat and easy to read spreadsheet document is the ultimate reference if you are trying to get to the bottom of how good NBA offenses, defenses and overall teams really are, with all the hype and illusions removed and all rose colored glasses left at home. This document also allows you to find out instantly how much and in what direction each team's offense, defense, and overall team has changed from last season to this season through the present, Jan. 7, 2009 to be exact.
Specifically, this document gives you the 2007-08 and the 2008-09 through Jan. 7 offensive, defensive, and overall efficiency indices for all 30 NBA teams. Efficiency is simply number of points scored (offense) or allowed (defense) per 100 possessions.
Since it is expressed as a rate per 100 possessions, efficiency is standardized relative to the pace of teams. The pace of teams differs quite a bit, but those differences are irrelevant as they should be in this investigation of "pure" efficiency or quality of offenses, of defenses, and of teams as a whole. We want to know here about how good the teams or players are, and we are not at all concerned right now about how fast they are.
The vast majority of basketball arguments that you see on the internet about teams as a whole, about offenses, about defenses, and about key players, are arguments involving what and who are more efficient than something or someone else, regardless of pace. Fortunately, we can get ready to prevail in any argument by making the complications of pace irrelevant, by focusing in on the efficiency ratings.
In the spreadsheet there are 6 sheets; you will see blue links to each sheet at the top. Google Documents is not rendering my descriptive headers properly, so I just removed them and settled for shading of columns by worksheet. When you view each worksheet, you will see that one of the columns is shaded yellow. That is the column that has been data sorted for that worksheet, meaning that whatever is described in the header for that column is how the teams are ranked on that particular worksheet.
There are six worksheets as follows. Every worksheet has the same data. The only difference between worksheets is that the teams are ranked according to whatever is highlighted in yellow:
Sheet 1 Offensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 2 Defensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 3 Overall, Combined Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams (Offense and Defense Combined) of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 4 Change in Offensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 5 Change in Defensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 6 Change in Overall, Combined Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams (Offense and Defense Changes Combined ) from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 6 would be where you would go to find out which teams are most improved overall from last season to this year. Sheet 5 would be where you would go to find out which defenses are most improved overall from last season to this season. And so on and so forth.
So check it out if you want to separate the truth from the hype regarding the 30 NBA teams. The truth can sometimes be less exciting than the hype, but trust me, you are better off dealing with the truth than the hype. And one thing about the truth is that you can instantly spot those who don't know what they are talking about on Internet sports sites and sometimes even on TV sportscasts.
For example, just about everyone including sportscasters have been falling over themselves gushing about how the Denver Nuggets have such a far better defense this season than they had last season. But guess what the truth is. The truth is that the Nuggets' defense is almost exactly the same quality this year as last year! Oops! Quite a lot of hype had to be brushed away there for us to be able to reach the truth. Go get a garbage bag so we can stuff all the hype in it and leave it for the trash pick up.
Here is where to go:
NBA BREAKDOWN as of Jan. 7 2009
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