http://espn.go.com/nba/stats/rpi/_/sort/SOS http://www.xnsports.com/2013/12/04/nba-season-stats-strength-schedule-insights/ http://www.playoffstatus.com/nba/westernsosrg.html http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2014.html#all_team_stats SOS SRS (Simple Rating System, Simple Rating System; a team rating that takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule. The rating is denominated in points above/below average, where zero is average.)
13th, from what I'm reading. The way we've won has made our Simple Ratings System value 3rd highest in the league.
Sagarin has us at 11th in SOS, for what it's worth: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/nba/sagarin/2014/team/
TL;DR we have an average strength of schedule. So we're doing really well and nobody can claim we aren't playing hard opponents.
Just that we are getting those hard opponents at home of the second night of their b2b. That will of course even out though
Never mind the fact that we've played 5 sets of B2Bs, beating SAS (home), GSW (road) and IND (home) on the 2nd nights. Has anyone had more B2Bs than us to this point?
I maintain that this stat is pretty much meaningless. For example, teams that played Minnesota in the first month played a team with a great winning %. Did they play a great team? Also, it fails to take into account things like players missing from teams with good records because of an injury the previous game, road/home, back-to-back, etc. One could argue that Portland has a special disadvantage because it is the most geographically isolated team (if it is - I think it is...) and so has to fly the most of any team. Of course, then you could argue that this is a home advantage because the opposing teams have a higher average flight time. There is a limit to the power of stats.
And we were playing our third game in four nights.... they played the Kings last, we played the Pacers, which do you think was more difficult?
I wasn't arguing for either side, just pointing out what experts are saying. My personal opinion is playing on the road trumps most everything else, so I would go with the Zombie Sonics.
And I'm sure they did their best... [video=youtube;w3UQwyKrTtI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3UQwyKrTtI[/video]