Obscenely Comprehensive NBA Schedule Analysis

(***WARNING!*** FLASH AND RAM INTENSIVE CONTENT BELOW!)

Greetings again Basketbawful readers. I thought that my first take on the 2010-11 NBA season schedule would suffice, but since then apparently more questions on the total effect of scheduling were raised from it. And by that, I mean literally one reader had more in-depth questions for me. So since I couldn't really let it go, and I wanted to see just how good the Suns (or how bad the Lakers) actually had it in terms of NBA scheduling, I went ahead and did the analysis. Introducing AnacondaHL's Obscenely Comprehensive NBA Schedule Analysis.

Updates:

• *With completely random aesthetic consideration to Google Motion Charts, I have defined the "margin" formulas to Team games minus Opponent games*. This means negative numbers are margins in that team's favor and positive numbers means the team is playing more tired games than facing tired opponents.
  
• All raw data spreadsheets are now sorted by ascending margin. Visually I saw enough correlation between margin and number of games against Opponents Only on their SEGABABA, so I felt seeing the margin difference across the league is more meaningful to spot the scheduling injustices.
  
• Included win/loss records for all teams in their B2Bs and 4in5s. As far as I can tell, this matches up with (and goes above and beyond) Mark Cuban's data dump back in 2005.
  
• The Orlando at New York November 2nd game has been removed.
  
• All NBA seasons from 1999-00 to 2010-11 have been analyzed, minus the win/loss records of the current season.
  
• No advanced rules were made in consideration of the neutral site games, Lakers/Clippers games, or the Hornets New Orleans/Oklahoma City games.
  

Raw Data:
I'm giving you the option of clicking on these spreadsheets now to view my raw data, but it may be better to skip to the next section if you hate wading through all the numbers.
1999-04
2004-09
2009-11

Motion Charts:
Inspired by HoopData's use of Google Motion Charts, and understanding that I had three-dimensional data just perfect for the tool, and being quite fond of pretty blobs of gliding color, I put all of my results into a couple of different forms, so if you've got a lot of spare RAM handy follow along:

Lines!
The default of this line chart shows every team since 1999-00 until this year. The y-axis default is Opponents Only B2B and the color is B2B margin, so blue is good, green is average, and red is bad. Overall, the average remains fairly constant over the years, just like the average number of SEGABABAs per team does, but you can see the range varies wildly, unlike the former where there are considerations to limit teams to 23 total SEGABABAs. You can get a better look at a few teams compared to the league average by clicking their checkboxes at the right.

Onto the blobs of color!

Blobs!
Here the default is setup to try and visually see the margin of teams compared to the average. Hit the play button for the blob-tastic motion. You can change the color to unique to make it a little easier on the eyes to track all the teams at once, or select a few teams and follow them. Or change the size of the blobs to Margin, so all the 0's get small and the extremes get big. Again, I will note that I added win/loss records for B2Bs and 4in5s, so you can put that parameter on the chart if you wish.

(If the above charts don't work, or you want a fullscreen view, try opening the raw spreadsheet here).

Conclusion:
By looking at B2Bmargin and overall OppOnlyB2B, I've shown the place where the NBA schedule is still lacking in fairness. Not in the number of SEGABABAs a team plays, but in the number of games played against opponents on their SEGABABA. Over the years in the dataset, teams have had a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 24 SEGABABAs in a year. In contrast, the B2Bmargin ranges from -11 to 12, a significant advantage for generally the Mountain/Central teams.

But in the end does this fatigue really matter? Sure on a league wide average, teams win 8.7 and lose 11.4 SEGABABAs a year, but eyeballing the championship teams, they've typically had schedules with unfavorable margins. OTOH, they've also had schedules with less SEGABABAs played overall, so maybe we've looped back to that original simple analysis: which is as long as a team is talented and rested, they've got the strongest chance at winning the rings. (This shallow analysis does not factor being able to pull off ridiculous star trades, or ability of refs to hand you the championship.)


-AnacondaHL

Unnecessarily Comprehensive and Overdue NBA 2010-11 Schedule Analysis

Intro:
So the season has started again, with the typical actions of hardcore fans and GMs looking at their team schedules and spouting acronyms like SEGABABA and QQ since August (or since Mark Cuban started blogging about this concept, thus the QQ). When the Orlando game on 11/02 was postponed due to potential asbestos, I wondered if any team just got saved from a back-to-back (you know, after thinking about Dwight Howard going to bed hungry that night without feasting on the defenseless STAT and Mozgov), or how it would impact scheduling.

Since fatigue is something no popular advanced basketball statistic really accounts for, but we know has an impact on the game, let's get this down on paper once and for all. Introducing AnacondaHL's Unnecessarily Comprehensive and Overdue NBA 2010-11 Schedule Analysis. Let it be noted that I personally hate the term SEGABABA and it's unconsious implications of a toddler asking for Sonic the Hedgehog and a milk bottle, but due to aesthetic readibility considerations, I will be using it and "4in5" throughout the post.

Basics:

• 1230 games, between 2 teams (hurr durf)
  
• Teams will be on a SEGABABA 601 times, average 20 per team, range 16 to 23.
  
• 496 games will feature atleast 1 team on the SEGABABA.
  
• Teams will be on a 4in5 68 times.
  
• 64 games will feature atleast 1 team on a 4in5. More on this later.

So given the constraints, as well as a ton of local scheduling issues, the computer that churns out the schedule seems to do a good job. So far. But what about when viewed from the opponent's side? In other words, how many games does my team play against a team on their SEGABABA, especially when my team is rested? Things don't look as pretty...

Spreadsheet:
Yes you may open this without logging in. Click me now.

Sheet "All1230" shows every single game to be played this season:

• Columns A-F - Raw data.
  
• HH B2B - When the team's back to back are both home games. This only occurs 15 times out of the 601.
  
• VH B2B - When the team travels from Visiting team to Home. Note: I did not analyze Clippers or Lakers games with advanced rules, but considering that the Lakers are the only one with the league lowest 15 SEGABABAs anyways, the result would probably just make me sicker, so you do it if you want to know.
  
• HV B2B - When a team plays their SEGABABA on the road, first at home.
  
• VV B2B - Both games on the road.
  
• Any B2B - Adding them together, so games with both teams on a SEGABABA get the value 2.
  
• 4in5 - Here, I use the terms V, H, and VH for if the Visiting team, Home team, or both are on their 4in5.

Sheet "Team B2Bs" summarizes each team's schedule. It includes some colors by me to filter below and above average schedules by eye. A quick rundown on the abbreviations in addition to above:

• Only B2B - When the team is playing a SEGABABA against a rested opponent.
  
• OppB2B - Any time the opponent is on their SEGABABA
  
• OppOnly B2B - Any time the opponent is on their SEGABABA but the team is not. This is probably the column most of your are interested in.
  
• BothB2B - When both teams are on their SEGABABA. Ugh.
  
• Opp4in5 - Any time the opponent is on their 4in5
  
• OppOnly 4in5 - Essentially free wins.
  
• Both 4in5 - BasketBawful.
  
• 4in5 margin - Gift games given or stolen.

So here we see the NBA computers didn't do so well to make things even across the league. The Suns get hooked up with only playing 16 SEGABABAs, while facing 20 opponent SEGABABAs when rested. Gotta squeeze every last game outta Nash, eh Stern? [fake editor's note: Thanks Stern! -AHL] The Lakers story, however, features only 9 games of unrested opponents, and the poor Knicks schedule looks even worse, adding in some future asbestos game. You can also see the unbalance by looking at how many games your team plays in a SEGABABA and your opponent rested (by subtracting Both B2B from Any B2B), with the results shown in column "Only B2B". Here it looks like Minnesota gets the cake (7 games as the only team on SEGABABA) while Atlanta gets screwed (18 games).

OTOH, the schedule seems to balance out any advantages of playing 4in5 opponents by scheduling near equal 4in5s on the team, as shown by the 4in5 margin column. Only Philly and, again, the Knicks get screwed with 4 and 3 4in5s, respectively, without playing any 4in5 opponents, while Boston gets a bonus by having only 1 4in5 but playing 4 opponents on theirs.

Conclusion:
So we could spin and apply this analysis many ways. Maybe for betting interpretations, you know, if betting was legal. [/Simmons] Or maybe for fantasy sports, getting more games but checking out performance. But instead, I decided to highlight what I'll call the BasketBawful Sponsered Games of the Season, which comes down to the only 4 games featuring both teams finishing up 4in5s. Getcha popcorn, and calendars, ready.

• Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 @ 8:00 p.m. EST - Charlotte Bobcats vs Chicago Bulls
  
• Saturday, February 12th, 2011 @ 8:30 p.m. EST - Indiana Pacers vs Milwaukee Bucks
  
• Thursday, March 10th, 2011 @ 8:30 p.m. EST - New York Knicks vs Dallas Mavericks
  
• Saturday, April 9th, 2011 @ 8:30 p.m. EST - Cleveland Cavaliers vs Milwaukee Bucks

-AnacondaHL