Reading this under a foot of snow right now? From my perch in Chicago, I offer exactly zero sympathy. Snow's a fact of life; I've become well acquainted with salt on the sidewalks and digging out my car in the morning.
I'm actually surprised more basketball games aren't canceled because of snow. I figure that it would be a regular occurrence in Minnesota or Milwaukee or Boston, but other than the Bulls/Pacers game that was just made up earlier this week, I don't know the last time I heard of a snow-out. In fact, snowstorms might make the NBA even cooler: you can stay inside with some hot chocolate and watch basketball until your heart's content.
That's what makes snowstorms one of the best natural disasters. But it is the best natural disaster? For this week's Playoff Predictor, I rank the NBA's teams, natural disaster style.
The Hurricane Category
30. Charlotte Bobcats: 0.0% Playoff Chance
29. Sacramento Kings: 0.0%
28. Cleveland Cavaliers: 0.0%
27. New Orleans Hornets: 0.0%
26. Orlando Magic: 0.0%
25. Washington Wizards: 0.0%
24. Phoenix Suns: 0.0%
What good has ever come from a hurricane? From my vantage point, all I see is widespread destruction. I suppose that you could obtusely argue that it provides water, but we'll call that the Four Factors as a guideline, the Blazers are in the top ten in exactly two of the eight (four offensive and four defensive) categories: defense rebounding and defensive free throw factor. Aka, two of the most useless ones. In every other factor, the Blazers are 14th or below.
The Sixers had hope once upon a time. For some pockets of the population, they still do: they're only ninth in the Eastern Conference. But man, is that offense inefficient. The Sixers are second-to-last in the NBA with a 101.2 offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) this season, a stat that not even their 11th-best defensive rating can prop up. And now without NBA's most well-rounded team. But almost as interesting as Denver's results to me were the Knicks' results. While the top four teams in our power rankings all have positive Net PERs at four positions and could easily cover up a fifth, the Knicks have a negative Net PER at both point guard and small forward. How are they up so high in the standings with two glaring weaknesses?
But Eric Mayo's excellent Knicks piece from yesterday answered a lot of those questions. There are two sides to the coin of what Mayo's saying there. Yes, the Knicks play down to their weak opponents. But they also play up to their strong opponents, causing that random variability, even with recent dominating wins against weak teams.
On the season, the Knicks are 2-0 against Miami (average margin of victory: 18), 2-0 against San Antonio (average margin of victory: 10.5), and have not yet played the Clippers or Thunder. But it's those dominating victories against the best of the best that should have Knicks fans holding out some hope of a parade through Manhattan next summer.