Fine, fine...let me break the whole thing down....<sigh>.
Team Record Atl Record Pac Record "in division" Adjusted Record
Boston 29-7 6-1 2-2 8-3 21-4
New Jersey 17-18 3-2 4-3 7-5 10-13
Philadelphia 14-20 2-4 4-1 6-5 8-15
Toronto 14-21 2-5 3-2 5-7 9-14
New York 13-20 2-3 2-2 4-5 9-15
LAL 27-6 5-0 7-1 12-1 15-5
Phoenix 19-12 2-1 2-2 4-3 15-9
Golden St. 10-26 3-4 1-2 4-6 6-20
LAC 8-26 0-4 0-6 0-10 8-16
Sac 8-28 0-6 4-3 4-9 4-19
So, it breaks down as follows:
If you believe the best indicator is how well these teams do HEAD TO HEAD, the standings break down as:
Los Angeles 12 1 .923 -
Boston 8 3 .727 3
New Jersey 7 5 .583 4.5
Phoenix 4 3 .571 5
Philadelphia 6 5 .545 5
New York 4 5 .444 6
Toronto 5 7 .417 6.5
Gold. St. 4 6 .400 6.5
Sac. 4 9 .308 8
LAC 0 10 .000 10.5
What you see in this is that the top teams are cannibalizing the bottom teams. So how does this stack up with what they've done against the REST of the league?
Boston 21 4 .840 -
LA Lakers 15 5 .750 3.5
Phoenix 15 9 .625 5.5
New Jersey 10 13 .435 10
Toronto 9 14 .391 11
New York 9 15 .375 11.5
Philadelphia 8 15 .347 12
LA Clippers 8 16 .333 12.5
Golden St. 6 20 .231 15.5
Sacramento 4 19 .174 16
Boston is better against the rest of the league than against the Atlantic/Pacific.
The Lakers success has come by cannibalizing the Atlantic/Pacific.
Phoenix is doing better against teh rest of the league than against Atlantic/Pacific - AND HAVE PLAYED THE FEWEST GAMES AGAINST ATLANTIC/PACIFIC. In other words, they've got a bunch of games left against the lesser players. They're better than their current record against Atlantic/Pacific.
New Jersey has it's current record because it has cannibalized its own "division" (meaning Atlantic/Pacific). Their schedule looks to get TOUGHER from here on out - with a losing record, and 4.5 games behind Phoenix. In other words, they're irrelevant.
Toronto, who is only a game behind New Jersey, has struggled within its own division. In other words, they're losing games that one would think they should win. That being the case, this may be the 2nd best team in the Atlantic - which is a lot closer to what most of us thought of them in preseason. Still, they are reaping some benefit from cannibalization.
New York is also gaining benefit from cannibalizing the division. They still have some room to cannibalize a bit more. Doesn't make them relevant, though.
Philadelphia - another team gaining benefit from cannibalizing.
The Clippers are the team who is being eaten up by the division. They're doing NOTHING in division play. Yet looking at how they've done against everyone else, they're closer to New Jersey than New Jersey is to Phoenix.
We now get to the worst of the worst - Golden State and Sacramento. If there's a break between Phoenix and New Jersey, there's also a break between the Clippers and Golden State.
Golden State has gained some benefit from cannibalizing its division. Yet even that keeps it at significant distance from even graduating to AWFUL.
Sacramento needs to just stick to playing in it's division. Apparently, they're the only people they can beat.
So - AGAIN - you come back to three teams - Boston, LA Lakers, and Phoenix. The "success" of the rest of the Atlantic/Pacific teams comes from cannibalizing the rest of the division. NJ, NY, Phil, and Tor are better than GS, LAC, and Sac - and GS and Sac are in a lower class than the rest of the group. So it gets back to the question - is two relevant teams, one irrelevant team, and two hopeless teams a better division than one relevant team, and four irrelevant teams? And again, my answer is YES.
I have to give the nod to the Pacific as being the better division.
