Ranking the NBA's offenses and defenses by PVOA

Using the same system described in the immediate post below, I now rank each team's offensive and defensive performance to this point in the season by comparing it to the average performance per possession amassed by the rest of the Association against each of their particular opponents. Basically, I'm trying to find out how much relative success each team has had on offense and defense, taking into account the strength of that team's opposition. Please see the post below for a fuller explanation of my methodology.

Here are the rankings, with observations below:

Offensive PVOA Rankings

1. Dallas.......+10.33
2. Detroit.......+8.67
3. LA Lakers.......+8.14
4. Toronto......+6.95
5. Orlando......+6.77
6. New York.......+6.06
7. Boston.......+5.96
8. LA Clippers......+3.98
9. Memphis.......+2.65
10. Golden State......+2.19
11. Atlanta.......+2.10
12. New Orleans......+1.69
13. Utah.......+1.60
14. San Antonio......+0.76
15. Portland.......+0.62
16. Phoenix......-0.12
17. Sacramento......-0.62
18. Indiana.......-1.33
19. Houston.......-1.40
20. Washington.......-1.50
21. Denver.......-2.18
22. Philadelphia.......-3.41
23. Minnesota.......-3.43
24. Milwaukee......-3.75
25. Chicago.......-3.87
26. New Jersey........-4.30
27. Charlotte.......-4.69
28. Cleveland........-6.13
29. Miami........-8.42
30. Seattle.......-8.78

Defensive PVOA Rankings

1. Houston.......-10.79
2. Boston.......-9.01
3. Atlanta.......-6.84
4. Detroit.......-4.74
5. Cleveland.......-4.34
6. New Orleans......-3.81
7. Chicago......-3.09
8. Denver......-3.07
9. Philadelphia......-2.87
10. Miami.......-1.93
11. Washington......-1.60
12. San Antonio......-1.32
13. LA Lakers......-1.29
14. Indiana......-1.25
15. Milwaukee......-1.22
16. Phoenix......-0.98
17. Toronto......+0.33
18. LA Clippers......+0.53
19. New Jersey.......+1.12
20. Utah......+1.53
21. Dallas.......+1.66
22. Memphis......+2.12
23. Orlando......+2.31
24. Portland.......+2.45
25. Seattle......+2.94
26. Minnesota.......+3.35
27. Sacramento......+6.54
28. Charlotte......+8.79
29. Golden State.......+9.06
30. New York......+9.54


Observations

1 Everyone thought the Celtics would be an offensive juggernaut with a questionable defense. But so far they've been doing it with defense. In fact, if you throw out the Denver game, which Denver basically phoned in, the Celtics offense would be barely above the comparative average, while their defense has been consistently above that average.

2 If the Knickerbockers could play any defense at all they would be dangerous. They have the biggest gap between offensive and defensive numbers. Their offense is top 10, their defense is buried in last place.

3 Surprising: Denver, with Carmelo and Iverson and George Karl, is actually doing much better on defense than on offense; Ditto, to a lesser degree, for the "Bullets" with World B. Arenas, et al.

4. Cleveland and Chicago have the opposite problem the Knicks have. Their defenses are lockdown, but their offenses are bottom tier.

5. Until I did these numbers, I thought the Bucks played their worst game against Orlando. Actually, they played their worst game in a close loss to Charlotte. The Bobcats are the lowest ranked team in terms of overall PVOA, and the Bucks severely underperformed association averages against them. By contrast, what they did to the excellent Raptors was shocking.