ESPN.com started a new Power Rankings system by John Hollinger this year. It takes an advanced statistical formula to calculate who is really the best team this year, not just the team with the best record. As of Monday, the San Antonio Spurs had been listed as the #1 team for at least four days in a row. He recently posted on his blog a defense for the formula. Here is a snippet of what he wrote:

One of the biggest reasons I created this ranking is to force people to look beyond the superficial first impression. In this case, it involves looking past won-loss record at the elements that go into it. On its face this sounds absurd, I realize — isn’t winning the whole point? But as I’ve been trying to beat into people’s heads over and over again, point differential is a better indicator of future success than won-loss record. In other words, if you were trying to pick a game between the Mavs and Spurs tomorrow, you’d be better off ignoring the standings and looking just at point differential.

Ok, John. If that’s the case, then Tuesday morning the Mavericks should at least be tied with the Spurs. They now have the exact same point differential per game. But let’s take it one step further. Let’s take a look at the point differential of the Mavs and Spurs vs. common opponents in the past month. That should give a good indicator of who’s playing better recently, right?

Atlanta – Dallas won by 23 (2/26), San Antonio won by 7 (2/21)
Denver – Dallas won by 20 (2/24), San Antonio won by 15 (2/20)
Miami – Dallas won by 12 (2/22), San Antonio lost by 15 (2/11)

Against these three teams in the past month Dallas is +55, and San Antonio is +7.

Hollinger, your formula is flawed. The only way you can be proven right is if San Antonio beats Dallas in the playoffs. Until then, try to show a little humility and admit you’re wrong.

Just when I think that the Mavericks have set every record they are going to set this year another one pops up. After beating Atlanta on Monday they have become the first team in NBA history to have three separate 12 game or more winning streaks in a single season. Here’s what the AP had to say about it:

The Mavericks are the first team in NBA history with three winning streaks of 12 or more in a season, having already had runs of 12 and 13 games. The Milwaukee Bucks (1970-71), Philadelphia 76ers (1980-81) and Los Angeles Lakers (1999-2000) have had three winning streaks of 10 or more in a season.

Of those three other ten game winners, the Bucks and Lakers both won the NBA Finals. Hopefully the Mavs will follow suit this year.

It seems like the best way to improve your chances to winning the MVP is to get hurt, miss a few games and have your team struggle. That seems to be the case, at least, for the Steve Nash for MVP talk. He missed a few games recently and his team tanked it. That has made a lot of people on the internet say that it proves how good Nash really is and how deserving he is of his third-straight MVP award.

The problem I have with this line of thinking is that you are rewarding a player for his not playing. Missing games should not improve your chances of getting an award for playing basketball. If anything, getting hurt should hurt your case. Playing games should be the only criteria for the MVP. I know one of the arguments for who the MVP should be is to argue how worse a team is if he is not playing. But that just doesn’t make sense when you look at it closely. Like I’ve said, you should not reward a player for missing games.

The only player that I think deserves to be in the conversation of who the MVP is this year other than Dirk Nowitzki is Tracy McGrady. What is happening with the Rockets is exactly the opposite of what Steve Nash and the Suns went through. McGrady is carrying his team without its second best player. That’s MVP-like dominance. But I hear very little talk about T-Mac for MVP, probably because his team is only the 4th or 5th best team.

So, Dirk. If you really want to win MVP this year, here is what you should do. Get a few more games ahead of the Suns. Come down with a “sore knee” that forces you to sit out 3-4 games down the stretch. Finally, convince your teammates to tank it when you’re out. That will get you the MVP. I guarantee it.

Dwayne Wade injured his shoulder against the Houston Rockets last night. It’s not clear right now how serious the injury is, but in a small, carnal way it makes me a little bit happy. Don’t get me wrong. I’m never happy about someone else getting injured as it relates to his personal life. But as a Mavericks fan, with memories of last June, I’m not too upset that Wade is hurt.

The downside to this is that Dallas and Miami are facing each other Thursday night. What this injury does is effectively eliminate any sort of “rematch” from last season’s Finals. Last time they played, Shaq was hurt. This time it’s Wade. That’s really ok, though, because the regular season will never have even close to the meaning that the playoffs, and in particular the Finals, have.

Get Well Soon, Dwayne.

Being a Mavericks fan, I’m incredibly excited about where they sit at the All-Star break. 44 wins and 9 losses. Only 9 losses at the All-Star break. That’s less than ten. Does that even matter? Well, no. The only thing that will matter in the grand scheme of things is how they sit at the end of June. However, the second place team in the Southwest division, the Spurs, already have 18 losses. The best they can finish is 64-18, but that’s not going to happen. Even if the Spurs end up running the table, the Mavericks would have to lose more games in the remaining 29 games than they did in the first 53. Again, that’s not going to happen.

I started looking at the Mavs stats in wins & losses the other day. Unlike the Suns, there is a great difference in their production when they win than when they lose. First off, Dallas is averaging 102.2 points per game when they win, but only 88.6 points when they lose. That’s a 13.6 point difference. There are only four other teams (Denver, Boston, Memphis, Washington) who have a bigger difference in wins and losses. They also attempt 2.3 more field goals in losses, and all 2.3 of those are three pointers. Two more stats. The Mavs average 5.5 more rebounds per game when they win, and they average 1 more foul per game when they win. Charlotte, Minnesota, and Boston are the only other team who foul more when they win than when they lose.

So what do these stats tell us about how Dallas wins? One word. Aggressiveness. The three things that point to that are their rebounding, fouls, and field goal attempts. The thing that stands out to me when I watch Dallas lose is that they seem really passive. They don’t drive the ball to the paint enough, and they seem lazy on defense. The stats back those up.

The hard thing about being aggresive is that it can be tough to do every game. The regular season is really long, and there are some games (Charlotte for example), that are harder to get revved up for than others. That’s why Avery is the perfect coach for this team. He will not sit idly by and allow his team to get lazy. Keep it up coach.

You can see some of these stats at Yahoo! Sports.

I’m an NBA junkie. I love watching games. I love going to games. I love to find trends as to why teams win or lose. Recently I wanted to figure out statistically why the Phoenix Suns have lost the few games that they have this year. What I found surprised me.

Since the Suns are thought of as primarily a jump shooting team, I assumed that when they lost they weren’t making shots. That’s not really the case. They shoot 50% in games they win, and 48.5% in games that they lose. Even more surprising is that they make 0.5 more 3 pointers in losses than wins. On top of that, they average 111.4 points in wins, and 110.2 points in losses. Statistically speaking, they shoot just as well whether they win or lose.

So why do they lose? Here are a couple stats that may be telling. In losses, they average 1.8 more turnovers, 2.8 less assists, 2.3 less steals, and 6.7 more fouls. What that tells me is that when they lose they’re not passing the ball as well, nor are they as focused on the defensive end.

So how do you beat the Suns? Force them to play more of a one or two man game when they have the ball, and force them to play defense. How to do that? I don’t know. That’s why I’m not an NBA coach.

For the past three seasons, Marquis Daniels played for the Dallas Mavericks. When Don Nelson was coach he played a fairly prominent role, and many times ended up in the starting lineup. I heard a lot of people talking about how good of a player Daniels was, and couldn’t understand why he wasn’t getting as much playing time under Avery Johnson last year. We now know why.

In addition to his playing time and production going down, he has had a number of off the court problems. Earlier this year, he was with Stephen Jackson when they had an altercation outside of a night club in which Jackson ended up firing a gun. This week he was involved in another altercation with a bar manager. The manager ended up with a fractured jaw and a severed earlobe.

Avery would never put up with this kind of behavior on or off the court. Maybe that’s why he didn’t give him as much of a role last year. For whatever reason it was, I’m glad he’s gone.

The All-Star voting was finished the past Thursday, and the coaches voted Dirk Nowitzki in as the only Dallas Maverick All-Star. The five NBA All-Star starters are selected by fan vote, which mean the Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and the rest of the Houston Rockets will get too many votes because of the 1 billion people voting in China. The coaches in the NBA select the seven reserve players, but coaches cannot vote for their own players. Carol Boozer and Yao Ming both won’t play for the Western Conference due to injury, so David Stern will select two replacements.

The biggest snub, outside of Carmelo Anthony, was Josh Howard not being selected. If David Stern doesn’t choose Josh to replace either Yao or Boozer, there will be only one player representing the team that currently has the best record in the NBA. ONE PLAYER! Last year the Detroit Pistons were the team with best record, and they had four players chosen to the team. FOUR!!! The Phoenix Suns, who currently have the SECOND BEST record in the NBA are sending three players. THREE PLAYERS!!! The San Antonio Spurs, who currently have the THIRD BEST record in the NBA are sending two players.

So what’s the big deal? I am thoroughly convinced that Dirk Nowitzki is hands down the front-runner for the MVP this year. He has to be. There is no way you could defend Steve Nash being this year’s MVP anymore. It took the Phoenix Suns three All-Star players to come close to accomplishing what the Dallas Mavericks have done with only one. The Spurs are currently seven games behind Dallas and they are working with two all-stars. If Dirk does not win the MVP this year, something is wrong.

David Stern. Please do the right thing. Put Josh Howard and Mehmet Okur on the team.

The National Football League is apparently joining the ranks of the Recording Industry Association of America in stupid enforcements of copyright laws. The IndyStar is reporting that the NFL overnighted a letter to the Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis demanding that they cancel a party that was being promoted. The church’s website has a note from their pastor that reads:

We regret to inform you that we have had to cancel our bash to view the Colts game this Sunday in a family friendly environment due to the fact that the NFL believes we would be in violation of the Copyright Act, because we had planned to show the game on a screen bigger than a 55 inch diagonal. We have appealed to their legal counsel and exhausted all options without success. We have been informed that the only exceptions to view the game are given to sports bars and restaurants. While we have argued that we only intend to provide a family oriented environment that will make no profit from the showing, the NFL claims that our event cannot proceed by law. Therefore, we have no choice but to challenge this in court or cancel the event. We choose to cancel the event. We deeply regret that we have been prohibited by the NFL from providing a family friendly environment for celebrating the Colts great season.

As a minister who has previously hosted Super Bowl parties, I have to say that this is ridiculous. The NFL’s explanation is that it would throw off Nielsen ratings. That is ridiculous. Hey NFL. Get a clue.

Read the IndyStar’s report here.

Chris Kaman of the LA Clippers used to be called the ugliest player in the NBA. I heard one radio show host say that he could get a side job in Hollywood as an actor in Zombie movies, and he wouldn’t even need any makeup or cosutmes! Well, that’s changed now. He looks normal. Check out this before and after: