Mid-Term Check on the NBA 5 Superpowers

Back before the season began, I posted my theory: that the "2009-2010 NBA season has the greatest collection of FIVE teams competing in the same season." To conduct the analysis, I used the Simple Rating System ("SRS") on Basketball Reference.com.

I then went a step further to look at what it would take to determine if this season has the greatest collection of 6, 7, or 8 teams.

Now that the season is a little over half way complete, I thought now would be a good time to check on how the season is progressing with regards to the theory. I had guessed the top 5 teams would have been the Lakers, Magic, Cavs, Celtics, and Spurs. However, according to the SRS as of Saturday afternoon on January 23, 2010, the Hawks are actually in the top five and the Magic are #7. Also of note, is that the Nuggets are just one-hundredth of a point behind the Spurs.

2009-2010 Season (Mid-term)
5-team Average SRS: 5.652
6-team Average SRS: 5.505
7-team Avg SRS: 5.351
8-team Avg SRS: 5.206
1) Lakers = 6.60 (Kobe, Gasol, Bynum);
2) Cavs = 6.16 (LeBron, Shaq, Mo);
3) Hawks= 5.64 (J. Johnson, J. Smith, J. Crawford, Horford);
4) Celtics= 5.08 (KG (injured at times), Pierce, R. Allen, Rondo)
5) Spurs = 4.78 (Duncan, Ginobili (injured at times), Paker (playing through injury)
6) Nuggets = 4.77 (Carmelo, Billups, Nene)
7) Magic = 4.43 (Howard, Rashard Lewis, Nelson, Vince Carter (all sorts of injuries))
8) Jazz = 4.19 (Boozer, Deron Wiliams, Okur)

Thus, to recap all of the challenges set forth to the teams of 2009-2010:
5th-best team: beat 5.87
6th-best team: beat 5.45
7th-best team: beat 5.10
8th-best team: beat 4.84
Average SRS for 5 teams: 7.362
Average SRS for 6 teams: 7.018
Average SRS for 7 teams: 6.565
Average SRS for 8 teams: 6.203

So far... 2009-2010 has failed to beat any of the challenges!

The 5-team average SRS of 5.652 is very weak... and is slightly below-average in comparison (the average top-5 SRS was 6.048).

The 6-team average SRS of 5.505 is still below-average in comparison to all the other years (the average top-6 SRS was 5.997).

The 7-team average SRS of 5.351 is still below-average in comparison to all the other years (the average top-7 SRS was 5.646).

The 8-team average SRS of 5.351 is actually slightly ABOVE-average in comparison to all the other years (the average top-8 SRS was 5.338).

As should be clear if you've read this far... this season has failed to live up to expectations. Or rather the SRS has not proved the theory. The injuries to some of the teams have really prevented them from dominating and separating themselves from the pack. Moreover, it should be noted that the SRS is driven based off of point differential, so the Dallas Mavericks don't have a large-enough point differential to score well on the SRS.