FanHouse JohnHollinger

Major League Jerk dabbles into the NBA to (self-)righteously rip ESPN's John Hollinger for devising a (devious) system that'd dare rank Milwaukee as the fifth most powerful team in the league. Yes, Milwaukee at No. 5 is a shock. The Bucks have a sub-.500 record and a rather small positive points margin.

But as Hollinger ceaselessly explains, there's more to it than that. And in this case, it's pretty darn easy to see why the Bucks rate so highly right now. Milwaukee has played the league's seventh most difficult schedule to date. That's important in the NBA, since by the end of the season it will all even out. Getting through those tough games with a decent record/margin implies you'll be able to do quite well against the cupcakes to come.

Further, look at the home/road split: the Bucks have played 21 games on the road and only 14 at home. That means Milwaukee has 27 home games left, and only 20 road games left. There's a substantial and real home court advantage in the NBA, and Hollinger's system accounts for odd splits like this.

Again, Milwaukee at No. 5 is a shock. But I'm glad the Bucks landed there, because otherwise I wouldn't have realized how well Milwaukee has overcome some rough scheduling circumstances. If folks like the critic at MLJ want rankings to mirror conventional wisdom or the standings, well ESPN itself has a number of other options. I'm glad we have Hollinger's system to make us question what we see and what we don't.

Variously, folks have argued Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, and/or the head of Scott Skiles could rescue the Bulls. ESPN.com's John Hollinger (a divisive figure, sure) hears none of it, defending Skiles somewhat and placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of... everyone else.

[U]sually when a team struggles you can blame it on one or two obvious differences. Similarly, when a team struggles offensively you can usually isolate it to subpar performances from one or two players. But this is why Chicago's performance is so perplexing. Break down the Bulls' offensive results and you'll discover the reason for the bad start is poor performances by ... everybody.

Hollinger goes on to document how every non-rookie on the team (except Steady Joe Smith) is woefully underperforming compared to last year. The offense is on pace to be the worst in modern league history. The top long-ball shooter is hitting 34% from deep. Kirk Hinrich, the biggest offender, is shooting 34% overall. Ben Gordon's seriously down. Luol Deng's seriously down. Andres Nocioni's seriously down. Thabo Sefolosha is shooting 29%. Even Tyrus is shooting a terrible clip for a frontcourt player.

Hollinger surmises that if Hinrich doesn't turn his season completely around, the Bulls are toast. Skiles is mostly let off the hook; the Bulls defense is statistically better now than at this point last year, and obviously Skiles is a defense-first coach. But how much of that defensive consistency should be owed to defensive talent? This offense might not be the coach's fault, but you can be assured there are coaches out there who could take these players and get more than 86 points a game out of them.

FanHouse's Top Five scans the sports blogosphere for the best posts of the last 24 hours so you don't have to. Got something for this feature? Hit us up at fanhouse@googlegroups.com.

1) If you have any interest in professional basketball and advanced statistics at all, the past, oh, three days have been a boon. It started with a thought-provoking post at Plissken at the Buzzer arguing against John Hollinger's PER. And the knowledge has since turned from a drizzle to a cascade: our own Tom Ziller did do two separate posts holding PER up, one of which responded to FreeDarko's qualification. Get reading, and get knowing.

2) Tremendous Upside Potential bids farewell to Mike Brown, the unluckiest, most injury-prone dude on the planet.

3) No one showed up to the Marlins-Nats game last night. Like, literally no one.

4) Straight Bangin' is doing his absolute best to make sense of his Knicks fandom. It doesn't seem to be going well.

5) John Madden continues to, like a fourth grader with free pages in his notebook, or Jonah Hill in Superbad, compulsively draw phallic images. Please, no one alert him. This is too much fun.