It occurred to me that I could use my FSOGS and number of wins to measure our strength of schedule relative to other teams. I ran the exact same analysis for Miami and came up with an interesting result.

I have Miami's schedule resulting in 35 wins. Now, I'm not saying that they are only going to win 35 games. I'm saying that their schedule is more difficult than ours resulting in the 3 game variance. (In my last post, I explained how I derived a 38 win total for the Spurs.) Basically, if the Spurs had Miami's schedule, I would have predicted 35 wins, instead of the 38.

Miami is unlucky in that they catch only 12 teams on the second day of a back to back. The Spurs, on the other hand, catch 22 teams. This could be huge for us. We will be tired, yes we will. But so will our opponents and at a very high rate. So who wins in a tired versus tired match? Pop wins, That's who.

In addition, the Spurs play three teams from the East twice and Miami plays three teams from the West twice. (That's how the schedule works this season. You only play three teams from the other conference twice, all other teams from the other conference are played once.) The Spurs catch Orlando, Philly, and Cleveland while Miami has to face Dallas, LA, and OKC twice. Ouch. Obviously, this was influenced by the NBA's need for good ratings.

I have heard that the schedule is going to hurt the teams that are considered favorites because the NBA has to have it's great matchups, and my little analysis seems to back that theory. So score one for the undervalued good guys.