Looking beyond the NBA standings can help us understand which teams are likely to move up or tumble down the standings in the following season.
In the NFL, ESPN's Bill Barnwell has made a tradition of using statistical factors to predict the five best candidates to improve or decline on an annual basis. Underscoring my argument that these predictions aren't as easy in the NBA, three of the seven teams in last year's inaugural column -- four to improve, three to decline -- missed the mark.
Part of the challenge is personnel matters so much more in the NBA.