The Spurs are firmly below .500 and are outside of the playoff picture at the moment. In terms of wins and losses, they seem to be a pretty bad team. But there is a number that suggests they might be better than their record indicates: margin of victory.
For those who aren’t familiar with margin of victory, it’s a very simple stat to calculate, as it’s just points scored minus points allowed. Despite that simplicity, margin of victory is used in predictive models often, in one way or another, because it helps estimate who is as good as their record suggests and who isn’t. Good teams not only beat bad ones, but they blow them out regularly. Bad teams might scratch their way into a few wins,…
