Talisman Red's NBA Computer Ratings
Presented here are computer ratings and rankings for NBA and, hopefully, a system that can come somewhat close to predicting final game scores. The Predictions tab includes games scheduled for the next few days.
To calculate a hypothetical margin of victory for any other matchup, just use the "Points" column. The home advantage fluctuates based on games played, but is consistently about 2.5 to 3 points.
For the last couple of years, all overtime games are recorded as "ties" because this helps the score predictions be slightly more accurate. 20 Jan 2026 update: The performance this year has been, well, woof. I noticed an error that was keeping way too many old games in the predictions file. Hopefully things will improve from here forward.
If you need original text files for anything below, check the Description tab. Let me know if you see any issues. Thanks and glad you're here!
Everything is now in one scrollable page, instead of the tabs which required Javascript. Easier for phone users, I hope. Scrapers should not be impacted. Original text files are linked in the Description section.
Ratings
NBA Computer Ratings
Last updated 02-Nov-2026 07 AM ET
Talisman Red Computer Ratings
Through Games Of Sunday 01 November 2026
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Rank Team W L T Rating BCS Points Conf.
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1 Oklahoma City 4 2 3.12 1 18.64 Northwest
2 San Antonio 4 2 2.96 4 19.49 Southwest
3 Detroit 5 1 2.65 2 17.37 Central
4 Houston 6 1 2.64 3 17.38 Southwest
5 Boston 4 1 1 2.25 5 16.87 Atlantic
6 New York 2 4 2.20 6 17.28 Atlantic
7 Minnesota 4 2 1 1.72 9 15.70 Northwest
8 Denver 2 2 1 1.36 10 13.73 Northwest
9 LA Lakers 5 2 1.24 7 12.69 Pacific
10 Cleveland 3 2 1 1.17 11 13.10 Central
11 Philadelphia 6 1 0.85 8 10.46 Atlantic
12 Portland 4 1 0.73 12 11.93 Northwest
13 Toronto 3 3 0.72 15 13.58 Atlantic
14 Atlanta 3 4 0.53 13 11.94 Southeast
15 Golden State 4 3 0.15 16 10.85 Pacific
16 Orlando 2 4 0.10 14 9.73 Southeast
17 Charlotte 3 4 -0.07 17 9.86 Southeast
18 Phoenix 1 3 -0.22 18 9.14 Pacific
19 Miami 2 4 -0.32 20 10.07 Southeast
20 Dallas 4 2 -0.37 19 8.69 Southwest
21 LA Clippers 1 5 -0.45 22 9.68 Pacific
22 Memphis 6 0 -0.81 21 7.44 Southwest
23 New Orleans 2 3 1 -1.38 23 7.40 Southwest
24 Chicago 1 5 -2.53 25 1.90 Central
25 Milwaukee 1 5 -2.71 24 0.79 Central
26 Washington 3 3 -2.80 26 1.30 Southeast
27 Indiana 2 5 -2.83 28 2.74 Central
28 Brooklyn 1 4 1 -3.04 27 0.68 Atlantic
29 Utah 1 5 -3.11 29 1.22 Northwest
30 Sacramento 0 6 -3.75 30 -1.66 Pacific
Explanations:
These ratings use a method I developed many years ago, which
is a blend of two separate components: one for predicting scores
and another that considers only winning and losing. The two
components are then combined into an overall rating, which is
how the teams are sorted.
For a score-agnostic ranking, use the "BCS" column. And if
you want to predict margin of victory in a hypothetical matchup,
just use the "Points" column. Add in home advantage, if
appropriate.
Home advantage in this set of rankings: 1.74
Ratings by Division
Teams are sorted by computer ranking (in parentheses), not necessarily by win-loss percentage. As on the front page, overtime games get recorded as ties to make the predictions hopefully more accurate. Playoff games between division teams end up getting counted here, too.
NBA Computer Ratings
(Last updated 02-Nov-2026 07 AM ET)
Talisman Red's NBA Ratings
Through Games of Sunday 01 November 2026
Standings by Conference (NBA)
Teams are sorted by their overall ranking and not by their
winning percentage, in or out of conference.
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Conf Rank 3 Atlantic Average 0.60
Rank All Team CW CL CT W L T Rating Non-Conf SOS
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1 5 Boston 1 0 1 4 1 1 2.25 -0.58 24
2 6 New York 0 3 2 4 2.20 0.07 16
3 11 Philadelphia 2 0 6 1 0.85 -0.36 18
4 13 Toronto 0 0 3 3 0.72 -0.36 19
5 28 Brooklyn 0 0 1 1 4 1 -3.04 -0.38 20
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Conf Rank 6 Central Average -0.85
Rank All Team CW CL CT W L T Rating Non-Conf SOS
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1 3 Detroit 0 0 5 1 2.65 0.31 10
2 10 Cleveland 1 0 3 2 1 1.17 -0.55 22
3 24 Chicago 1 0 1 5 -2.53 0.92 5
4 25 Milwaukee 1 2 1 5 -2.71 0.23 13
5 27 Indiana 0 1 2 5 -2.83 -1.22 29
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Conf Rank 4 Southeast Average -0.51
Rank All Team CW CL CT W L T Rating Non-Conf SOS
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1 14 Atlanta 2 1 3 4 0.53 1.27 4
2 16 Orlando 0 1 2 4 0.10 1.52 3
3 17 Charlotte 2 2 3 4 -0.07 0.15 14
4 19 Miami 1 1 2 4 -0.32 0.29 11
5 26 Washington 1 1 3 3 -2.80 -0.84 26
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Conf Rank 1 Northwest Average 0.76
Rank All Team CW CL CT W L T Rating Non-Conf SOS
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1 1 Oklahoma City 1 0 4 2 3.12 0.91 6
2 7 Minnesota 0 0 4 2 1 1.72 0.62 8
3 8 Denver 0 1 2 2 1 1.36 -0.71 25
4 12 Portland 1 0 4 1 0.73 -0.88 27
5 29 Utah 0 1 1 5 -3.11 0.24 12
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Conf Rank 5 Pacific Average -0.61
Rank All Team CW CL CT W L T Rating Non-Conf SOS
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1 9 LA Lakers 3 1 5 2 1.24 -0.55 23
2 15 Golden State 2 2 4 3 0.15 0.76 7
3 18 Phoenix 1 0 1 3 -0.22 1.74 2
4 21 LA Clippers 1 3 1 5 -0.45 2.42 1
5 30 Sacramento 0 1 0 6 -3.75 0.14 15
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Conf Rank 2 Southwest Average 0.61
Rank All Team CW CL CT W L T Rating Non-Conf SOS
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1 2 San Antonio 1 1 4 2 2.96 -0.51 21
2 4 Houston 2 1 6 1 2.64 0.37 9
3 20 Dallas 1 2 4 2 -0.37 -0.01 17
4 22 Memphis 0 0 6 0 -0.81 -2.14 30
5 23 New Orleans 0 0 2 3 1 -1.38 -1.07 28
Game Predictions
These predictions already include home advantage, if necessary.
PREDICTIONS FOR UPCOMING GAMES Date Away Team Home Team Total Prediction --------- ------------------------ ------------------------ ----- -------------- 02-Nov-26 Miami LA Lakers 242.5 HOME by 4.35 02-Nov-26 Toronto LA Clippers 219.9 AWAY by -2.16 02-Nov-26 Phoenix Golden State 228.1 HOME by 3.45 02-Nov-26 Portland Denver 234.6 HOME by 3.54 02-Nov-26 Utah San Antonio 236.6 HOME by 20.00 02-Nov-26 Boston Houston 213.1 HOME by 2.25 02-Nov-26 Milwaukee Minnesota 223.5 HOME by 16.64 02-Nov-26 New Orleans Memphis 241.6 HOME by 1.77 02-Nov-26 Sacramento Dallas 232.9 HOME by 12.09 02-Nov-26 Chicago Philadelphia 240.1 HOME by 10.29 02-Nov-26 Washington Orlando 231.8 HOME by 10.16 02-Nov-26 Brooklyn New York 207.3 HOME by 18.34 02-Nov-26 Atlanta Indiana 234.9 AWAY by -7.46 02-Nov-26 Detroit Charlotte 210.4 AWAY by -5.77 02-Nov-26 Oklahoma City Cleveland 229.4 AWAY by -3.81 04-Nov-26 Dallas San Antonio 227.9 HOME by 12.53 04-Nov-26 Portland Phoenix 225.8 AWAY by -1.06 04-Nov-26 Miami LA Clippers 230.9 HOME by 1.34 04-Nov-26 LA Lakers Sacramento 231.0 AWAY by -12.61 04-Nov-26 Toronto Denver 234.2 HOME by 1.89 04-Nov-26 Minnesota Houston 222.0 HOME by 3.42 04-Nov-26 Cleveland Oklahoma City 214.9 HOME by 7.28 04-Nov-26 Utah New Orleans 241.4 HOME by 7.92 04-Nov-26 Indiana Memphis 243.3 HOME by 6.44 04-Nov-26 Chicago New York 233.8 HOME by 17.12 04-Nov-26 Charlotte Brooklyn 210.2 AWAY by -7.45 04-Nov-26 Milwaukee Boston 216.6 HOME by 17.81 04-Nov-26 Atlanta Washington 237.2 AWAY by -8.90 04-Nov-26 Philadelphia Detroit 216.5 HOME by 8.65 05-Nov-26 Miami Golden State 238.7 HOME by 2.52 05-Nov-26 Orlando Phoenix 226.3 HOME by 1.15 06-Nov-26 Portland LA Lakers 231.8 HOME by 2.49 06-Nov-26 Toronto Milwaukee 226.1 AWAY by -11.05 06-Nov-26 Oklahoma City Memphis 230.4 AWAY by -9.47 06-Nov-26 Utah Dallas 238.6 HOME by 9.21 06-Nov-26 San Antonio Sacramento 235.5 AWAY by -19.41 06-Nov-26 Minnesota New Orleans 232.4 AWAY by -6.56 06-Nov-26 Philadelphia Cleveland 232.4 HOME by 4.38 06-Nov-26 Boston Charlotte 212.0 AWAY by -5.27 06-Nov-26 Washington Atlanta 238.3 HOME by 12.38 07-Nov-26 San Antonio Portland 228.2 AWAY by -5.82 07-Nov-26 Houston Phoenix 222.8 AWAY by -6.51 07-Nov-26 Brooklyn Atlanta 220.2 HOME by 12.99 07-Nov-26 Denver Indiana 234.5 Denv by -10.99 07-Nov-26 Orlando Golden State 228.6 HOME by 2.86 07-Nov-26 Washington Oklahoma City 223.1 HOME by 19.08 07-Nov-26 New York Cleveland 222.8 AWAY by -2.45
Division Rankings
The average computer rating of all teams in a division is shown here.
Talisman Red's NBA Ratings Through Games of Sunday 01 November 2026 Conference Rankings ----------------------------------------- Rank Conference Avg. Rating Var ----------------------------------------- 1 Northwest 0.76 +- 1.2 2 Southwest 0.61 +- 1.0 3 Atlantic 0.60 +- 1.1 4 Southeast -0.51 +- 0.7 5 Pacific -0.61 +- 0.9 6 Central -0.85 +- 1.3 Explanation: The simple average of all teams in a conference is shown here. The 'var' column is half of the standard deviation of those teams, which is not the best way but a simple- enough way of describing the reasonableness of using a single number to describe that conference's strength.
Description
Original Text Files
Feel free to download these; if you use them elsewhere, give credit to talismanred.com.
- Rankings
- Division Standings (but sorted by computer rating)
- Game Predictions
What is this about?
Computer ratings are the starting point for Vegas oddsmakers, and have traditionally done reasonably well at predicting game winners. On this page, I share my own formula, which I've been producing for one sport or another for about 20 years. If you're familiar with ratings you've probably heard of the others: Sagarin, Massey, and more.
So it's just a math formula?
Yep, that's all that computer ratings are. You can do it this way, or you can do like they do for college sports and do a human "poll" (coaches, writers, whoever).
The formula here is one that I developed quite a few years ago to try and "compete" with all the other folks who are doing it. That's where the predictions come from -- incorporating historical games and trying to use those to figure out what will happen next. It includes scores, dates, and locations, but no other information. No information about injuries, pace or speed of the game, shooting percentages, etc. Those things *do* matter, but they aren't factored in here.
Are the predictions any good?
In 2023-24, my NBA ratings predicted 64.2% of the correct game winners. By comparison, Jeff Sagarin's method got 65.8% correct. Over a season of about 850 games, that is a 10-15 game difference. I'll let you decide how much difference there is for 10-15 games out of 850. (I suspect that most of that was early in the season, when it's more difficult to know what a team's true strength is going to be. Jeff's preseason algorithm is probably more sophisticated than mine.)
That said, the Vegas line got 68.0% of winners. You just cannot beat a human touch!
In 2025-26, about mid-January I noticed that this year's predictions were doing terribly (61%, compared to most of the other computers at 65-66%). So I did what any self-respecting programmer would do, I adjusted the formula in hopes of improving accuracy. I'll report back with the results. One of the big factors is how much recent information do you keep when trying to predict a team's performance. A couple weeks? A month? The whole season?
Ratings Description
This rating system uses a formula developed by the owners of talismanred.com. It is explained in more detail over on the college football page, but the bottom line is that it can be used both for ranking teams as well as predicting future scores. In some circles, you'll see that referred to as both "retrodictive" and "predictive."
About the Author
I am a faculty member at Indiana University in Bloomington, with a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. For my day job, in addition to teaching lots of courses I have research interests in the broad areas of thunderstorms and numerical weather prediction (forecasting the weather using computers). Contact me using this email form if you have questions or non-hateful comments.