[nowhereman]

For the record, i would be mildly surprised if the Mavs did not make the playoffs. But it comes down to the result of immeasurable late-season scenarios. The Hollinger rankings exist to tell us basically where a team stands, based on objective (quantitative) measurements. But like I said, there's a ton of human factors, and the fact that the numbers will change considerably over the course of the season, and therefore there is a considerable margin of error in his calculations and his opinions. A much greater margin of error than the seperation between teams 2 and 9.

I don't agree with Hollinger's textual analysis here, and I do indeed think he worked backwards from a numerical conclusion to explain why the numbers turned out the way they did. When you're cranking out articles daily for the worldwide leader, it becomes a useful heuristic for analysis. We watch the team very closely, and we will all say that you can't really sell short the Mav's recent clutchness in the 4th quarter (memphis aside), Dirk Nowitzki's track record, and the fact that if this team is struggling near the allstar break it very well might swing for the fences with another trade. What everyone can agree on is that there isn't any real seperation demonstrated yet.