How I Got from There to Here

Behold! As long last, the 2007 preseason Chaos Rankings are available, and just in time for the season to start! I modified the way I calculated these slightly from what was originally posted below. I took last year's final rankings and expanded them to be from -1 to 1 rather than 0 to 1. This essentially makes a team with a score of 0 the average team. Then I gathered all the information I originally mentioned, except that I doubled the value of each element. This yielded an adjustment factor between 1 (a team identical to last year) and o (a team completely different than last year). This number was multiplied by the expanded score from last year to obtain a preseason score for this year, then that number was requantized between 1 and 0 to obtain the scores shown here. I went this route because it allows bad teams to move up in the rankings by replacing coaches or players from a previously bad team. So if you had a negative score (meaning you suck) and replaced your entire squad and main coaching staff, you net a score of 0, putting you back in the middle of the pack again rather than as a lowly bottom feeder. I think this is more fair than what I previously intended to do, but as you can see below, few teams really moved very far anyway. I also want to make it clear that these rankings have no impact whatsoever on the upcoming season. Unlike other polls (*cough* USA Today *cough*) which go a long way towards determining a #1 team at the end of the season by placing them #1 at the beginning, effectively forcing them to screw up really badly and every other team to play flawlessly, my regular season rankings use data from only games in that season, therefore determining the best team during that season based on performance and not preconceived notions of "best" or historical precedent.