BPI gives Cleveland Cavaliers 0.1% chance to win the NBA title

The Cleveland Cavaliers have had their fair share of struggles, but BPI is way off with giving this team just a 0.1% chance to win the title.

BPI stands for Basketball Power Index, and it gives at least six teams a better chance to win the 2018 NBA Finals than the Cleveland Cavaliers.

According to 2016 article from ESPN, BPI can be defined as: “a predictive rating system for college basketball that’s designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. In the simplest sense, BPI is a power rating that can be used to determine how much better one team is than another.”

Normally used for collegiate basketball, BPI does not favor Cleveland when used for rating who will win the NBA Finals. The Sixers, Celtics, Raptors, Thunder, Warriors, and Rockets all have a better chance to win the title than Cleveland.

However, BPI can’t predict the power of LeBron James once he enters his “Zero Dark Thirty” mode. James goes silent on social media throughout the court of the playoffs and focuses on his relationships and perform on the court. Historically, in the postseason, LeBron James turns into a different monster, upping his stats in just about every area.

Here’s how a post from SportsCenter broke down the current BPI predictions.

In other words, the Cavs have a 1,000 to 1 odds to win the NBA Finals, although they’ve made the Finals for the past three seasons. The rating does make sense. The Cavs are currently fourth in the  Eastern Conference and have boasted at least three midseason slumps.

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Why do they deserve to be given any chance? BPI is an algorithm that takes into account many factors, and with Cleveland several bad losses this season, it’s not shocking to see the 0.1%.

However, if anybody actually believes this, that’s an entirely different story.

LeBron James has reached the NBA Finals the past seven seasons. In his 15th season, he’s arguably playing the best basketball of his career, averaging a career-high 9.0 assists per game while maintaining his stellar streak of 14 straight seasons averaging at least 25 points per game.

LeBron James might be the only player in the NBA that you can count on without a shadow of a doubt to perform in the postseason. His increased tenacity should at least make him the Eastern Conference favorite.

The second reason this percentage is wrong is that it factors in the season as a whole. The Cavs dealt away six players and brought in four new players the day of the trade deadline. The Cavs are now much younger, much more dynamic, and much more explosive team because of those four trades.

They’ve had road wins over the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder since the deadline, proving their ability to learn on the fly and defeat some of the NBA’s most lethal offensive teams.

However, their recent slump, losing six of their last 11 games, does not help their causing. Along with their array of injuries, the rating might be low, but it certainly isn’t that far off.

Must Read: Playoff LeBron Has the Switch. What About the Rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Sport’s Illustrated did their all-star break betting odds for the NBA Finals, and the Cavs came in third. So, the Cavs recent additions and LeBron James ability to flip the switch tell a far different story than just an algorithmic stat like BPI.