Power rating

Standings describe what happened. Power ratings try to describe how good a team actually is. A team can sit at 12-4 against a soft schedule and still rate below a 9-7 team that played the toughest slate in the league.

Inputs typically include opponent-adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency, recent form weighted toward the most recent games, and availability of key contributors.

Because the adjustment depends on how a team's past opponents perform, a power rating can move without that team playing. That is intended behaviour: new information about the opponents changes what the earlier results were worth.