← NBA seasons

2011-12 NBA season

30 teams · 27 weeks · through 2012-06-24 · Elo from the project workbook

Miami Heat won the title. The season's highest rating belonged to San Antonio Spurs, at 1688.

Jump to any season1946-472026-27

The race

Elo rating by week. Higher is stronger; 1500 is average.

How this is measured

Elo moves after every game by how surprising the result was and by how big the margin was, damped so a blowout by a heavy favourite counts for less than the same blowout by an underdog. One pool per season, so the ratings are comparable across the whole league but not across eras.

Week 0 is the preseason seed, carried over from the previous season and adjusted by hand for the roster as it stands. It is an input to the season, not a result of it.

full season
SpursThunderHeatBulls30 of 30 shown · tap or drag any point for that week · tap a line to lock it

Tap or drag on the chart: the nearest team's rating that week.

The table

Where every team stood, scrubbed to the week above.

How this is measured

Three records, because they are three different things. Regular season is the 82-game year and is what the seeding comes from. Playoffs is the postseason run, blank for a team that did not make it, which is not the same as 0-0. Total is the two added together. The Elo column keeps moving through the postseason, so a team can climb after its regular season has finished.

1
San Antonio SpursConf. Finals
50-16 +10-4 · Southwest · seed 1
1688
+80 yr
2
47-19 +13-7 · Northwest · seed 2
1685
+55 yr
3
Miami HeatChampion
46-20 +16-7 · Southeast · seed 2
1670
-12 yr
4
50-16 +2-4 · Central · seed 1
1636
-21 yr
5
38-28 +3-4 · Northwest · seed 6
1590
-10 yr
6
Boston CelticsConf. Finals
39-27 +11-9 · Atlantic · seed 4
1584
-26 yr
7
41-25 +3-4 · Southwest · seed 4
1582
-7 yr
8
42-24 +6-5 · Central · seed 3
1579
+114 yr
9
41-25 +5-7 · Pacific · seed 3
1559
-49 yr
10
40-26 +4-7 · Pacific · seed 5
1556
+129 yr
11
40-26 +2-4 · Southeast · seed 5
1555
+58 yr
12
35-31 +7-6 · Atlantic · seed 8
1549
+34 yr
Show all 30 teams
13
36-30 +1-4 · Atlantic · seed 7
1541
+52 yr
14
36-30 +0-4 · Southwest · seed 7
1536
-143 yr
15
33-33 · Pacific
1527
+17 yr
16
Utah JazzPlayoffs
36-30 +0-4 · Northwest · seed 8
1523
+60 yr
17
34-32 · Southwest
1509
-45 yr
18
31-35 · Central
1502
+17 yr
19
37-29 +1-4 · Southeast · seed 6
1494
-116 yr
20
28-38 · Northwest
1463
-86 yr
21
21-45 · Southwest
1441
-77 yr
22
23-43 · Pacific
1420
-51 yr
23
25-41 · Central
1413
+6 yr
24
23-43 · Atlantic
1413
+72 yr
25
20-46 · Southeast
1412
+68 yr
26
26-40 · Northwest
1400
+96 yr
27
22-44 · Pacific
1395
-7 yr
28
22-44 · Atlantic
1350
+20 yr
29
21-45 · Central
1333
-27 yr
30
7-59 · Southeast
1230
-194 yr

The postseason

Every series, round by round, with the seeds that met.

How this is measured

Rounds run left to right in the order they were played. The field, the number of rounds and the series length have all changed repeatedly, so the shape here is whatever that season actually had rather than a modern bracket imposed on it. From 2020 the play-in sits below the bracket: those games decided who entered, so a team beaten there did not have a playoff run.

Heat won the 2012 title.

The honours

Who won what, and who was picked.

How this is measured

Every other section on this page is a club. These are the people: the individual awards, the All-NBA teams and the All-Star selections, all as the workbook records them. A player’s All-Star entry carries which appearance it was for them, so a seventh selection reads differently from a first.

Awards

All-NBA

1st Team All NBA
2nd Team All NBA
3rd Team All NBA

All-Star game

Amway Center, Orlando · MVP Kevin Durant

Kevin DurantMVPThunder · #3
Andre Iguodala76ers · #1
Carmelo AnthonyKnicks · #5
Chris BoshHeat · #7
Deron WilliamsNets · #3
Derrick RoseBulls · #3
Dwight HowardMagic · #6
Dwyane WadeHeat · #8
Show all 25 selections
Joe JohnsonHawks · #6
LeBron JamesHeat · #8
Luol DengBulls · #1
Paul PierceCeltics · #10
Rajon RondoCeltics · #3
Roy HibbertPacers · #1
Andrew BynumLakers · #1
Blake GriffinClippers · #2
Chris PaulClippers · #5
Dirk NowitzkiMavericks · #11
Kobe BryantLakers · #14
LaMarcus AldridgeTrail Blazers · #1
Marc GasolGrizzlies · #1
Russell WestbrookThunder · #2
Steve NashSuns · #8
Tony ParkerSpurs · #4

The best games

The 20 highest-rated games of the season, best first.

How this is measured

Game Score is a composite rating of how good a game was to watch, built from how close it finished, how much the result went against the odds, how far the ratings moved, what was at stake and how highly rated both sides were. It is roughly zero-centred, so an average game sits near zero and anything past two is rare. It is the same metric the all-time and by-decade boards use, so a game keeps the same score wherever it appears.

1
14 Jun 12 · NBA Finals
100-96
1.94
2
4 Jun 12 · Conf. Finals
108-103
1.85
3
6 Jun 12 · Conf. Finals
107-99
1.84
4
19 Jun 12 · NBA Finals
104-98
1.75
5
17 Jun 12 · NBA Finals
91-85
1.64
6
27 May 12 · Conf. Finals
101-98
1.61
7
2 Jun 12 · Conf. Finals
109-103
1.61
8
5 Jun 12 · Conf. Finals
94-90
1.59
9
21 Jun 12 · NBA Finals
121-106
1.48
10
30 May 12 · Conf. Finals
115-111OT
1.41
Show all 20 games
11
29 May 12 · Conf. Finals
120-111
1.41
12
3 Jun 12 · Conf. Finals
93-91OT
1.40
13
12 Jun 12 · NBA Finals
105-94
1.40
14
9 Jun 12 · Conf. Finals
101-88
1.39
15
20 May 12 · Semifinals
102-99
1.39
16
11 May 12 · Quarterfinals
90-88
1.30
17
8 May 12 · Quarterfinals
102-99
1.28
18
10 May 12 · Quarterfinals
79-78
1.24
19
19 May 12 · Semifinals
103-100
1.24
20
18 May 12 · Semifinals
99-96
1.18

Sources

Weekly Elo ratings and records are maintained in the project's NBA workbook and refreshed when it is updated. Season results and honours come from the same workbook. Basketball-Reference, 2011-12.