← NBA seasons

2014-15 NBA season

30 teams · 34 weeks · through 2015-06-21 · Elo from the project workbook

Golden State Warriors won the title. They also finished top rated, at 1773.

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
WarriorsClippersSpursCavaliers30 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
67-15 +16-5 · Pacific · seed 1
1773
+175 yr
2
56-26 +7-7 · Pacific · seed 3
1688
+18 yr
3
55-27 +3-4 · Southwest · seed 6
1672
-38 yr
4
53-29 +14-6 · Central · seed 2
1647
+208 yr
5
Houston RocketsConf. Finals
56-26 +9-8 · Southwest · seed 2
1624
+15 yr
6
55-27 +6-5 · Southwest · seed 5
1591
0 yr
7
Atlanta HawksConf. Finals
60-22 +8-8 · Southeast · seed 1
1585
+93 yr
8
45-37 · Northwest
1582
-61 yr
9
51-31 +1-4 · Northwest · seed 4
1573
-13 yr
10
50-32 +6-6 · Central · seed 3
1569
+25 yr
11
50-32 +1-4 · Southwest · seed 7
1557
-39 yr
12
46-36 +6-4 · Southeast · seed 5
1535
-16 yr
Show all 30 teams
13
38-44 · Northwest
1524
+153 yr
14
49-33 +0-4 · Atlantic · seed 4
1523
-36 yr
15
45-37 +0-4 · Southwest · seed 8
1516
+72 yr
16
38-44 · Central
1504
-44 yr
17
39-43 · Pacific
1489
-64 yr
18
40-42 +0-4 · Atlantic · seed 7
1489
+113 yr
19
37-45 · Southeast
1471
-119 yr
20
38-44 +2-4 · Atlantic · seed 8
1464
-61 yr
21
32-50 · Central
1455
+75 yr
22
41-41 +2-4 · Central · seed 6
1452
+150 yr
23
30-52 · Northwest
1431
-46 yr
24
33-49 · Southeast
1428
-72 yr
25
29-53 · Pacific
1423
+6 yr
26
25-57 · Southeast
1336
0 yr
27
21-61 · Pacific
1326
-78 yr
28
16-66 · Northwest
1317
-201 yr
29
17-65 · Atlantic
1302
-220 yr
30
18-64 · Atlantic
1300
+10 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.

Warriors won the 2015 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

Madison Square Garden IV, New York · MVP Russell Westbrook

Russell WestbrookMVPThunder · #4
Al HorfordHawks · #3
Carmelo AnthonyKnicks · #8
Chris BoshHeat · #10
Dwyane WadeHeat · #11
Jeff TeagueHawks · #1
Jimmy ButlerBulls · #1
John WallWizards · #2
Show all 28 selections
Kyle KorverHawks · #1
Kyle LowryRaptors · #1
Kyrie IrvingCavaliers · #3
LeBron JamesCavaliers · #11
Pau GasolBulls · #5
Paul MillsapHawks · #2
Anthony DavisPelicans · #2
Blake GriffinClippers · #5
Chris PaulClippers · #8
Damian LillardTrail Blazers · #2
DeMarcus CousinsKings · #1
Dirk NowitzkiMavericks · #13
James HardenRockets · #3
Kevin DurantThunder · #6
Klay ThompsonWarriors · #1
Kobe BryantLakers · #17
LaMarcus AldridgeTrail Blazers · #4
Marc GasolGrizzlies · #2
Stephen CurryWarriors · #2
Tim DuncanSpurs · #15

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
16 Jun 15 · NBA Finals
105-97
2.11
2
95-93OT
2.06
3
2 May 15 · Quarterfinals
111-109
1.89
4
96-91
1.83
5
108-100OT
1.82
6
30 Apr 15 · Quarterfinals
102-96
1.73
7
19 May 15 · Conf. Finals
110-106
1.58
8
28 Apr 15 · Quarterfinals
111-107
1.55
9
21 May 15 · Conf. Finals
99-98
1.50
10
22 Apr 15 · Quarterfinals
111-107OT
1.49
Show all 20 games
11
14 May 15 · Semifinals
119-107
1.43
12
14 Jun 15 · NBA Finals
104-91
1.43
13
25 May 15 · Conf. Finals
128-115
1.43
14
17 May 15 · Semifinals
113-100
1.38
15
24 May 15 · Conf. Finals
114-111OT
1.37
16
15 May 15 · Semifinals
94-91
1.35
17
6 May 15 · Semifinals
115-109
1.31
18
5 May 15 · Semifinals
97-90
1.30
19
15 May 15 · Semifinals
108-95
1.29
20
27 May 15 · Conf. Finals
104-90
1.26

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, 2014-15.