About Elo ratings
Elo ratings, named after physicist Arpad Elo, are a way to rate teams or individuals in competition. An average elo rating is 1500, and a team's rating will adjust with each game. If the team wins, their rating will move up. If they lose, it will go down. The amount the rating moves up or down depends on how unexpected the result of the game was. Going into a game, a team's elo rating is assumed to be accurate, so the change that is made after each game can be considered an adjustment. If an underdog wins by a lot, their rating will significantly increase, and the favorite's will decrease by an equal amount. On the other hand, if a heavy favorite narrowly beats an underdog, the favorite's rating will slightly increase, and that of the underdog's will slightly decrease. Elo ratings combine a team's win-loss record and their margin of victory. The beginning-of-season elo ratings were the elo ratings from the end of last year for each team, so if a team has made a big improvement since last year, or has gotten significantly worse, their elo rating may take longer to stabilize.
our projections
Based off of current elo ratings, the rest of the season is simulated 2,500 times and the average results of this simulation produced the probability that each time goes to the playoffs, and wins the championship. This also produced their projected win-loss record for the regular season.