There are a few ways to access how good a team is. In this post I use Partial Least Squares Path Modelling to construct a team success index for NBA teams during the 2015-16 Playoffs.
PLS-PM can be described as a tool to analyse the relationship between blocks of variables, taking into account some previous knowledge about the phenomenon observed. In most competitive team sports like basketball success depends on a large number of variables. However, most of these variables can be grouped under two major blocks: offense and defense.