Without further ado, here are my projections for next season:
The projected WP numbers are based on a very complicated formula....Well, actually, I averaged each player's yearly WP for the last 5 seasons, calculated their total WP over the last 5 seasons, and then used that data to come up with my own educated...projections. Guess wouldn't be an appropriate word in this context, because WP tends to be relatively stable over time, but yes, my projections include a tiny bit of "guessing".
The projected minutes is where it gets interesting. The Raptors aren't exactly renowned for their player usage, and they have several players who are interchangeable. My projected starters are in bold in the chart above. Note that I project Andrea Bargnani to be the starting centre - not Amir Johnson. Calderon and Jack split the PG minutes, but either could be designated as the starter.
There is also the matter of the rookies. How well and how many minutes will they play? Based on his college performance, I've projected Ed Davis to be an average NBA player in his first year. Based on the playing time the Raptors gave DeMar DeRozan last year, I'm predicting that Davis should see around 1600 minutes of playing time. Solomon Alabi does not project to have a good season, and I doubt that he will see much court time this year.
So, without Bosh (and Turkoglu), the Raptors project to win around 35-36 games. If rookie Ed Davis has a good season and/or the Raptors pick up a few "lucky" wins, they might actually sneak into the playoffs as an 7th or 8th seed.
In the coming days I will start posting my individual player "reviews" for the upcoming season, where I will discuss each player in greater detail.
- Devin.
Devin,
ReplyDeleteAwesome work! Man Bargnani is killer. According to your guesses with him (and frankly I think 2700 is a bit low as he will be seen as Bosh replacement) if they could replace him with a below average Center (.06 WP48) they'd have an even record, which in the top heavy East could be good for a trip to the big dance.
Also I don't know if you guys can count on other bad GMs letting you dodge another Calderon bullet should your GM decide to "shake things up"
Keep up the good work, can't wait for your upcoming stuff.
Yeah, I know; perhaps I'm giving too much credit to the Raptors as an organization. I'm hoping they will feed Bargnani heavy minutes and then start to realize that the future of the team is probably Ed Davis. Well, I'm not really hoping that Bargnani gets many minutes at all, but, given that the alternative is an unrestrained ton of minutes for him, I'd prefer to think that the Raptors will start learning from their mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI think Weems and DeRoz will better this year - where does it put us if they are average?
ReplyDeleteI already took into consideration a little improvement for Weems and DeRozan...if they both move up to average, Raptors stand to win around 2.5 more games, which isn't much. Of the two, Weems will probably have better chance of approaching average than DeRozan.
ReplyDeleteFinally a Raptors stats-based blog.
ReplyDeleteThis site and Caldeford is the way to go.