Thursday, October 28, 2010

Updates: Season and Team Projections

This article uses the Wins Produced metric to discuss the productivity of NBA players. This metric is based on box score statistics that are adjusted for other factors including pace, position and team. A general scale is given for these, and links to advanced explanations are listed at the bottom of the page.

Wins Produced per 48 Minutes (WP48) – The number of wins a player produces in 48 minutes of play. 0.100 is average and 0.250 is considered the “superstar threshold”. A player a WP48 of 0.000 produces no wins, and any player with a negative WP48 produces a negative number a wins (or, if you prefer, a positive number of losses)


For more information on the terms used in this post, please consult the Glossary of Terms.


I have made a few slight changes to both the season predictions and the Raptors prediction; in the case of the Raptors, it looks like Jay Triano is going to play Reggie Evans as much as he did in the preseason, and, due to his struggles, Calderon will be playing less. I adjusted the numbers accordingly and the Raptors improve by...less than one win (although it rounds up). With my season numbers, I knocked off 8 wins to make sure all the league wins added up to 1230. Previously, I was happy with close enough, but...might as well make it more realistic. While all of the previous wins were calculated using the numbers, this knocking off business was done rather subjectively. So here are the last numbers:


Eastern Conference:

  1. Miami Heat (65-17)
  2. Chicago Bulls (55-27)
  3. Orlando Magic (54-28)
  4. Boston Celtics (53-29)
  5. Atlanta Hawks (46-36) 
  6. Milwaukee Bucks (44-38)
  7. New Jersey Nets (41-41)
  8. Cleveland Cavaliers (39-43)
  9. New York Knicks (38-44)
  10. Charlotte Bobcats (33-49)
  11. Detroit Pistons (29-53)
  12. Toronto Raptors (28-54)
  13. Indiana Pacers (26-56)
  14. Philadelphia 76ers (19-63)
  15. Washington Wizards (10-72)

Western Conference:
  1. Portland Trailblazers (61-21)
  2. San Antonio Spurs (58-24)
  3. Los Angeles Lakers (56-26)
  4. Golden State Warriors (48-34)
  5. Dallas Mavericks (47-35)
  6. Denver Nuggets (45-37)
  7. Oklahoma City Thunder (44-38)
  8. Phoenix Suns (44-38)
  9. Sacramento Kings (43-39)
  10. New Orleans Hornets (43-39)
  11. Houston Rockets (42-40)
  12. Utah Jazz (42-40)
  13. Memphis Grizzlies (29-53)
  14. Minnesota Timberwolves (26-56)
  15. Los Angeles Clippers (22-60)

The spreadsheet with the updated projections for the Raptors has been automatically updated, but I'll repost it:




In addition to continuing the front office audit, I'll be doing weekly posts on the Raptors' performance during the season using Andres' automated wins produced numbers.

 - Devin

7 comments:

  1. First time visiting your site. Nice post. I'll keep
    checking in...

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  2. Thanks for visiting! The season will probably be very interesting to analyze (with trades, turmoil, and whatnot), so I hope there will be some good content to match.

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  3. Let's take a moment to clebrate the only time this season Toronto is a .500 basketball team...

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  4. I watched the TOR-SAC game last night - man, what a game! Big 3s by Bargnani (that's alliteration, homes!); big dunk by DeRozan; and big plays by Cousins, Casspi & Evans down the stretch. Seemed like the Raptors settled for too many jumpers down the stretch, hoping that Evans would be able to rebound the misses but the Kings finally kept him off the glass in the last 6 mins. Will Evans keep getting starter's mins at PF this season?

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  5. I haven't been able to catch a Raptor game yet - blame lack of my own tv and the stupid TSN2 channel up here (a bunch of the Raptor games are on a specialty channel that nobody has. Same thing happened last year, only it was some other specialty channel. The Raptors just don't get it).

    Evans has been a monster, and playing more minutes than I expected based on last year's numbers. I thought that there'd be more minutes available with Bosh gone, but I thought it would be taken up by Andersen and Johnson (and Davis, who is injured right now). Johnson isn't getting much court time though. I really have no idea what will happen once Davis gets back. Evans is the best player to pair with Bargnani though - hides Bargnani's huge gigantic weakness, and Bargnani hides Evans' huge glaring weakness (shooting/scoring).

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  6. Oh, and was it you who picked him up in the Win Score League? Trying to probe me for insider info?

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  7. Yes, I was trying to probe for inside info. Evans only got 16 mins last night w/ 6 rebs. I watched parts of the 3rd & 4tg qtrs and my guess is that the Raptors got so far behind Triano didn't play Evans because he wanted some offense in the game. Is that an accurate assessment? What's the word in Raptorland?

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