Post by eric on Oct 1, 2018 17:50:43 GMT
East
1. Raptors
Were 4 wins (and 9 pythagorean wins) ahead of the Celtics last year and are replacing a solid player with MVP candidate and best player in the league Kawhi Leonard. Throw in a little collective improvement from the Siakam-VanVleet-Anunoby crowd and 65 wins is on the table.
2. 76ers
Lost Ersan Ilyasova and added Wilson Chandler, otherwise nothing much transaction wise. Another year to figure out the mismatched parts of Embiid, Simmons, Covington and Saric could pay some dividends, but I think they're mostly carried by Embiid continuing to grow into his generational talent.
3. Celtics
In terms of statistical ability Hayward coming back is clearly a plus. He's a good player and Jaylen Brown is an average player and Marcus Smart is a below average player, bumping the latter two down a spot on the depth chart is good all the way around. The question as always with superteams is whether addition by subtraction came into play last year. Tatum and Brown were both ~20 usage% ~8 ast% ~70 %ast players, over the past four years Hayward was 26/21/50 - he wants to score the ball, pass the ball, and have the ball a lot more. Does that work on the court? Or does Kyrie Irving get a little miffed letting a small forward dominate the ball? There's also the red flag that the Jazz went a mere -3 wins by replacing him essentially with this year's presumptive ROY favorite Donovan Mitchell.
4. Bucks
They're not that young anymore and throwing away Jabari Parker for Eric Bledsoe will haunt them forever. With that said, Brook Lopez and Ersan Ilyasova are capable stay out of the way veterans, and if Thon Maker takes a leap and displaces one of them so much the better. I think a training camp of continuity gets them to 50 wins.
5. Pacers
I'm not a Tyreke Evans fan but if all he has to do is replace Lance Stevenson I'm confident he's got that in his locker. McDermott is a legitimate shooter who's played on four teams in the past two years, which doesn't augur super well for his contributions, especially under Nate "If Long Twos Aren't Great How Come We Lost In the First Round?" McMillan, who fun fact hasn't coached in the second round since he was in Seattle. Turner and Sabonis are clearly the path forward, but it may require a new coach to untap their potential, and I don't think McMillan gets fired during the season.
6. Cavs
Kevin Love should thrive with the massive increase in touches he's about to get, because he did before. Losing Jeff Green and Jose Calderon is a blow (stop laughing!). Even just being league average is a good contribution if Cedi Osman and Collin Sexton turn out to not be ready for prime time. Luckily the Cavs won't have a single prime time game this year heyooooooo. George Hill - Rodney Hood - Kyle Korver - Kevin Love - Channing Frye is a legitimately great offensive lineup, and it's not like they can be THAT much worse defensively than they were last year.
Nobody else looks worth thinking about, so I'll guess Charlotte 7 due to dropping Dwight and Washington 8 due to that forcing Washington fans to suffer another year of Ernie Grunfeld because God is dead.
.
West
1. Rockets
The last 'hey let's get an overpaid high ego over the hill star' strategy in Houston wasn't as big a disaster as I remembered. Dwight's first year was 2014 where they won 54 games, then he missed half of 2015 and they won 56, then he was healthy and they won 41, then they got rid of him and they won 55. Unfortunately for the Rockets year 10 Dwight was faaaaaaaar better than year 16 Carmelo has any prayer of being. Elsewhere on the roster Mbah a Moute and Ariza both shot 37% from three last year and are gone, I kind of doubt Michael Carter Williams and Brandon Knight are replicating their contributions. A step back overall but still #1.
2. Warriors
They've gotten worse two years in a row and I don't think Jonas Jerebko or DeMarcus' Cousins famous locker room amiability is turning that around. Curry's going into year 10, Durant into year 12, players visibly start taking the regular season off and there's no reason to believe they'd change now. With all that said, San Antonio and Minnesota imploding leave no real upside candidates behind them so I think they coast to #2 with 53 or so wins.
3. Timberwolves
They're going to get something for Butler, and Towns will be happy, and a happy superstar makes for a good team. Wiggins will also be happy but he's a scrub so it doesn't matter. Thibs won't be happy but he's never happy so that's alright too. 8 to 3 seems like a big jump but they only need to go +3 wins year over year if everyone else stays the same, and a bunch of those teams probably got worse.
4. Jazz
The aforementioned Jerebko and Hood made the third and fifth most threes for the Jazzers last year, and Joe Ingles can only Jingle so hard. Crowder has been a below average shooter in five of his six years in the league and for all four of the teams he's played for, he's probably not the answer to this question. Rubio was never as bad a shooter as his reputation and he's been carving up long twos for the past two years, but they're still long twos. I have them here just for having Gobert healthy all year. There's no sign of him expanding his game in any real way but there's also no sign he's aggrieved about it.
5. Spurs
Kawhi Leonard is a much, much better player than DeMar DeRozan. You know who DeMar DeRozan is a much better player than? Kawhi Leonard sitting on the bench. Can't get too many buckets sitting on the bench. Marco Belinelli soothes the loss of Danny Green to some extent, Tony Parker was washed up and only played 1071 minutes last year anyway. I'm not saying they're contending for anything, but they should improve on last year's showing simply because DeMar DeRozan is a somewhat above average player instead of a $19m DNP-WTF.
6. Thunder
Getting rid of Carmelo and adding Noel are two big time winning transactions, but until someone can get Westbrook to a) learn to shoot even a little and/or b) not have the ball in his hands 200% of the time the Thunder aren't going anywhere.
7. Blazers
Here's a list of the players to shoot 43%+ on 200+ attempts in the past five years: Steph Curry, JJ Reddick, Kyle Korver, Jayson Tatum, Seth Curry... *and* the non-Curries get assisted on 90% of their threes, whereas Seth only on 75%. He's not Steph (only assisted on 61%) but when you're only trailing the by far best shooter of all time you're in pretty good shape. After years of horrible defense the Blazers were actually quite good on that side last year and only average offensively, so you kind of get it, but a priori it's hard to imagine a Seth - Lillard - McCollum unit doing anything but losing badly.
8. Pelicans
Randle isn't a good fit with Davis. Payton isn't a good fit with winning. Okafor isn't a good fit with basketball. I expect the 8 seed to be a lot more competitive with the 9-12 seeds than the 3-7 seeds this year.
x. Lakers
They were 12 games out of the playoffs last year, and while LeBron at this point in his career is probably still worth 12 wins someone has to make up for losing Randle and his 7, and Lopez' 4, and Clarkson/Nance's 6 what with their replacements IT and Frye also out the door. I don't think the Rondo/Lance/Beasley/McGee smorgasbord does that, I don't think the rookies contribute it due both to them not being that good to start with and the hit to chemistry/PT, and I don't think LeBron stays fully engaged all season because he's got even more mileage on him than Carmelo Anthony. Now, as stated above I think the eight seed is a lot easier to get this year, but it's easier for the Nuggets and Clippers and Grizzlies and who knows even the Suns too.
1. Raptors
Were 4 wins (and 9 pythagorean wins) ahead of the Celtics last year and are replacing a solid player with MVP candidate and best player in the league Kawhi Leonard. Throw in a little collective improvement from the Siakam-VanVleet-Anunoby crowd and 65 wins is on the table.
2. 76ers
Lost Ersan Ilyasova and added Wilson Chandler, otherwise nothing much transaction wise. Another year to figure out the mismatched parts of Embiid, Simmons, Covington and Saric could pay some dividends, but I think they're mostly carried by Embiid continuing to grow into his generational talent.
3. Celtics
In terms of statistical ability Hayward coming back is clearly a plus. He's a good player and Jaylen Brown is an average player and Marcus Smart is a below average player, bumping the latter two down a spot on the depth chart is good all the way around. The question as always with superteams is whether addition by subtraction came into play last year. Tatum and Brown were both ~20 usage% ~8 ast% ~70 %ast players, over the past four years Hayward was 26/21/50 - he wants to score the ball, pass the ball, and have the ball a lot more. Does that work on the court? Or does Kyrie Irving get a little miffed letting a small forward dominate the ball? There's also the red flag that the Jazz went a mere -3 wins by replacing him essentially with this year's presumptive ROY favorite Donovan Mitchell.
4. Bucks
They're not that young anymore and throwing away Jabari Parker for Eric Bledsoe will haunt them forever. With that said, Brook Lopez and Ersan Ilyasova are capable stay out of the way veterans, and if Thon Maker takes a leap and displaces one of them so much the better. I think a training camp of continuity gets them to 50 wins.
5. Pacers
I'm not a Tyreke Evans fan but if all he has to do is replace Lance Stevenson I'm confident he's got that in his locker. McDermott is a legitimate shooter who's played on four teams in the past two years, which doesn't augur super well for his contributions, especially under Nate "If Long Twos Aren't Great How Come We Lost In the First Round?" McMillan, who fun fact hasn't coached in the second round since he was in Seattle. Turner and Sabonis are clearly the path forward, but it may require a new coach to untap their potential, and I don't think McMillan gets fired during the season.
6. Cavs
Kevin Love should thrive with the massive increase in touches he's about to get, because he did before. Losing Jeff Green and Jose Calderon is a blow (stop laughing!). Even just being league average is a good contribution if Cedi Osman and Collin Sexton turn out to not be ready for prime time. Luckily the Cavs won't have a single prime time game this year heyooooooo. George Hill - Rodney Hood - Kyle Korver - Kevin Love - Channing Frye is a legitimately great offensive lineup, and it's not like they can be THAT much worse defensively than they were last year.
Nobody else looks worth thinking about, so I'll guess Charlotte 7 due to dropping Dwight and Washington 8 due to that forcing Washington fans to suffer another year of Ernie Grunfeld because God is dead.
.
West
1. Rockets
The last 'hey let's get an overpaid high ego over the hill star' strategy in Houston wasn't as big a disaster as I remembered. Dwight's first year was 2014 where they won 54 games, then he missed half of 2015 and they won 56, then he was healthy and they won 41, then they got rid of him and they won 55. Unfortunately for the Rockets year 10 Dwight was faaaaaaaar better than year 16 Carmelo has any prayer of being. Elsewhere on the roster Mbah a Moute and Ariza both shot 37% from three last year and are gone, I kind of doubt Michael Carter Williams and Brandon Knight are replicating their contributions. A step back overall but still #1.
2. Warriors
They've gotten worse two years in a row and I don't think Jonas Jerebko or DeMarcus' Cousins famous locker room amiability is turning that around. Curry's going into year 10, Durant into year 12, players visibly start taking the regular season off and there's no reason to believe they'd change now. With all that said, San Antonio and Minnesota imploding leave no real upside candidates behind them so I think they coast to #2 with 53 or so wins.
3. Timberwolves
They're going to get something for Butler, and Towns will be happy, and a happy superstar makes for a good team. Wiggins will also be happy but he's a scrub so it doesn't matter. Thibs won't be happy but he's never happy so that's alright too. 8 to 3 seems like a big jump but they only need to go +3 wins year over year if everyone else stays the same, and a bunch of those teams probably got worse.
4. Jazz
The aforementioned Jerebko and Hood made the third and fifth most threes for the Jazzers last year, and Joe Ingles can only Jingle so hard. Crowder has been a below average shooter in five of his six years in the league and for all four of the teams he's played for, he's probably not the answer to this question. Rubio was never as bad a shooter as his reputation and he's been carving up long twos for the past two years, but they're still long twos. I have them here just for having Gobert healthy all year. There's no sign of him expanding his game in any real way but there's also no sign he's aggrieved about it.
5. Spurs
Kawhi Leonard is a much, much better player than DeMar DeRozan. You know who DeMar DeRozan is a much better player than? Kawhi Leonard sitting on the bench. Can't get too many buckets sitting on the bench. Marco Belinelli soothes the loss of Danny Green to some extent, Tony Parker was washed up and only played 1071 minutes last year anyway. I'm not saying they're contending for anything, but they should improve on last year's showing simply because DeMar DeRozan is a somewhat above average player instead of a $19m DNP-WTF.
6. Thunder
Getting rid of Carmelo and adding Noel are two big time winning transactions, but until someone can get Westbrook to a) learn to shoot even a little and/or b) not have the ball in his hands 200% of the time the Thunder aren't going anywhere.
7. Blazers
Here's a list of the players to shoot 43%+ on 200+ attempts in the past five years: Steph Curry, JJ Reddick, Kyle Korver, Jayson Tatum, Seth Curry... *and* the non-Curries get assisted on 90% of their threes, whereas Seth only on 75%. He's not Steph (only assisted on 61%) but when you're only trailing the by far best shooter of all time you're in pretty good shape. After years of horrible defense the Blazers were actually quite good on that side last year and only average offensively, so you kind of get it, but a priori it's hard to imagine a Seth - Lillard - McCollum unit doing anything but losing badly.
8. Pelicans
Randle isn't a good fit with Davis. Payton isn't a good fit with winning. Okafor isn't a good fit with basketball. I expect the 8 seed to be a lot more competitive with the 9-12 seeds than the 3-7 seeds this year.
x. Lakers
They were 12 games out of the playoffs last year, and while LeBron at this point in his career is probably still worth 12 wins someone has to make up for losing Randle and his 7, and Lopez' 4, and Clarkson/Nance's 6 what with their replacements IT and Frye also out the door. I don't think the Rondo/Lance/Beasley/McGee smorgasbord does that, I don't think the rookies contribute it due both to them not being that good to start with and the hit to chemistry/PT, and I don't think LeBron stays fully engaged all season because he's got even more mileage on him than Carmelo Anthony. Now, as stated above I think the eight seed is a lot easier to get this year, but it's easier for the Nuggets and Clippers and Grizzlies and who knows even the Suns too.
