2016-17 Raptors Win Projection by the Numbers

[Scraptor]

If you click through and read there is a better explanation within, but here's a quick summary of the columns (note that they relate to the 8 steps listed above the chart). The first 7 columns (from Player Name to WORP/48) are all last season's numbers. The 8th column as well - it is the total minutes played based on the games and average minutes played columns.

At that point, you check to see if the total minutes played for all the players add up to what they should for a full season. If not, you have to adjust everyone's minutes played to get the right total. Hence the "MP adj" column. You'll note DeMarre and JV's minutes tick up from 785 and 1560 to 912 and 1812. In fact, both players end up with even more minutes later on when I take the excess minutes given to DeMar and Lowry and give them to Carroll and JV instead.

The point is to not have to come up with a minutes distribution from scratch - players who played a lot last year are expected to play a lot this year, and players who played little are expected to do so again. And if there are extra minutes to go around, they get spread around in the same proportions as the players played last season.

Duh, I'm an idiot. I read the whole thing and it still didn't click. Might be worthwhile to hide those two columns as they aren't projections?

Thanks for the hard work.

[DanH]

Dan I'm a little confused. Why does the graphic of the projection for next year have last year's minutes/games in it? Specifically for Jonas and Carroll. Thanks!

If you click through and read there is a better explanation within, but here's a quick summary of the columns (note that they relate to the 8 steps listed above the chart). The first 7 columns (from Player Name to WORP/48) are all last season's numbers. The 8th column as well - it is the total minutes played based on the games and average minutes played columns.

At that point, you check to see if the total minutes played for all the players add up to what they should for a full season. If not, you have to adjust everyone's minutes played to get the right total. Hence the "MP adj" column. You'll note DeMarre and JV's minutes tick up from 785 and 1560 to 912 and 1812. In fact, both players end up with even more minutes later on when I take the excess minutes given to DeMar and Lowry and give them to Carroll and JV instead.

The point is to not have to come up with a minutes distribution from scratch - players who played a lot last year are expected to play a lot this year, and players who played little are expected to do so again. And if there are extra minutes to go around, they get spread around in the same proportions as the players played last season.

[Scraptor]

Dan I'm a little confused. Why does the graphic of the projection for next year have last year's minutes/games in it? Specifically for Jonas and Carroll. Thanks!

[KeonClark]

I agree. They do have more depth now than they did then, but 60 seems way too high.

They are def better than 2015 less durant but yeah if they get 60 give Russ the mvp forsure. I expect them in a lower seed around Houston, behind obv Gs and san antonio, but also clippers Utah Portland and Memphis barring major injuries

[DanH]

Okc at 60 seems very high..they missed the playoffs in 2015 when durant missed extended time

I agree. They do have more depth now than they did then, but 60 seems way too high.

[KeonClark]

Okc at 60 seems very high..they missed the playoffs in 2015 when durant missed extended time

[DanH]

Those win totals do come in a little high, by the way, an average of 43.5 wins per team (should be 41). So something has to give there, but whether that happens unilaterally, or one team is 75 wins worse (GSW 3 win season here we come), or anywhere in between, who can say. I expect a lot of the top teams will see their records damp down a bit, it's a long season... So that might include the Raps, if you wanted to put the brakes on the 58 win prediction. Good news is even knocking those 2.5 wins straight off for every team, the Raps still project at 55-56 wins and 2nd in the East.

[DanH]

lol at the Knicks only winning 1 more game than Brooklyn.

Using last year's stats means Derrick Rose is viewed as a terrible player. And that Noah is expected to play very little.

Not that those are inaccurate assumptions, but they are what are driving the terrible numbers for them. That and the Nets are a little inflated by some solidly average players they acquired getting a big minutes bump.

[Mess]

lol at the Knicks only winning 1 more game than Brooklyn.

[DanH]

OK, quick and dirty with possibly a few errors, here is an unadjusted win prediction for every team in the league (ie, some minute assumptions will be very wrong, and I probably missed a player transaction or two, but hopefully no big ones). Slightly different approach here, had to use WORP differently (the estimated conversion tends to extremize any outliers, so top notch teams will predict more than 82 wins and bad teams will predict win totals in the teens instead of in the twenties, for example), used a pythagorean win estimate based on BPM rather than the direct BPM -> VORP -> WORP conversions.

Wins are rounded, but the standings are in order of exact prediction numbers.

East:
1 CLE 64
2 TOR 58
3 BOS 53
4 CHA 50
5 ATL 46
6 DET 42
7 IND 40
8 WAS 39
9 CHI 39
10 ORL 38
11 MIA 38
12 MIL 37
13 NYK 32
14 BKN 31
15 PHI 19

West

1 GSW 78 (thanks, Kevin)
2 SAS 71
3 OKC 60
4 LAC 51
5 HOU 48
6 UTA 46
7 POR 46
8 DAL 45
9 MEM 43
10 MIN 39
11 DEN 35
12 NOP 32
13 SAC 32
14 PHX 27
15 LAL 26

I was surprised by SAS, but Gasol was really good by both metrics last year and they've retained their superstar (Kawhi), and project to come up short in minutes, so all their guys (including Kawhi) see a minutes jump. Same for OKC - they added some solid players in return for Durant, but more importantly the lack of minutes pushed Westbrook up to an insane number of minutes played (42 MPG) - another one where I'd adjust it but don't want to touch anything, just like the Raps (the 58 wins shown is the result of using the different BPM method and letting Lowry's minutes run rampant).

[KeonClark]

The east was pretty crazy last year so you were quite off on the top 8 lol, but you were fairly accurate on the west. Nailed Houston finishing 8th when everyone thought they were a contender still!

[DanH]

We lucked out in free agency when RR landed you Dan.

Do you happen to have the WS and Worp numbers for Carroll and JV from their last healthy seasons? By healthy I mean when they didn't miss a large significant chunk of games.

This approach takes a per minute WS and WORP number, then applies them to expected minutes played. So, for example, JV's WS and WORP numbers were higher this past year than the year prior, in terms of per minute production, even though his total WS was lower (WORP he improved so much in that even in fewer minutes he set a career high in total WORP last year). Carroll's were better the year prior (about twice as good).

[LJ2]

We lucked out in free agency when RR landed you Dan.

Do you happen to have the WS and Worp numbers for Carroll and JV from their last healthy seasons? By healthy I mean when they didn't miss a large significant chunk of games.

[007]

This makes so much sense I'm now expecting 58 wins LOL.

Great work Dan!

[DanH]

Also, if you look at the article in full, you'll see I looked back at last year's projection using this new model to see how it would have worked in retrospect (again, just for the Raps). Never bothered doing that last year. For the record this model would have predicted 54 wins last year, not 48, so I think I've gone in the right direction here.