Predicting the Raptors' 2018-19 Win Total

[LJ2]

I don't see any reason why this team shouldn't win 60+ games if they are healthy and Kawhi is playing.

[S.R.]

All of the tools used to predict win totals only look at players stats. There is nothing looking at coaching impact. Casey may have been a great development coach, but there is not much development needed this year. Those seeds have been sown and the Raptors are reaping the benefits. Casey also not a good in game coach. And many of use still have recovering bald patches from ripping our hair out at boneheaded moves and rotations he made. I expect more from Nurse. I think the team could win 3-5 more games just from that. I don't think Nurse's lack of experience costs them anything because he has years of experience as a head coach in other leagues and years of experience in the NBA.

The addition of Kawhi and Green to replace DeMar and Jakob is a net gain which can more than compensate for other eastern conference team improvements based on the growth of their starters or reintroduction of injured players (Boston). The Raptors are significantly better talent wise and Nurse is a step up in my opinion.

I don't see how they can't win 62-65 games.

I don't see any reason why this team shouldn't win 60+ games if they are healthy and Kawhi is playing.

These are the only two real variables - overall health and does Kawhi perform like he did a year ago.

If the answers to those are yes, then factors like Nurse fiddling with lineups and his playbook, or him getting to know Kawhi (he 's been coaching the rest of the team for years already) are minor factors. You can play around and have a learning curve on that level while still winning games.

Hell, similar issues were there to start last season. An entirely new, untested bench meant people thought the Raptors would drop off from the season before. And they overhauled the offence. But the team rolled to 59 wins and their depth of talent meant the starters didn't even play 4th quarters some nights.

It's the NBA, talent wins games. The team will have some breathing room to play around with things.

[inthepaint]

I don't think this will happen (and sure hope it doesn't), but just to play devils advocate for a sec here:

--Could one or two players that had solid/borderline breakout seasons last year (OG, FVV, Delon, Siakam, JV), have a drop-off year?
In other words, will they all repeat or exceed what they did last year? The most likely answer is "there's no reason to believe they won't" (that would be my answer and what I hope), but then again, after seeing what happened with Norm within a year, it's unfortunately not impossible.

--A huge reason why the raps exceeded most expectations in the regular season and got to 59 was the surprisingly good "bench mob" production. That unit flat-out bailed out the starters and won us games several times. That unit will no longer have Poeltl, and may inherit 1 or 2 of Ibaka, Monroe, Green or OG. In fact, the "bench mob" as we know may not exist anymore under Nurse, who may get back to a more traditional staggering of players rather then coming in with a 5-man unit fresh and rested off the bench with a lot of speed, for spurts in the game. Whatever he does will be for the best with the new pieces he has, no doubt - but will the same effect be achieved? I personally think yes, but that's a variable.

--The coach is new, and a rookie. Right now we're rightly giving him the benefit of the doubt, and I do believe based on his experience, and the offence he implemented last year, he will be a better playoff coach then Casey, no doubt. But to get 60 wins, he will have to sustain/improve upon Casey's COTY regular season campaign from last year. I think most likely he will, but I don't think it's a given.

I think at the end of the day it's very possible we'll get to 60 if there are no injuries, but I also think Nurse will use a chunk of the regular season as a lab for the playoffs, which may cost us W's. He will strive to keep pace with Boston though, and get home court over them. I personally think the season will end with both Raps and Boston on mid to high 50's, but with us ahead of them.

[Kuh]

--The coach is new, and a rookie. Right now we're rightly giving him the benefit of the doubt, and I do believe based on his experience, and the offence he implemented last year, he will be a better playoff coach then Casey, no doubt. But to get 60 wins, he will have to sustain/improve upon Casey's COTY regular season campaign from last year. I think most likely he will, but I don't think it's a given.

This is probably the factor that concerns me the most.

Coaching is both about the in-game decisions, which I think we all agree that Nurse will do better, and the building a cohesive team spirit, which is the thing that Casey did so well that we now take for granted.

We have risk factors here, between Lowry's past, Kawhi's past year and the way Demar left. Let's cross our fingers and trust in ... Nurse?

[ReubenJRD]

So I've gone through my usual rigmarole trying to project win totals for the Raptors (and everyone else). Written up a full article over at Raps HQ, and if you want to read up on the process and assumptions that feed into this, it's there in detail, but I'll post all the results here.

https://www.raptorshq.com/2018/8/7/1...oronto-raptors

This year I've added another impact statistic to the ones I've used in the past (RPM, BPM), a new one called PIPM that I like a lot. As usual I'm also using Win Shares for the production side of things. This year because I have so many impact stats I'm weighing production and impact 50/50, and because I like PIPM so much I'm giving it a heavier weight than the other two impact stats. So the breakdown is 50% WS, 25% PIPM, 12.5% RPM, 12.5% BPM.

In any case, here's how the inputs from last year and the total contributions for this coming year work out for the Raptors:



And the resulting win totals:



And the league standings:



If you have any questions about the process, or any "what-ifs" (like, say, what if Kawhi just doesn't play at all, or what if the Kawhi trade wasn't made), I am happy to try to answer them.

Last year's thread, if interested:

https://forums.raptorsrepublic.com/s...7-18-Win-Total

Beautifully written. Was shared on another group page and managed to read it. Seriously, great work.

[Puffer]

Dan's outdoing himself this year.