Anyone have ESPN Insider? "Watch out, these are the most underrated teams in the NBA"

rockets will surprise thei own fans. on pape this team is reall reallygood. 2nd tier just under gsw and cavs. have to waoit for the season to see if theyu're the real ddeal

 

I have a baaaad feeling... This team out of nowhere gets hyped and praised more and more with every day, suddenly from worst defense in the league, everyone started saying we'll be somewhat best offense in the league and a contender in the west. Last time we were supposed to be contenders you remember what happened. It got into Harden's head. The wrong way. Lets wait and see how this newish roster copes with adversity before getting our hopes high without any evidence other than beating trash teams in preseason.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/watch-underrated-teams-nba/story?id=42701984

Watch out, these are the most underrated teams in the NBA

• By JEREMIAS ENGELMANN via ESPN

Oct 10, 2016, 11:20 AM ET

• Email

Which teams might surprise us?

Let's use real plus-minus (RPM) projections to reveal five teams that might be better than you expect.



Houston Rockets
With Dwight Howard in relatively good health, and no big changes to a Western Conference finals team that won 56 games in 2014-15, everyone expected a lot from the Rockets last season.


But Houston barely made the playoffs, winning just 41 games. Even a coaching change early in the season did not significantly improve things.

Then Howard -- a three-time Defensive Player of the Year -- walked this past offseason, appearing to damage a defense that was already below average (No. 21 last season in defensive rating).

Given those facts, one might expect the situation to look grim. And indeed the ESPN Summer Forecast predicted no increase in wins.

But I disagree. The Rockets should be much improved this season.

While it's tempting to point at their three veteran additions as the reason -- Eric Gordon, Ryan Andersonand Nene -- it's actually two departures that matter most.

First, Howard's true impact had diminished so much that we should expect 33-year-old Nene, the Rockets' new center, to outperform Howard next season, assuming the Brazilian can stay healthy.

Furthermore, by waiving Terrence Jones, the Rockets performed a little addition by subtraction. Jones' departure meant they could replace 1,044 minutes from the NBA's second-worst player last season, according to RPM.

With Jones out of the picture, improvement appears almost inevitable for Houston.



Sacramento Kings
The Kings haven't made the playoffs for 10 straight seasons. In that time, they've had eight coaches, with only Mike Malone coming close to a winning record. The unnecessary firing of Malone in 2014 is just one of many signs of this franchise's ineptitude.

The ESPN Forecast panel predicted only 30 wins for Sacramento, three fewer than last season. While there are plenty of reasons for pessimism, there are also reasons for optimism. There might be a 40-win team lurking on this mismatched roster. The Kings have shown that potential at times in recent seasons -- without being able to sustain it.

The main cause for hope -- but also a cause for skepticism -- is superstarDeMarcus Cousins. The big man's talent is matched by his penchant for creating turbulence in the organization. We'll see if new coach Dave Joerger is the man to get the best out of Cousins.

The departure of Rajon Rondo might not be a problem at all. He still posts gaudy assist numbers, but his inability to shoot and his lackluster defensive effort limits his impact.

In all, the Kings will probably not be able to break out of the treadmill of mediocrity, but look for them to take a step in the right direction.

Denver Nuggets
The ESPN Summer Forecast projected the Nuggets to win 33 games this season, just a single win more than last season. I am more optimistic.

Here's the main reason why the Nuggets should finish a lot closer to .500 in 2016-17: Last season, the team gave more than 6,000 minutes to players 21 years or younger. Through statistical analysis, we know players generally improve until about age 27, with the largest bulk of improvement coming in the early years, about 19 to 21.

Nikola Jokic, who rated as the NBA's ninth-best player last season according to RPM, doesn't appear to have the highest ceiling and thus probably won't improve much. But Emmanuel Mudiay and Gary Harris, among others, should show substantial growth this season.

With Mike Malone as coach, the Nuggets have a capable man at the helm. Don't be surprised if the Nuggets compete with the West's usual playoff teams for the No. 8 spot.

Utah Jazz
We all expect to see the Golden State Warriors at the top of the West standings, and most expect the San Antonio Spurs to finish second once again. The No. 3 spot is where things get interesting.

Kevin Pelton's forecast, using RPM, put the Utah Jazz at No. 3. Given that the Jazz missed the playoffs last season and didn't sign a major free agent, we can assume this outcome would shock some folks. (The ESPN Summer Forecast had the Jazz finishing fifth in the West.)

What might be even more shocking is that the Jazz are still projected to finish third, even with Gordon Hayward projected to miss perhaps a month of the regular season with a fractured ring finger.

But No. 3 in the West is still how it looks right now, assuming that Hayward can return by the end of November.

Of course, this isn't entirely about the Jazz. Last season's No. 3 and No. 4 seeds -- the Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Clippers, respectively -- are each likely to take a step back this season, leaving room for a team like Utah.

But let's give the Jazz their props, too. Getting a full season from Rudy Gobertshould help, but the biggest difference-maker might be George Hill, acquired for a draft pick. Hill rates well by RPM and plugs a giant hole for the Jazz. Newcomers Joe Johnson and Boris Diaw?also rate as above average.

Age should work in Utah's favor, too, for the most part. Its core of players 26 and under is young enough to show further growth, and Quin Snyder appears to be the perfect coach to push the team to new levels.

Add all those positives to the fact that the Jazz actually had the point differential of a 46-win team (which was fifth best in the West), and it's not hard to see why RPM likes the Jazz as the third seed in the West.

Brooklyn Nets
Brooklyn was the second-worst team in the league last season -- winning just 21 games -- but still didn't get a lottery pick, thanks to the infamous Nets-Celtics trade made by former GM Billy King.

Despite that, I believe Brooklyn can take a step forward this season.

First, the bad. Two of the Nets' best players have departed -- Joe Johnson andThaddeus Young. While they weren't superstars, RPM rated both as above-average players.

Secondly, Bojan Bogdanovic is expected to play a lot this season -- not a good thing, given that he was one of the worst defenders in the NBA last season. RPM isn't a fan of Sean Kilpatrick or Greivis Vasquez, either. All three players are expected to be below replacement-level.

What, then, makes us think the Nets will win more games? For one thing, we thinkJeremy Lin will be a significant improvement at point guard over Shane Larkin. Also, RPM supports the signing of Trevor Booker, a good rebounder with very good steal and turnover rates.

Perhaps most importantly, I expect Rondae Hollis-Jefferson to play significantly more minutes this season. In 2015-16, as a rookie, Hollis-Jefferson made a good early

 

Never a big fan of the broad-brush, no-effort, no-analysis, "addition by subtraction."

And I'm not going to pretend like the following is some deep-dive. To the contrary, it's laughably high-level and yet, shamefully, still significantly more insightful than what ESPN cited.

Rox '15/16 record when TJ played at least 10 minutes: 22 W 24 L, 2 < .500, 48% Wins
Rox '15/16 record when TJ played at least 20 minutes: 17 W 11 L, 6 >.500, 61% Wins

Nothing about his affiliation with either of those - admittedly subjective cutoffs - brackets suggests you can substitute TJ for a replacement level player and expect measurable improvement. Objectively, the latter grouping is actually somewhat troubling. We won 61% of our games when TJ played meaningful minutes, including a streak of 10 in a row from late November through the middle of December.

Outcydher strikes again.

 

Tl;DR version: Houston will be better by replacing Howard's minutes with Nene's, And Terrence Jones minutes with literally anyone else.

 

Haha... Classic.

Blunt and straight to the point. We cut off some serious cancer. Dwight, TJ, Jason Terry, Josh Smith. And every single day I wake up and hope that Brewer has been traded too.

 

Brewer is like the scab you want to pick but you know you can't.

 

What compels you to defend Terrence Jones? Do you actually think he's a good player?

Or are you just calling out ESPN's typical lack of analysis?

You're using team stats to put a positive spin on a player so bad that we didn't even give him an offer. Can you find any individual statistics that support your opinion?

I'm not trying to call you out, I just really don't like Jones - that much. Let's speak of this name no more this season!

 

That's a trash article.

No point saying more

 

Initially I wanted to triangulate whether the RPM data cited was validated, at least somewhat, by superficial or highlevel W/L data.

When it did not, thats when I realized that roughly 650 of TJ's 1044 minutes came in the >=20 min bracket which yielded a 61% win percentage. How much better than 61% would we have managed in those games last yr with an avg player? Not much is my first reaction.

So of the 1044 mins you are replacing, 650 of them came in 28 games. ESPN doesn't pass the smell test.

The point is simple. He could have have ranked as the worst player of all time, but if you win 61% of games that he meaningfully played in, statistically you arent likely to just improve via displacement. Maybe GSW, SAS, of the CAVS of the world would as their normalized Win % woukd be north of 65%. That's a pretty high bar for this Rox team.

On phone, my bad for crap grammer, etc

 

How can you not love some of the posters in here? They use team win % to show that Jones wasn't garbage when in fact he had nothing to do with Rockets winning games. But when it comes to DMo they just ignore that Rockets were 2nd seed in the West while DMo was MAIN big on the team for almost entire season. They just bring up lack of rebounds. Hypocrisy is hell of a drug.

 

This is pretty much unquestionably true, if the Rockets had played Jones similar to how the Pels played him in the games in China then the Rockets win more games last season. That said, it's hard to know how much the team will improve simply by getting rid of awful players like Jones, Beasley, and Terry.

 

Any worse than the guy who uses one posters critique of ESPN, transcends that in to a defense of TJ, and then, somehow, creates an alternate reality where that poster bashed DMO.

LMAO. Thx haas. I needed a laugh. BTW, player data scaled against team data has a purpose. Just read closer...don't assume.

 

The argument has nothing to do with the brand new system though.

 

Geez, TJ was that bad?

 

Yeah, it's pretty hard to oversell just how terrible he was last season and it was always inevitable.

 

I know you have to be a rocket scientist like Calvin Watkins and/or have a journalism degree with Vine privileges for ESPNdotcom to talk RPM -- but here goes somethin'

Birth name/RPM(rank out of 462 NBA players) - Minutes per game - Regular season games played
Terrence Jones/-5.94(461) - 20.9 - 50
Ty Lawson/-4.70(447) - 21.3 - 53 for Houston
Michael Beasley/-2.52(364) - 17.3 - 21
Josh Smith/-2.09(327) - 17.26 - 22
Corey Brewer/-1.53(271) - 20.4 - 82
Dwight Howard/-0.04(154) - 32.1 - 71

Ryan Anderson/0.00(149) - 30.4 - 66
Pablo Prigioni/-0.93(218) - 13.9 - 59
Eric Gordon/-0.40(179) - 32.9 - 45
Montrezl Harrell/-0.92(217) - 9.7 - 39
K.J. McDaniels/-.46/(182) - 6.4 - 37
Nene Hilario/+2.37(46) - 19.2 - 57
Clint Capela/+2.06(57) - 19.1 - 77

If someone from ESPN is on Clutchfans, s?/he'll be able to do the arithmetic for us. On a serious note, I thought it was odd that TJones was the only example of addition by subtraction mentioned in the article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/nba-statistics_b_5190651.html

 

Not necessarily the best list to be on. At least people are noticing what we knew all along.

 

People pay for this level of analysis??