I discussed the trade of James Harden to Houston in big-picture terms over the weekend, but now we need to break down the nitty-gritty. In terms of wins and losses for this season, how does this impact the Rockets and Thunder? The more important estimate, obviously, regards the Thunder, as the trade potentially opens up the Western Conference race much more for other rivals. For starters, I think we can safely assume that the pieces these teams landed are by and large the ones that will play all season for them. Harden, clearly, isn't going anywhere -- he'll have a five-year max deal by the time you're done handing out candy on Wednesday. The other pieces Houston received are fungible and have no impact on its projection. Similarly, Jeremy Lamb isn't moving anytime soon, and Kevin Martin seems unlikely to relocate without a Godfather-type offer from another club. (And for those talking up the idea of the Thunder repackaging Martin's expiring contract and the draft picks for another big-name piece, whom did you have in mind? James Harden? The Thunder just made the inverse of said trade for a reason). As a result, we can fairly cleanly analyze the difference pre- and post-trade. Before the trade, my model had the Thunder winning 58 games. Taking Harden and Daequan Cook out of the Thunder rotation and adding in Lamb and Martin takes them down a peg, even though I projected Martin to do better in Oklahoma City than I had him doing in Houston. (This is subjective, but I do think he'll be better; he was second in the league in points per minute two seasons ago before Kevin McHale's system took the ball out of his hands, and he should have the rock more as a go-to guy for the Thunder's second unit.) Keeping Martin's other adjustments the same (dings for injury proneness and defense), using my standard rookie score for Jeremy Lamb (here, I leave my ad-libs out of it and estimate a performance based purely on draft position) and tweaking minutes for other players to adjust for the Thunder likely playing a bit more smallball, and I end up at 54 wins for the Thunder. That's a four-win drop, and at the margin you can see the impact this might have on their title chances -- 58 wins screams contender, while 54 hints more meekly at the chance of a deep playoff run. While it doesn't affect their projected seeding at all, the Thunder grade out as a less-formidable regular-season outfit, and that carries over to how well they project for the postseason, too. All of which makes sense. You don't make a trade like this, largely motivated by cap considerations and draft picks, without taking a step back in the short term. As a result, I have to revise my earlier projection that the Thunder would come out of the West in the postseason. I now would rate San Antonio and the Lakers as having a better chance, and with L.A. getting annihilated every night in preseason I would give the upper hand to San Antonio. Yes, I'm going with the Spurs to win the West, topping the Thunder in a revenge-tinged conference finals. (And yes, I know L.A.'s preseason has several mitigating factors, starting with the fact it's, you know, preseason. Still, not a great omen.) So if I have the Thunder dropping four wins, you might assume I have Houston gaining four. You'd be wrong. These things aren't always linear -- depending on which players are replaced and how minutes are redistributed, trades can have non-matching outcomes. Like this one, for instance. I plugged in Harden as a starting shooting guard with a full complement of minutes, upped Carlos Delfino's minutes with Lamb gone and threw in an end-of-rotation wing from Houston's many choices (I'd originally gone with Gary Forbes, but apparently the Rockets plan to cut him, so now it's Marcus Morris -- it scarcely matters whether it's one of those two, or Toney Douglas or Daequan Cook or Sam Hinkie that gets these limited minutes). The result? Houston bumps all the way up to 37 wins from my initial projection of 27, as adding a full minutes complement of All-Star-caliber wing play represents a major upgrade from Martin's projection (both in minutes and quality). Also, a small portion of the projected improvement comes from a tanking tweak in my model -- basically, the Rockets project to stay in the playoff race long enough that they'll still give a crap in March and April, and that adds a win to their total. Alas, our work is not done. Since I have Houston adding 10 wins and the Thunder dropping only four, there's some housekeeping that needs to happen to even things out. I had to grab six wins back from the league's other 28 teams to even the league out at a combined 1230 wins and 1230 losses. In practice, I did this by sucking 6/28th of a win from every club's projection. After that, five teams ended up with their win total rounded down rather than up and lost a win; in other words, Minnesota's projection went from 43.6 to 43.3, so after rounding it kicks the Wolves down from 44 wins to 43. Sacramento, Brooklyn, New York and Milwaukee all suffered similar dings. With one win left to reclaim and Philadelphia's Andrew Bynum yet to take the court, that seemed like an obvious choice to grab a final win away and even the till. Finally, in the process of revising the estimates for Houston and Oklahoma City, I discovered that my initial set of projections had inadvertently jobbed the Magic out of a win. Break out the champagne, Orlando: You're now No. 29.
I think Vegas has us winning 33.5 games? If I were a gambling person, I'd put in a small fortune by over. Not that I trust Hollinger's projection (to me nothing is more worthless than these win/loss projections). But I just don't believe this new Rox team will win less than 33 games. I think we'll be contending for a playoff spot.
Yeah, but you need about 44 wins to be in the playoffs. Do you really think the Rockets will get 40? I don't, and I'm an optimist when it comes to my Rockets.
I had us around .500 with the addition of Harden. Not a guaranteed playoff spot, but I think we'll be in the race for 7th or 8th seed. It's going to be VERY tight this year for those last 2 spots.
the problem with modeling a team like Houston, is the only player who played the majority of the season as a starter last year was Chandler Parsons. extrapolating per minute numbers for somone like Asik and trying to take a stab at projected stats for a rookie heavy rotation at PF/C leaves a large margin of error. it wouldn't shock me if this team is fighting for the 8 seed as presently constructed.
I agree. A team full of returning vets is far more easy to predict, and even then its often times very wrong. Ill say again that I feel our seed will be in the 7-10 range. 7 if most everything goes right, no major or long term injuries, the chemistry comes together quickly, along with some help from a couple other teams having some of the aforementioned problems and us not. I saw us at 12 or 13 before this trade, and although there is no question Harden/Cook/Aldrich is better than Martin/Lamb, I am having trouble believing this difference will allow us to leap 5 or 6 teams. Unfortunately, this puts me thinking 9 is the most realistic number. Please not another 14th pick please.
I'm not really doing it based off models. I'm doing it purely based off my knowledge of our team and NBA basketball. I feel like this team is a lot stronger than most realize, but I don't think it is a 44 win team by any stretch. I don't think it's impossible, just highly unlikely.
I would put OKC, Lakers and Spurs into the top tier of the West. Clippers and Grizz are most likely your 2nd tier teams. Golden State, Sactown and New Orleans are relatively hopeless. That leaves Denver, Dallas, Minnesota, Portland, Utah, Phoenix and Houston (7 teams) fighting for 3 spots. I will go ahead and peg Phoenix for the number 9 spot right now so 50% chance at making the playoffs?
i'd have Denver in tier 1. they are just too deep to fail in the regular season. And Utah is probably tier 2. they were good last year, now they've upgraded via trades, and their youngsters look like they took a big step forward.
I think most of it depends on how Linsane Lin is. If his knee is okay and he has decent point and assist averages although his backups suck, we should be good enough to be clawing toward that 8 spot.
My take, this team will be in the playoff hunt after the ALl-star game. I don't expect much more than that. As such, I'd take the Vegas odds that we get >34 wins. 40 is optimistic but doable if Linsanity returns, chemistry is right and no big injuries.
37 is quite a fair assessment. Plenty of variables that could go 'well' which would see us as a much better team than that though!
I think Denver and Utah definitely make the playoffs. Dallas and Minnesota top the rest based on talent, but both teams have injuries to major players. If Nowitski continues to have knee issues Dallas won't make it. Minny can ride the storm, I think. We're on Portland's level. One of us will make it if Dallas slips.
14th pick here we come (again)!! let's draft another undersized PF!! but i think we will make some noise in next season (13/14) or 14/15,, when our rookies (D-Mo, Royce, Jones) improve,, also Lin-Asik-Harden comfortable playing big minutes and creates a chemistry between them,,
Now that we're most unlikely to be in contention for a top 8 pick ... I would much rather we make the playoffs and pass our lottery-protected pick to Atlanta, so that we are no longer handicapped in dealing our 1st round pick if necessary to trade for a second star player. We already have enough youngsters to develop, including Machado, Cook, Morris, White, DMo, T Jones, Smith and Aldrich as it is. No need for another 10-20 pick.
Houston ^ OKC v I believe Houston is going to be in contention, it would not surprise me if we make the playoffs. We got Harden for his scoring/defense and his toughness, Asik for his rebounding and blocked shots and Lin, for his leadership and smartness in handling the basketball. I know it was preseason, I can't help to see the box score that almost every game, the Rockets had 20+ assists. In almost every case, the team with the most assists usually wins the game. The Rockets have hungry players in Harden (who will show he can play better as a starter), Asik (wants to make a name of himself) and Lin (still not getting the respect). Add Parsons with Patterson, we got a team full of driven players. As for OKC, I believe this trade will hurt Durant and Westbrook seeing their franchise is going to treat them like assets. The Thunder is still the best team, but I don't think they will play with invulnerability they once had.
I have the Rockets going from 27 wins to 34 wins. 7 games is a fairly large win column addition for a one position upgrade. I do hope I am wrong.
