[Poll] How many games does this team win next season?

After the first month, my prediction had been 38 Ws (+/- 2) until recently. Now my expectation is lower to 36 (which is still within the 38 range).

40 looks unrealistic now. 36 is still reachable. We'll have to play .500 ball the rest of the way. I think it's still doable. The last part of the season might see some teams tanking hard, some teams resting their stars for playoffs, etc. We don't have incentive to tank. And as a rebuilding team, we aren't going to rest anybody other than the injured.

 

last 10 games of the season consists of 2 vs utah and 1 portland. The other 7 games consist of teams in the playoffs solidifying their spot and who will be looking at seeding and looking to continue to win games

 

Of the remaining games, 7 of them are tanking teams (Spurs, Blazers, Wizards), 10, if you count Utah. It's not a stretch to believe that we can win at least 6 of those 10 games. That in itself takes it to 31 wins. All you have to do then is to win 5 more games out of the other 14.

 

It didn’t stop the from losing to them. I mean I’m rooting for them to hit 32 wins since I played the over for the season but it’s not looking easy. Sounds easy but you also need to account this is a 5 win road team.

 

My prediction was 34 wins for this season, I believe. It looks like they might end up close (hopefully).

But I did think they'd start out slow and then pick up the wins as the season progressed and they built up momentum and experience. It seems like it's been the other way (racking up wins early on but losing momentum due to fatigue and injuries) which can feel a little disappointing.

Still, this season has so far been more positives and negatives, IMO.

 

Going from 10th worst record to 8th worst record would nearly double their odds of keeping their own top 4 protected draft pick, from 14% to 26.3%, so the last part of the season when teams are looking to tank hard, we should be included in that group, we are no different. I believe we have already dropped to 9th worst post all star break, and not far away from 8th worst. It is actually the opposite, we have no incentive to win at the end of the season once we are out of play in contention. Worst case, OKC gets a pick at 7-8 vs. 8-9, best case we get another top 4 pick.

 

85…honestly I need to see what we do this offseason. I’d like to believe the organization gets how urgent this is at this point.

 

Good point. I forgot the odds to get the top 4. I guess it will depend on how well we do in March.

 

The disappointing aspect is how lethargic the team plays in games and only shows up for 2 or 3 Quarters a game.

The overall record just masks this problem.

 

Looking back, one of the reasons they won games earlier was because of the frantic effort on defense. That wasn't sustainable. No team can play hard 48 minutes a game, night in and night out, unless you play everyone under 20 mpg.

To be a great defensive team, you need a bunch of good and skilled defenders, not just hustles. We have some guys who are not natural defensive players and some guys who are physically limited. And we miss Tari Eason.

And we suck at scoring points. The offense looks very clunky.

 

I would not say the statement that we were outtalented was baseless.....

This team has clearly talents but the talents do not lie with scoring......yeah you have scorers like Jalen Green but who is not really great at scoring either when you needed him the most.

And 90% of our shooters cannot shoot well.

You clearly do not have the Offense personnel and also not a spacing system in place.

 

It's obvious we have an emarrassment of riches, includiing a fine coach. A culture is being installed. Yeah, injuries are flowiing like wine now, but we're looking good for the foreseeable future. If Stone plays our cards right with those Nets picks, on top of what we have...our Rockets should be in the mix for a long time.

Needless to say, any of us would have taken 30 wins at this point in the season.

I think, if healthy, we would have, at worst... split the remaining games on our schedule.

 

Every team in the NBA has a margin for error in their record where they will win or lose a few more than they should based on luck and not much else.

Getting back to .500 is likely out of the question at this point, particularly with Sengun going down. However the less flashy achievement of finishing with a positive point differential is still very attainable.

 

Back on track again in the higher 30s and lower 40s......it is an Up and Down.

 

The remaining schedule is not that bad. Sitting at 30 with 17 games to go. Have the wizards, blazers and jazz multiple games each mixed in with a few tougher ones. Will be tough without Alp, Cam and Tari, but Ime has them scrapping it out. Would be fun to watch them rally to 40 plus wins this year. Asking a lot I know, but hey... thats what we do.

 

If we get 40 wins with Alpi missing this many games and Green not making a "leap", then i expect next season to be OKC level.

 

40-42 was good for the 10 seed last year. The West is just stacked. Need Lebron, Kawhi and Steph to fall off.

 

I am guessing we go 7-10 over that time and finish the year with 37 wins.

 

I'm a bit more optimistic...

Believe It!

 

But hey... 37 wins is still improvement.

Especially when the teams dealing with injuries.