https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-way-too-early-projections-for-the-2019-20-nba-season/ Yes they are nerds. And I love them for it. Explanation here: Spoiler The NBA, it is often said, has no offseason anymore — and so, we are determined to keep pace. That’s why we have already reloaded the FiveThirtyEight NBA prediction model to include updated projections and probabilities for the 2019-20 season, three months before the regular season actually tips off. Because the NBA never stops. What’s new in this year’s version? Just like last season, our predictions are driven by a multi-step process, but this time we have included a new defensive metric, a boost for certain players in the playoffs and more. Here’s an overview of how the system works: Players are projected using CARMELO, our forecast system that uses comparable players from NBA history to predict a player’s future career arc. This year, CARMELOAlso known as the Career-Arc Regression Model Estimator with Local Optimization. " data-footnote-id="1">1 incorporates DRAYMOND,Also known as the Defensive Rating Accounting for Yielding Minimal Openness by Nearest Defender. " data-footnote-id="2">2 our new defensive metric that better accounts for a player’s shot defense, in addition to the existing metrics that look at a player’s impact on team defense while on the court. All of the fancy projections boil a player’s contribution down to the expected number of points he’ll improve a team per 100 possessions on offense and defense, relative to an average player. It’s important to note that we plan to add more depth to these ratings before the season proper. Specifically, we want to overhaul the box score-based aspect of our blended stat, but we’ll have more on that in the coming weeks and months. Player projections are then compiled at the team level using a depth-chart algorithm that assigns minutes to each player at each position based on both past positional usage and a team’s rank-ordered preferenceFor example, a full-strength Brooklyn Nets squad would feature Kevin Durant at No. 1, followed by Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, and so on. " data-footnote-id="3">3 for using its players at full strength. The composite of each team’s individual player ratings forms its offensive and defensive projections, which then feed into its CARMELO rating — an Elo-like representation of team strength in which an average team scores as roughly 1505. This offseason, the algorithm is authorized to assign minutes to a generic “replacement-level” player at any position if a roster is incomplete, a wrinkle we don’t use during the season itself. These depth charts and CARMELO ratings are then generated on a game-by-game basis for the entire season, factoring in who is available each game because of injuries, suspensions or rest. One new feature this season is a “load management” setting to account for reductions to regular-season minutes for players such as LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard as they conserve energy for the postseason. For playoff games, we generate different depth charts in which top players play more minutes; we also added a new feature to give players with a demonstrated history of playing better — or worse — in the playoffs a special boost or deduction to their base ratings. Finally, the game-by-game ratings are combined with adjustments for home court, travel distance, rest and altitude to form win probabilities for each game, which feed into our season simulations. Specifically, we get our projected records and team odds by running 50,000 simulations of the schedule.At the moment, we are still using the 2018-19 schedule because the 2019-20 version hasn’t been released yet. When it is, we’ll switch the schedule used for our simulations. " data-footnote-id="4">4 In honor of our 2019-20 interactive officially launching, let’s take a tour through the predictions that have emerged from this way-too-early edition of our forecast: Update from Nate Silver:
their models are always higher on the rockets... they rightly factor in the James Harden regular season impact. Eg. Harden carries teams to top 4 seeds in the West. Blazers are interesting... and Spurs, though I can see pretty wide variability on their outcome.
Flip the Lakers and Clippers and that's pretty much how I see it. The Blazers are way too low, though; they've got a strong returning core and strong coaching, so they'll be top 6 in the WC for sure. Pelicans are probably too high and Spurs almost certainly too low.
they have our point differential completely blowing every other WC team’s out of the water...well damn, let’s get it
To play devil's advocate, they predicted a 52 win season in 2015-2016 and we know how that went. Spoiler
Pelicans are better than people think (I think they will be better than last year) and the Blazers are worse than last year's record.
Portland looks better on paper but they don't have depth. Hood is inconsistent and Bazemore is no longer the player Morey jerked off to in 2016. Nurkic was so crucial to their team and now is replaced by Whiteside who may or may not decide to show up an be an NBA player on any given night. I mean I don't see how they can finish below the Pelicans either but Portland is a bit overrated lately.
Basically they should not have put this model out yet since they aren't done with it. That post from Nate kills the oxygen lol.
That’s insane. I think that’s absolutely best possible outcome of this duo. I don’t think it’s impossible.