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Predicting the 2018-19 NBA Season

Just in time for the NBA season to kick off tomorrow, I have projected win totals for each team. Below you will find my predictions for each team alongside latest Vegas odds. I’ve also included the difference between my predictions and the Vegas line, as well as the absolute value of the differences. Below the tables you’ll find my team by team thoughts. Here’s to hoping I do better than last season, with a median difference between prediction and actual wins of 6.

Western Conference

  1. Golden State Warriors (55) I’m nervous with how low this prediction is, but there are two important factors to consider. First, the West is going to be a bloodbath this season. Only the Kings are outright terrible. Second, we have seen this team prioritize the postseason which makes sense given the injury history of stars like Curry and Durant.
  2. Houston Rockets (53) Their roster got a bit weaker. Also, last year they were gunning to show their dominance and win Harden an MVP. This year, look for them to also prioritize postseason health.
  3. Utah Jazz (49) The Jazz looked great last postseason and sophomore guard Donovan Mitchell should only improve. 
  4. San Antonio Spurs (48) Yes, I factored in Dejounte Murray’s season-ending injury. The question for the Spurs is what can they get out of DeMar DeRozan? 
  5. Oklahoma City Thunder (47) Simply getting rid of Carmelo should be a net positive for the Thunder. However, they have a few reasons for concern. First, Russell Westbrook relies heavily on athleticism but is turning 30 next month. Second, Andre Roberson has apparently suffered a setback in his injury recovery. Having Roberson on the court is essential to their defense which is essential to the Thunder being an elite team. 
  6. Minnesota Timberwolves (45) I took Jimmy Butler off the Timberwolves but I did not put him on another team, which will almost certainly create problems at season’s end. I also gave Wiggins a small boost to his production in the season before Butler came to Minnesota.
  7. Denver Nuggets (44) This is a nice young team with plenty of players poised to improve: Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Gary Harris. Having Paul Millsap back from injury will be a nice boost to possibly get them into the playoffs this year. If Jokic does not improve on defense, they could be in trouble.
  8. New Orleans Pelicans (43) The Pelicans looked phenomenal in the playoffs against the Trailblazers. They are basically bringing back that squad with an added Julius Randle, who should be a great addition.
  9. Los Angeles Lakers (42) Yes, right now I have a LeBron team missing the playoffs. By a game.  I could see them as high as fourth if you look at how tight these win projections are. I think we’re all curious how this team will look given how differently they are built than the LeBron Cavaliers. I think their recent pickups of Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson, and Javale McGee are suspect.
  10. Portland Trailblazers (41) I think Damian Lillard had a phenomenal season but it was also a career year. Look for him to regress a bit without any strong steps forward from the rest of this squad.
  11. Dallas Mavericks (38) Luca Doncic is going to be an NBA star, but this team is a few years away from competing. 
  12. Los Angeles Clippers (34) I’m still not sure how the Clippers performed as well as did last season and it’s possible I’m missing something here. But I don’t think this team is quite good enough to compete in an excellent Western Conference. 
  13. Memphis Grizzlies (33) The Grizzlies seem to think they’ll be competitive with Mike Conley and Marc Gasol healthy but I’m not so sure. My money is on this team struggling and then the front office breaks things up.
  14. Phoenix Suns (26) Another team operating under delusions of grandeur, they have some nice young players but will struggle for a few more seasons. Look for them to shoot themselves in the foot by making an ill-advised trade for a veteran point guard.
  15. Sacramento Kings (25) The Kings are bad. Marvin Bagley might be a good NBA player but I doubt he’ll be better than Doncic.

Eastern Conference

  1. Toronto Raptors (62) Take a 59 win team, swap out DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard, and remove LeBron from the conference. That sounds like 3 more wins to me. If Leonard’s injury is not resolved this won’t happen, but all signs indicate he will be ready to go this week. 
  2. Boston Celtics (55) One of my biggest problems last season was accurately predicting the performance of young players improving their skills. I attempted to tackle that with these young Celtics stars but I will not be shocked if they outperform this projection.
  3. Philadelphia 76ers (54) See my above comment given the number of young stars in Philadelphia. I’m not expecting great things from Markelle Fultz although I think he’ll be a positive contributor. It’s always fair to question the health of Joel Embiid, too.
  4. Indiana Pacers (51) So long as Victor Oladipo doesn’t serously regress, this team should be real good. Tyreke Evans is a great addition for them.
  5. Milwaukee Bucks (50) I am really struggling with how to appropriately factor in the huge coaching upgrade from Jason Kidd to Mike Budenholzer. Based on preseason games, which we should take with a grain of salt, Giannis Antetokounmpo looks like a leading MVP candidate.
  6. Washington Wizards (48) If there is one thing I feel confident predicting, it is that the Wizards will have locker room troubles. We have seen it before from teams lead by John Wall and it is basically guarantee when Dwight Howard comes to town. I’m curious to see how Thomas Satoransky compared to last year as a fill-in starter when Wall was injured. 
  7. Miami Heat (43) I am tempted to project the Heat trading for Jimmy Butler but that’s not looking like a done deal. The Heat look stuck in just-above-mediocrity. They have lots of good players, but not a single very good one. 
  8. Brooklyn Nets (39) I am feeling a bit uneasy about how I have the Nets. But it’s worth considering how most analysts love the Nets style, particularly their shooting profile, they just have lacked the talent to date. In a weak Eastern Conference, they have a chance to be competitive. 
  9. Detroit Pistons (35) Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin looked surprisingly good on the court together. But its still not a very effective roster makeup and they’re going to struggle to score. I’m not giving a boost for regular season master coach Dwayne Casey, who could push them at least into the playoffs.
  10. Charlotte Hornets (35) I want to see Kemba Walker on a roster where the second best player is better than Jeremy Lamb! 
  11. Cleveland Cavaliers (30) I don’t see how Kevin Love is a successful first option in today’s NBA. Minnesota Kevin Love was bigger and able to bully guys around in the post. After getting into shape to be a corner 3 threat for LeBron, this is going to be a rough adjustment. They also like a decent point guard which has a multiplying negative effect.
  12. Orlando Magic (27) The Magic are struggling. Who will win games for them? D.J. Augustin? Nikola Vucevic? They’ve got Aaron Gordon I guess. Oh and this factors in Mo Bamba as a decent rookie.
  13. Chicago Bulls (27) The Bulls have some reasons for optimism, just a few years into the future. They have made a number of poor decisions recently, such as picking up Jabari Parker and signing Zach Lavine for too much money.
  14. New York Knicks (27) I would have them a bit higher if Kristaps Porzingis was healthy. Until then, they’ll be relying on Enes Kanter (who looked surprisingly good last season) and Tim Hardaway Jr. Just not good enough. 
  15. Atlanta Hawks (25) Trae Young will likely have a handful of games where he goes crazy but for the most part he will struggle. I have John Collins and Alex Len as their best players. Yeah, they are going to be bad.

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Revisiting 2017-2018 NBA Predictions

Around this time last year, I attempted to predict how many games each NBA team would win. I am hoping to do the same this year but before I do so I want to evaluate my predictions from last year. My model was primarily built using previous season win shares. One consistent flaw I found in my predictions was that I tended to underestimate the performance of team with promising young players. This makes sense because young players have the greatest potential to improve. A few other big misses were due to injuries, especially teams that choose to tank* after a star player was injured.

The number after each team is how the team fared compared to my prediction. For example, the Golden State Warriors won 9 fewer games than I predicted, 58 as compared to 67.

Golden State Warriors (-9) I don’t feel too bad about missing on this one. I think the Warriors could have won a handful more games, but they took their foot off the gas pedal to prioritize the playoffs. Given how the Rockets won more games but Chris Paul got hurt in the Western Conference finals, I can’t criticize that strategy.

Cleveland Cavaliers (-12) This prediction looks awful in retrospect. I did not expect much drop off from Isaiah Thomas but that was clearly a mistake. Not only did he miss much of the season recovering from injury, when he did return he was a much worse player. 

Minnesota Timberwolves (-13) I noted at the time this was probably showing a flaw in my model and I think that’s clear as day now. Andrew Wiggins regressed, which is a worrying sign that he played worse alongside Jimmy Butler. While Jeff Teague had a worse season than I expected, I think that was on me more than Teague. His year with Indiana the season before was clearly an aberration. For veteran players, my model could be improved by moving to a multi-year win shares average.

Houston Rockets (+2) Their big move was adding Chris Paul and he added about as much value as I expected. The question was would Harden & Paul be able to coexist without dropping off and it looks like they actually improved their individual production a bit. I wonder how much of this is due to their strategy of successfully playing lots of isolation basketball.

Oklahoma City Thunder (-5) This was an alright prediction. I thought it was the Knicks holding Carmelo back over the past few years, but he was a net negative even on the Thunder. I expect the Thunder to be a few games better with him off the roster this year.

San Antonio Spurs (-3) While my prediction looks close here, I’m shocked. My prediction certainly did not account for Kawhi Leonard missing most of the season. Where did they make up the production? A better season for LaMarcus Aldridge as well as a breakout year for Kyle Anderson. It also helps they continue to be the Spurs and put out the 3rd best defense in the league.

Washington Wizards (-5) I initially guessed I overestimated wins for the Wizards due to John Wall’s injury but they played fine without him. It was actually Marcin Gortat who under performed most severely and Bradley Beal was a bit worse than I expected.

Toronto Raptors (+11) One of many underestimates where I did not properly account for strong contributions from young players. For the Raptors that was Jakob Poeltl, Pascal Siakam, and Fred VanVleet.

Boston Celtics (+7) The accuracy of my prediction here is similar to the Raptors (underestimated young talent) and the Spurs (worse than it looks considering Gordon Hayward was hurt all season). The young players I underestimated the most were Jayson Tatum, Terry Rozier, and Jaylen Brown. Look for those players to get even better next year and they’ll add Hayward back in.

Denver Nuggets (-1) Nearly perfect!

Utah Jazz (+5) The main variable I missed here was Donovan Mitchell. I expected him to be your average rookie guard which is a slight negative but he was phenomenal for Utah.

Charlotte Hornets (-7) Dwight Howard was a disaster for the Hornets. I’ll need to keep an eye out for players who put up big stats in bad situations, like Howard did in the previous season.

Miami Heat (+1) Nearly perfect!

New Orleans Pelicans (+6) Two things happened here. First, the pairing of Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins worked out better than I expected (and the Pelicans’ pickup of Nikola Mirotic when Cousins tore his Achilles tendon worked out nicely). Second, I did not factor in Jrue Holiday missing most of the previous season and he had a great bounce back year.

Milwaukee Bucks (+3) I had high expectations for Giannis Antetokounmpo which he met, but it was the mid-season trade for Eric Bledsoe that improved this team beyond my expectations. 

Los Angeles Clippers (+4) There was no clear pattern to my under estimation here. As far as I can tell, Doc Rivers did a fine job coaching this team and getting a little bit more than expected out of each player.

New York Knicks (-8) The Knicks were exactly on pace to win my predicted 37 games until star Kristaps Porzingis tore his ACL on February 6th. After that, the Knicks accepted their fate and attempted to make a late entry into the tankathon.

Dallas Mavericks (-12) While I expected the Mavericks to be a middle of the road team, instead they embraced tanking to the fullest extent. This made it easy to play a rookie at point guard, always a losing option, and to not be too torn over the loss to injury of Seth Curry. 

Philadelphia 76ers (+17) This was my worst prediction (Chris Freiman if you’re reading this, you were right!) They had a few things going for them. First, Ben Simmons was a massive value-add player for them when merely being positive is an accomplishment for a rookie. Second, Joel Embiid played many more games than I expected. Third, some other young players like Dario Saric and Robert Covington took nice steps forward. Fourth, in a similar fashion to the Clippers, essentially everybody on this roster had a slightly better season than my model expected. Credit Brett Brown for that one. 

Portland Trailblazers (+14) I thought Evan Turner would be a negative for this team but he was (barely) a positive contributor. I thought Damian Lillard would be really, really good but he was really, really, really good. Ed Davis took a much larger step forward than I expected and Jusuf Nurkic seems to fit in much better in Portland than he did in Denver.

Detroit Pistons (+5) When the Pistons traded for Blake Griffin, it gave them a boost in the short term. They did a little bit better than expected but it still was not enough to make the playoffs. How much will the Griffin trade hurt them in the long term? 

Indiana Pacers (+15) I completely missed on this prediction but so did everybody else watching the NBA. The big story here was Victor Oladipio’s meteoric rise from alright backup in OKC to all-star in Indiana.

Memphis Grizzlies (-10) The Grizzlies’ season was similar to that of the Knicks. When star Mike Conley got hurt early in the season it became clear the team needed to tank. Conley played so few games I can’t really extrapolate based on the time he was healthy.

Orlando Magic (-6) This was a surprise for me: my model had very high expectations for Mo Speights. He had a steep drop off from one of his best seasons ever last year in Los Angeles. The Magic, unsurprisingly, were also tankathon competitors. 

Phoenix Suns (-8) I’m not too upset about missing on a team that won the tankathon, but I will note that trading Eric “I Dont wanna be here” Bledsoe was a significant contributing factor.

Atlanta Hawks (-3) The Hawks were bad, as expected.

Brooklyn Nets (+2) The Nets were bad, as expected.

Sacramento Kings (+2) The Kings were bad, as expected.

Chicago Bulls (+3) The Bulls were bad, as expected.

Los Angeles Lakers (+12) To close out this analysis, I really need to do a better job of projecting youth-heavy teams (see also 76ers, Raptors, Celtics). Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart were much better than I expected. An interesting note is that I have Julius Randle as their most impactful player last year but they let him leave for New Orleans.
*If you are you are reading this but don’t follow the NBA closely, “tankathon” refers to how many NBA teams “tank” (not sure where the term came from, but it means purposefully put out a poor team to work towards a losing record). So many teams were doing this last season in the hopes of getting a better draft pick that it became a bit of a “tankathon”, a contest to see who could tank the strongest.
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The Future of Football

I think football has two major problems that will require change.

First, football is a dangerous sport. There is mounting evidence that football, particularly at the highest level, causes brain damage.

This could become a hit to popularity if fans lose interest in watching concussions. As parents grow concerned, fewer youth football players likely means fewer lifelong fans.

Second, college football is a financially lucrative business built upon players restricted from earning salaries. Division I football players receive scholarships covering tuition, housing, meals, etc. For most, this is a good deal. But some players are vastly underpaid. After being drafted first this year, Baker Mayfield will earn upwards of $8 million per year in the NFL. How does that compare to his scholarship just a few months ago at the University of Oklahoma?

At some point I believe this will be widely regarded as unacceptable. Players like Mayfield bring in significant revenue to their universities and to the NCAA. While student-athletes are not allowed to bring home any of the cash directly, one devastating injury could take away their future as professional athletes.

A related criticism of this arrangement is that college football (and basketball) have become so big they are major distractions to universities. In some cases, star student-athletes are treated differently in the classroom and in university discipline systems. Football coaches are some of the highest paid government employees in many states.

Where is this all headed? First, I think we will see professional football careers shorten. Long-lasting head trauma is a result of repeated blows, which can be minimized by playing football for fewer years. Second, I think we will see an uncoupling of major sports from universities. Most major football programs have enough brand loyalty to continue on divorced from their (now former) university. Third, I think these two trends will merge towards a unified system of professional football. Most players will play from the ages of 18 to 25 and we could see a future matchup between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Cleveland Browns.

There are obviously other common grievances with football. Many fans think the football rulebook has become too complex. Some fans think the NFL is anti-patriotic. Cord-cutting could be a financial risk for football. But I think only the high risk of concussions and the student-athlete arrangements are existential risks to the current football system.