Highly Respected "Nylon Calculus" Predicts 52 Wins for C's

Maybe Tommy was right in his prediction for this season. I think I had the Cs winning 54 or something.

http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/10/24/2016-usage-adjusted-win-projections-part-2/

Here's some general NBA fan discussion of the article/projection. This guy was more accurate last year than any other analytics based projections and Vegas last year for league-wide projections.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1411017#start_here



Warning: approaching “WHAT THE?!?” territory. Here are the 3 strangest results.

3. Boston Celtics:
Wins vs Vegas: +9.6
Key stats (Boston gets 2):
a) Boston projects to give a league-best 76% of minutes to players rating above zero.
b) By 2015 Real-Plus-Minus, Marcus Smart should have been rookie of the year, at +2.4 per 100.
Key discrepancy: As I have been opining and whining about for over a month now, Boston’s roster is absolutely filled with very good players who are not stars. Whether or not they all fit together is of course a different story. But as a start, my usage projections actually like their fit, netting them an extra win or two. And as you probably know, Amir Johnson *is* a plus-minus darling. Here’s a brief overview of their roster:

will be nice when we get the #1 pick from the Nets in the draft next year too!!


#2 seed in the east...hmmmmmm...yeah, I like that thought!

to complicated for me.. I just hope we win a hell of lot of games during the course of the season, beat the Lakers and Cavs each time we play them, that we beat the Hawks both times the C's are in town, that we win January 2nd and if its not too much to ask to win the very last playoff game we play in the postseason. The rest I aint fussin over all that much.

stupid double post

The designation for "star" level impact according to this guy is 2.5-5 or something, and "top 10 player" is 5+.

That means he predicts KO, Amir, and Sully will have "star" level impact, and Marcus Smart is just barely below that.

Last year KO's impact was definitely in the "star" realm, according to his Real Plus Minus, and Amir has always been a star according to advanced stats like RPM.


Here's a couple +/- stats I cherry picked from the preseason, though the Celtics probably had the easiest preseason schedule in the NBA, so take it with a huge grain of salt.

Preseason NBA +/- leaders for centers:

#1 (Tie) Olynyk, Gortat (+55)

+/- leaders for guards

#6 Marcus Smart, #11 Terry Rozier, #20 (tie) IThomas, ABradley

This guy predicts the Celtics will win EIGHTEEN games more than Miami??? With their starting lineup of Wade, Dragic, Deng, Bosh and Whiteside? OK, sure. Miami is a better team than Boston. Unless injuries decimate them, like Wade and Bosh missing huge amounts of games. And he's predicting the Celtics win six games more than Chicago? I guess his crystal ball see Rose getting YET ANOTHER major injury this year and have the worst injury luck of any player since Bill Walton.

And after losing their whole starting lineup except for Lillard in the off-season and not signing any impact free agent he says Portland - in the brutal West - will win 43 games and make the playoffs? Get serious. Most predictions for that team are in the 25-29 win range. They will be a lottery team and you can take that to the bank.

Wade likely missing a bunch of games shouldn't come as a surprise, nor should the Bulls, who are a year older. Noah's already been demoted to the bench. DRose is already focused on his next payday in 2017.

Also, considering all the draft picks Danny can trade during the season, ignoring those easy and almost inevitable trades doesn't make sense. Just like last year, when most Celtics fans thought there was no way Boston could be better than Miami, Nets, Knicks, Pistons, and Hornets.

People just failed to account for trading a pick for a guy like IT4.

Go ahead and repeat the same mistake.

I like predictions that don't live in the past, but rather predict the predictable, like old players getting worse/injured, and young teams getting better.

Hi,
Another good thing about this nylon calculus is it predicts Nets and Mavs to be #1 and #11, respectively. I love it.

AK

I agree with Steve -- parts of this don't make any sense whatsoever.

Drink all the Kool Aid you want, but does anyone here honestly think the Celtics will be the number 2 seed in the East? I think they'll improve, but to go from two games under .500 to 22 games over (52-30) just doesn't make sense. They haven't added the pieces to make a 12-game jump in the win column.

The moral and physical degradation of Dwyane Wade will continue, and he's likely to miss 20-30 games, but they'll be pretty good in the East. Chicago will be too, as will Washington, Atlanta, Toronto, and Milwaukee. Boston may be able to beat some of them in the standings, but all of them?

Other than Philly and the Nets, the bottom of the East figures to be improved as well. Indiana will be better, as will Orlando. Charlotte and Detroit aren't horrible. Even the Knicks will be better. All that makes a 12-game jump in the win column for Boston that much more unlikely.

Portland has a shot to be the worst team in the West. Playoffs?

The Celtics were 12 games over .500 in their last 36 games.

You know what doesn't make sense? Starting 13-26 and finishing the season with 40 wins, because of a 24-12 finish.

People still lumping in the Rondo/Green roster with the second half roster, that doesn't make sense.

52 wins simply means playing as well as the roster was playing almost the entire second half of the season.

What does the first half of the season, the 13-26 part, have to do with the roster that finished the season, which has been significantly upgraded since that 24-12 season?

What doesn't make sense is claiming the Rondo/Green roster/hierarchy has anything to do with the awesome team put together after that, and the great additions made since that 24-12 finish.

Last pre-season Coach Stevens had to beg Jeff Green to be a leader and take James Young under his wing. Rondo and Green don't know the first thing about leadership, and were never cut out to be The Man, or anything close to it. So the team stunk as a result while they were awkwardly placed in leadership roles.

Rondo alone probably blew 3-4 close games that were totally winnable, and Jeff Green was mentally checked out since the day Rondo was traded. So was Sully.

Last season was the tale of two seasons, and pretending otherwise just shortchanges THIS team for no reason.

It's fine to think that THIS team won't win 50+ games, but come up with better reasons than the 13-26 start with Rondo and Green in leadership roles.

Rambone,

This is from the discussion section of RealGM (the second link in your OP):

tsherkin wrote:In 37 games, they faced teams who finished the season under .500 in 22 of those games, and they faced Milwaukee (a .500 team) 3 times. They also faced the Cavs with limited or no Lebron two of the three times.

That's not a predictive record. Of the 22 teams they faced with sub-.500 records, only 5 of them were WC teams, but you can kind of see where I wouldn't be THAT impressed by their record over the final half of the season, yes? It escapes the first half of the season, which they spent largely losing to quality teams... teams against whom they'd have likely lost even with the upgraded roster, and potentially even with the off-season additions...

Maybe I'm wrong, but I see a team that beat up on crap in the second half, and got REALLY together against a weak-sauce line of competition in April that helped them produce a fairly misleading record over most of the second half. Just not seeing it.

Now, for the fun. During that stretch, how'd they fare?

They were 8-7 against teams .500 or better (and this includes crap squads like the Mirage Raptors, who only won against sub-.500 teams most of the season, or the Lebron-less Cavs), and 16-6 against sub-.500 teams.

Now, those winning percentages don't preclude a 50-win season. In fact, given that Boston plays in the Atlantic, if those bore out over a whole season, they suggest 45-49 wins, really. But again, they were beating up on end-season squads and the Raptors, for which I give Boston little credit. I suspect strongly that their seasonal record against .500+ squads this year will look a little different, and thus limit their potential to reach 50 wins regardless of their altered identity/roster.

While I can quibble with certain points, that pretty much sums up why I think you can't just extrapolate the 24-12 record for the last 36 games as representative for what they'll do for this season.

I'm not down on the Celtics, not at all. I think they'll be better this season -- 45 wins or more. I even think they have a shot to get to the fourth seed and have home court for the first round. I'm a Warriors fan, so I'm all for pace and space with a deep roster. While they haven't landed the fireworks trades to bring in an elite player, they've laid the groundwork where adding a couple of those players over the next couple of years will put them in position to contend.

I can see 48 wins, and 52 isn't that far away from 48. It's not the win total that I disagree with so much, though I think 52 is a stretch; it's the Celtics getting to 52 and everyone other than the Cavs in the East being below them.

Even so-called "star-less" teams have stars. The Pistons in 2004 had Chauncey Billups, Rick Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace (at his most impactful and least destructive), and Ben Wallace (a defensive and rebounding star). The Hawks last season were promoted as not having a star, but they had Al Horford, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver, and Jeff Teague, all of whom were on the All-Star team.

Maybe one or two of the guys Boston currently has will get there. Maybe they'll use all those picks to trade for or draft one or two. They're poised to get above .500, have a fine season, maybe even win a playoff series. I just don't see any way they're ready to get to the second seed. That's really hard to do.

rambone wrote:The Celtics were 12 games over .500 in their last 36 games.

You know what doesn't make sense? Starting 13-26 and finishing the season with 40 wins, because of a 24-12 finish.

People still lumping in the Rondo/Green roster with the second half roster, that doesn't make sense.

52 wins simply means playing as well as the roster was playing almost the entire second half of the season.

What does the first half of the season, the 13-26 part, have to do with the roster that finished the season, which has been significantly upgraded since that 24-12 season?

What doesn't make sense is claiming the Rondo/Green roster/hierarchy has anything to do with the awesome team put together after that, and the great additions made since that 24-12 finish.

Last pre-season Coach Stevens had to beg Jeff Green to be a leader and take James Young under his wing. Rondo and Green don't know the first thing about leadership, and were never cut out to be The Man, or anything close to it. So the team stunk as a result while they were awkwardly placed in leadership roles.

Rondo alone probably blew 3-4 close games that were totally winnable, and Jeff Green was mentally checked out since the day Rondo was traded. So was Sully.

Last season was the tale of two seasons, and pretending otherwise just shortchanges THIS team for no reason.

It's fine to think that THIS team won't win 50+ games, but come up with better reasons than the 13-26 start with Rondo and Green in leadership roles.

Four months ago I already showed you why that Celtics 24-12 finishing record was flawed.  Five or six of those wins came against teams missing MAJOR players due to injuries, and Cleveland absolutely GIFTED us the last two games of the year by resting their players because they FAR preferred facing us in the first round to anyone else, knowing they would sweep us as opposed to actually having to exert themselves against another opponent.  And guess what happened?  They swept us.  The East will be stonger and a lot of teams added better players through the draft than we did or signed more significant free agents.  In addition to the terrifric starting five Miami has, they can bring Justice Winslow (who Danny was DYING to draft), Amar'e Stoudemire, Gerald Green (he's become a very effective scorer), Udonis Haslem, a healthy Josh McRoberts, Mario Chalmers and Chris Anderson off the bench. You don't think Miami will win more games than Boston this year?  Of course they will.  So will Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlanta, probably Toronto, who even though they lost Amir Johnson, added DeMarre Carroll to play along with Kyle Lowery, DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas, and probably Washington who has the second best starting backcourt in basketball to go along with Nene and Gortat upfront.  Take off your green colored glasses and take another look at that 24-12 record the Celtics finished the season with.  It wasn't real.  And unless Danny packages several of our upcoming picks and some throw-in salaried guys for a truly impact player (like DeMarcus Cousins), Boston is not an upper echelon team in the East.  CERTAINLY not a #2 seed.  We have a nice, competitive, gritty, smart team that has limited talent, coached by one of the brightest minds in the league.  That doesn't make you the second best team in the conference.  Even though we are deep with average to above average players, every other team in the league has a player better than ANYONE on our roster.  Even the 26ers.  You gonna tell me that if both Philly and Boston's rosters were put in a draft Nerlins Noel wouldn't be picked first by every GM out there?  Maybe Joel Embiid too (because he's still only 21) even though he's sitting out this year also.  Healthy he'll be a beast.  I love the Celtics as much as anyone but I don't buy for a second we'll have the #2 seed come playoff time.  There's no guarantee we'll even MAKE the playoffs with how much better other teams in the East got in the off-season, let alone be #2.

I agree with Steve and Outside, although I do not agree with Steve's suggestion that we might not even make the playoffs.  The identification of injuries of major players to other teams is true, but injuries are part of the game and can happen at any time to any time, including the Celtics.  That's why you have a bench.  One could make the same claim that the only reason why Miami was able to get past us when the 3 Amigos were here is because KG was out with his knee surgery.  However true that may be as well, it is still part of the game and is, in fact, one of the superstitiously unspoken dangers of having a superstar laden team.  Or maybe it's not so unspoken, given the decimation of the Cleveland Cavaliers during last year's playoffs.  If LeBron goes down this year will Cleveland win the championship?  What happens to GSW's chances of Curry has a resurrection of his early career ankle issues?  You want a superstar for their performances but when you lose them you lose a lot.  The Celtics, on the other hand, don't have a superstar.  We could lose just about anybody, or two, or three and still keep on percolating.  In fact, if Brad spreads around the minutes well, we might be more immune to the injury bug than most precisely because we won't be playing someone like LeBron 36mpg.  Chemistry and continuity are significant factors in success too.  It's not all talent.

Getting back to the article.

I will drop like a cow after being punched in the head with a pneumatic pistol if we win 52.  Aside from the fact that the EC has gotten tougher, there's a big difference between going from a doormat to a mediocre team (meaning you can beat doormats easily and can hold your own against other mediocre teams) and going from a mediocre team to being a team that beats the doormats and mediocre teams but is also beating good teams almost 50% of the time.  That's what you have to do to get 52 wins, you need to win 3 or 4 out of 7 vs good teams (not great teams, good teams).  4 out of 7 can get you past a 1st round playoff series (and then maybe lose in the next one because you only got 3 out of 7 against a team that is more than merely "good") but during the season you have to win a decent percentage against good teams.

Can we do that?  Sure, why not, anything is possible, but it'll be very tough.

I'm still sticking with 48.  Tougher competition, true, but we will have some organic growth and a few new pieces to fill some holes and that could be worth 6-8 more wins. We could go 5-13 in November or we could go 8-10 or even 9-9 (need some breaks). The difference between a likely 5-6 win November and a 8 win November gets us 2-3 wins we aren't expecting, and that's just November.

Obviously, if Danny guts the team to bring in a superstar then all this is moot, since we will have gained talent, lost depth (perhaps a lot), lost continuity and perhaps chemistry.  In that case we might not get to 48 this year but next year, with the talent upgrade, we could do better.


bob


.

well I hope they are right about the Nets at least!!


i wonder what Stevens can do with a #1 draft pick.

The Celtics play in the Eastern Conference, aka the sub-.500 conference.

Beating teams who had injuries?

So, teams won't be suffering injuries this year?

Getting swept by the best team in the NBA, the Cavs?

The Hawks got swept by a much more decimated Cavs team than the Celtics did. Weak argument.

Just as it makes ZERO sense to cite our Rondo Record as evidence of why the Celtics have a limited ceiling this season, it also makes zero sense to ignore the second-half collapse of the Bucks, and point to their overall record as evidence of why they will SURELY be better than the Celtics this year.

The Bucks had a hot start last year, then traded away the guy most responsible for that hot start, in Brandon Knight. Then they lost the other guys most responsible for that hot start, after the season ended. Illysova and Pachulia.

The Bucks have god-awful spacing. They look good on paper, but guys like Giannis, MCW, Jabari, and Monroe are all either untapped "potential" at this point, or empty stats on losing teams kind of guys (Monroe and MCW).

They completely fell apart last season, and the Celtics would have passed them for the 6th seed if the season lasted another week. Now this preseason they are looking as poorly balanced and untapped as they were after trading away Knight last year.

When is the last time Wade was healthy for a whole season?

Justise Winslow looked terrible in summer league, and now he's looked terrible, or at least highly mediocre, all through preseason. Just because Danny succumbed to Michael Jordan level emotionalism about Winslow, doesn't mean he is some amazing prospect. He's EXACTLY like Crowder, though it will take Winslow a few years to become as solid a 3 point shooter as Crowder is now.

Winslow is/was a big-boned kid who was never going to maintain the 225 lbs he weighed at Duke. He's probably up to 235 now, and he's lost his elite athleticism as a result. That would be fine if he was a shooter like Stanley Johnson, but Winslow doesn't have that kind of touch.

Goran Dragic just got paid, and he's a year older, and he's only had one star level season in his career. Isaiah was just as good as him while they were in Phoenix, and going forward IT4 is entering his prime while Goran is already close to losing what little athleticism he has.

The Celtics are the deepest team in the NBA. Injuries are inevitable, but the Celtics are more injury resistant than any other team in the league.

The Celtics can lose any 2-4 players to season ending injuries and still be a highly competitive team all season. Every other team in the NBA is praying they have good luck, even though bad luck is inevitable.

And just as important not to forget are the draft picks which are "skyrocketing" in value. Just wait until the college basketball season is well underway and all the young college stars start to shine, and when half the teams in the NBA start tanking, most of them in the East, and disgruntled stars start asking to be traded.

Just as it was foolish to rank the Celtics as a bad team last year at this time, so too is it foolish to think the Celtics won't be as good as Danny wants them to be this year. That means the Celtics can easily be a top 2 team in the East, and maybe even higher.

Because the Cavs are already missing Kyrie until January, and LeBron missed most of preseason with a bad back that required shots to try to control. Sure, his back responded last year to the same shot, but now he's another year older, and coming off an exhausting 100 or something game season.

Then you have Kevin Love, coming back from a dislocated shoulder, and he's always been injury prone as well.

But even if the Cavs remain healthy, they still have their work cut out for them until Kyrie comes back in January.

Just like Justise Winslow, the Cavs are enjoying unrealistic expectations and predictions based on great post season play last year.

The Bulls defense is looking absolutely terrible, and we can definitely be better than them. Their point guard depth is very very bad, and Rose is very very injury prone.

Probably 80% of our roster is going to be better this year than last year, because that's what young, hard working players do, especially with continuity from the year before. Even Evan Turner is looking like he's going to be better this year in his second year in this system.

Sky's the limit, especially with just one single, easy-to-make trade for another stud like IT4, even if it costs 2-3 first round picks.

Bob, looks like I should have read your post more closely before responding, you made the exact same point about the Celtics being so injury-resistant and being able to lose some of our best players and still chugging along like a choo choo train.

CBS Sports just came out with their 2015-16 predictions.


http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/25352696/2015-2016-nba-expert-preseason-predictions

tjmakz wrote:CBS Sports just came out with their 2015-16 predictions.


http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/25352696/2015-2016-nba-expert-preseason-predictions

38-43-45-41 were the predictions from their four analysts. That averages out to 41.75 wins which is right around where I've been. And a borderline playoff team, like last year.

When the Celtics win 47-55 games and get a top 5 seed, and possibly the #1 seed, a couple of you guys are just going to say, 'yeah well that's only because of injuries to players x y and z, and because the Celtics traded for player w.

As if you couldn't possibly predict the overhauled roster which went 24-12, and then improved significantly, playing at roughly the same winning rate.

As if you couldn't possibly predict Danny trading in one of his dozen chips for a disgruntled vet on a losing team.

As if Brad Stevens isn't a top 3 coach already, who can bring out the best in an entire roster of 15.

rambone wrote:When the Celtics win 47-55 games and get a top 5 seed, and possibly the #1 seed, a couple of you guys are just going to say, 'yeah well that's only because of injuries to players x y and z, and because the Celtics traded for player w.

As if you couldn't possibly predict the overhauled roster which went 24-12, and then improved significantly, playing at roughly the same winning rate.

As if you couldn't possibly predict Danny trading in one of his dozen chips for a disgruntled vet on a losing team.

As if Brad Stevens isn't a top 3 coach already, who can bring out the best in an entire roster of 15.

"Possibly the #1 seed"????????????????? I believe everyone should be a serious fan of the team they root for but many of your pom pom posts border on the ridiculous. This one is the best example of that. There is no freaking way this Celtic team has a chance at the #1 seed in the East this year. Dream on buddy. There's one thing to be an optimist. It's another to be completely delusional. Keep singing "When You Wish Upon A Star." Seems to be your theme song.

Last September I said "This team can run right into the playoffs." Everybody on realgm thought I was nuts.

Then on Dec 10 I wrote "what if the re-build is over?", even though the C's had a .333 winning % at the time. I predicted Danny would trade in one of his many many many many draft picks for an impact player like IT4, and the Celtics would still make the playoffs with most of their future core already on board.

Everybody thought I was nuts.

Now every advanced analytics model has the Celtics winning between 47-52 games, like at least 4 of the most well respected.

Only hacks like the CBS guys are predicting low 40s.

I was pretty much exactly right all along last season, and I bet you were almost exactly wrong.

So who's living in a dream world?

Everybody thought Avery Bradley was living in a dream world when he predicted the Celtics would make the playoffs last year on media day.

Was he living in a dream world?

Now Bradley predicts the Cs can compete for the championship, and he's right.

I'll repeat, don't act all surprised when Danny trades in a future draft pick or 3 for a major impact player, and the C's are better than most every team in the east but a fully healthy Cavs team. And that Cavs team has huge health question marks around Kyrie, Love, LeBron, and Varajao.

rambone wrote:
I was pretty much exactly right all along last season, and I bet you were almost exactly wrong.

It's fine that you're so optimistic about the Celtics this season, but I know I thought they had a decent shot at the playoffs last season, and so did plenty of other people around here. Here's one thread on that topic:

https://samcelt.forumotion.net/t7823-don-t-sleep-on-the-boston-celtics-this-year

You may have been a lonely voice on RealGM thinking they'd make the playoffs, but plenty of us here thought they could.

However, on them getting to the number 1 or 2 seed this season. you can claim all the credit if that happens, because from what I can tell, that's a bridge (or two) too far for everyone else here.

Outside,

Thanks for that link, it was nice to read a post from Sam. Although I remembered it from long ago I just Pretended it was a brand new post for a moment. Felt good.

Matty,

Yeah, it sure was nice hear from him again.