2026 championship contention

[Crow]

BRef is projected 5 teams have a combined 92% chance at winning this upcoming championship.

Thunder, Spurs, Pistons, Celtics, Knicks.

Cavs given barely a 2% chance and no one else above 2%.

Probably at least a handful of other teams think they have a 2% chance or maybe even 5%.

Will slowly learn how it unfolds. 3 months to the answer.

[Crow]

If you go by the standard criteria of must have a top 5 player and add some other team strength considerations, SGA qualifies.

Wemby at 6th best on Darko is close enough for me.

Jokic is #1 on Darko but the team context (mainly defense) raises substantial doubts.

Doncic and Leonard teams aren't given much chance based on SRS. Giannis is out.

Tatum isn't himself yet but who knows what he can get to in a month+.

Edwards, 8th best on Darko with a good team; but I am not expecting they will be the winners.

Durant at 16th. Not expecting him to be the decisive factor.



Darko has Holmgren 10th, so Thunder are only team with 2 in top 10 (and JDub on whatever form he can get to). Will a sidekick determine the title? There is historical evidence about the importance of the 2nd guy. But I am skeptical on Holmgren at this time.

Several other teams have #2s and even #3s in top 20 on Darko. Cavs & Nuggets have 3, Timberwolves 2. More teams get to 2 if you go out to top 30. Celrics,,Knicks. Thunder and Cavs get to 4. Going out to top 50 adds more in places.


Plausible that any contender can fall short. Only one won't. The specific matchups still have to take shape.


Thunder at 46% at BRef. Feels more likely that is too high than too low to me.

[Mike G]

Aaron Gordon seems to be the difference-maker for the Nuggets' defense.
When he's off-court, team D-Rating is 118.9, and only 4 teams are worse than that.
With AG on court it's 114.0, which would be top 12 in the league.

His net defensive on-off is 4.9, twice that of any other Denver player.
Also 6.0 better on team O-Rtg.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/te ... 26/on-off/

Den has won 76% of games when he starts. Only OKC beats that at 78% on the year.
They are 4-5 when he takes more than 12 shots!

Ignoring for the moment that he's well short of qualifying minutes, here are his advanced numbers and where he would rank in the league:

Code: Select all

PER    WS/48   BPM
19.3   .159    2.2
33rd   26th   44th

When healthy, he'd be the best player on a weak team, #2 or 3 on a contender.

[Crow]

Gordon with career highs of 3pta rate and ft rate. Lowest rim rate in 6 seasons in Denver. Highest usage in that same period. Lowest TO% in career.

[Crow]

While past title "blueprints" focused on top 1 & 2, I am going to look at top 3s and maybe deeper.

[Crow]

Thunder

SGA Holmgren Hartenstein +20pts / 100p in 365 minutes. There are plenty of good trios but I an spotlighting this one with the 3 best BPMs. Their combined BPM is exactly the same as lineup success. Teammate help with the trio estimate at +1.3, so slight synergy loss.

SGA JDub Holmgren Hartenstein +18pts / 100p in 63 minutes. Is JDub really adding anything this season, so far? 8th best BPM, 10th best raw team +/- on the court.

SGA Wallace JDub Holmgren Hartenstein +200pts / 100p in 1 minute.
The future? Should be tested.

Or SGA Wallace Holmgren Hartenstein? +23pts / 100p in 240 minutes.

[Crow]

Spurs

Fox Castle Wembanyama +13.5 in 610 minutes. There are better trios with Champagnie but I start with it.

[Crow]

Celtics

Brown, White, Tatum, PPritchard, Queta +56pts / 100p in just 32 minutes.
+9 without Tatum. -5 with Tatum & Hauser but Mazzulla gave that 98 minutes so far. Looks like the main mistake. Will watch.

[Crow]

Here is an alternative set of championship chances that I came up with:

Thunder 24%
Spurs 15
Nuggets 12
Lakers 2
TimberWolves 3
Celtics 11
Pistons 12
Knicks 8
Cavs 6
Rockets 3
Hornets 2
Other 2

Revised.

[Crow]

Current BRef projections (rounded):

Thunder 53%
Spurs 16
Pistons 11
Celtics 10
Knicks 4
Cavs 1.5
Nuggets 1
Rockets 1
Other, about 2.5

[Crow]

To get to 24% title win by Thunder, have to do a little worse than .8 × .75 × .7 × .6 Win% through the rounds (.252 Win%)

To get to 54% BRef win, have to do modestly worse than 0.95×0.9×0.85×0.8 (.581 Win%)

[SkyJuke]

Ran some regular season minute weighted averages of some statistics. Used only top 10 players. rescaled to 240 minutes. Here are the results.

XRAPM
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rk Team PI Total Off Def
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Oklahoma City Thunder W1 2.72 1.10 -1.61
2 San Antonio Spurs W2 1.91 1.03 -0.88
3 Boston Celtics E2 1.60 0.87 -0.74
4 Detroit Pistons E1 1.56 0.54 -1.02
5 Cleveland Cavaliers E4 1.48 1.02 -0.46
6 Charlotte Hornets E9 1.41 1.06 -0.34
7 Houston Rockets W5 1.39 0.68 -0.71
8 New York Knicks E3 1.38 1.01 -0.37
9 Minnesota Timberwolves W6 1.06 0.35 -0.72
10 Denver Nuggets W3 0.91 1.09 0.18
11 Los Angeles Lakers W4 0.76 0.75 -0.01
12 Phoenix Suns W7 0.76 0.35 -0.40
13 Miami Heat E10 0.67 0.19 -0.47
14 Golden State Warriors W10 0.65 0.20 -0.45
15 Toronto Raptors E5 0.63 0.29 -0.34
16 Orlando Magic E8 0.61 0.08 -0.53
17 Atlanta Hawks E6 0.48 0.20 -0.28
18 Los Angeles Clippers W9 0.44 0.23 -0.21
19 Portland Trail Blazers W8 0.23 -0.02 -0.26
20 Philadelphia 76ers E7 0.05 0.17 0.12


DARKO DPM
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rk Team PI DPM O-DPM D-DPM
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Oklahoma City Thunder W1 1.68 0.71 0.97
2 Minnesota Timberwolves W6 1.27 0.44 0.83
3 Houston Rockets W5 1.08 0.46 0.62
4 Cleveland Cavaliers E4 1.07 0.67 0.40
5 Boston Celtics E2 0.96 0.84 0.13
6 New York Knicks E3 0.89 0.91 -0.02
7 Denver Nuggets W3 0.81 0.98 -0.16
8 Los Angeles Lakers W4 0.70 0.64 0.06
9 Los Angeles Clippers W9 0.59 -0.04 0.63
10 Golden State Warriors W10 0.44 0.01 0.43
11 Phoenix Suns W7 0.41 0.28 0.13
12 San Antonio Spurs W2 0.41 0.26 0.15
13 Toronto Raptors E5 0.38 -0.05 0.43
14 Detroit Pistons E1 0.21 -0.25 0.46
15 Orlando Magic E8 0.19 -0.07 0.26
16 Miami Heat E10 0.19 0.07 0.12
17 Philadelphia 76ers E7 0.13 -0.06 0.19
18 Charlotte Hornets E9 0.09 0.31 -0.22
19 Portland Trail Blazers W8 0.07 -0.04 0.11
20 Atlanta Hawks E6 0.00 0.01 -0.01

Predictive EPM
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rk Team PI EPM OEPM DEPM
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Oklahoma City Thunder W1 2.37 0.89 1.48
2 San Antonio Spurs W2 2.06 1.25 0.81
3 Boston Celtics E2 1.87 1.19 0.68
4 Detroit Pistons E1 1.78 0.67 1.11
5 New York Knicks E3 1.64 1.06 0.59
6 Charlotte Hornets E9 1.53 1.22 0.31
7 Cleveland Cavaliers E4 1.48 1.16 0.32
8 Houston Rockets W5 1.48 0.75 0.72
9 Minnesota Timberwolves W6 1.33 0.51 0.82
10 Toronto Raptors E5 1.08 0.44 0.65
11 Denver Nuggets W3 1.08 1.20 -0.11
12 Atlanta Hawks E6 1.06 0.59 0.47
13 Los Angeles Lakers W4 1.05 0.74 0.31
14 Phoenix Suns W7 0.89 0.48 0.41
15 Miami Heat E10 0.86 0.46 0.40
16 Orlando Magic E8 0.84 0.25 0.60
17 Golden State Warriors W10 0.73 0.28 0.44
18 Los Angeles Clippers W9 0.72 0.31 0.41
19 Philadelphia 76ers E7 0.56 0.30 0.25
20 Portland Trail Blazers W8 0.55 0.26 0.29

Sorry for bad formatting.
If anyone has playoff predicted minutes let me know will run again. EPM has its own predictive minutes so maybe I'll use that and rerun for each metric.
Once i figure out how to scrape lebron I would do the same. With the predictive variants of these metrics. I wonder if we can get a playoff prediction contest? maybe total wins or run simulations? idk.

[Crow]

These are denominated in points per position?


Interest in playoff prediction contest last year petered out early.

I doubt I will do it this year, but see what interest you get. Maybe, if there is broad / strong interest