Predictions 2014-2015

[Mike G]

Evan Turner - Boston
Marion - Cleveland
Bazemore - Atlanta
CDR - LA Clippers

Thanks.
They still don't appear on the teams' rosters :/

[Kevin Pelton]

Douglas-Roberts signed yesterday. The others have reportedly agreed to contracts, which have not yet been announced.

[bondom343]

Also not official, but per a hoopshype twitter link, Casspi to Sacramento if he passes a physical. Has a contract worked out.

[Mike G]

Thanks for that. Updated list of MIA

Code: Select all

Andray Blatche       Jan Vesely
Ramon Sessions       Kenyon Martin
Jordan Crawford      Mirosl. Raduljica
Ray Allen            Rashard Lewis
Elton Brand          Earl Clark
Michael Beasley      Al Harrington
Dante Cunningham     Toney Douglas
James Anderson       Byron Mullens
Jermaine O'Neal      Gustavo Ayon
Kent Bazemore        Nazr Mohammed
Andrew Bynum         Marshon Brooks
E'Twaun Moore        Hedo Turkoglu
Derek Fisher         Greg Stiemsma
Nando Decolo         Rasual Butler

If someone is known to have retired, playing abroad or otherwise unavailable, that's also useful info.
All these guys either got significant minutes or were fairly productive last season.

Edit: Fish I know is 'unavailable'.

[J.E.]

You can probably get most of that info by looking at their Wikipedia page. I just randomly looked up Nando de Colo and it says he signed with CSKA Moskow

[Crow]

Stiemsma to Raptors, Turkoglu to Clips, Moore to Bulls, Bazemore to Hawks. Mullens, Harrington and Douglas to China. Brooks to Italy. James Anderson to Lithuania. Vesely to Turkey.

[jimmytonic]

I'm making a projection by taking the average each team's WP and RAPM projection, and I'm getting oddly low records for the OKC Thunder. Both have the Thunder in the mid-50s, and while there are a number of teams whose projections are slightly off from the range I would expect, this is the only one I struggle to believe. J.E., could you help explain why Durant and Ibaka both slipped in RAPM last year while Fisher shot up by 2.8 netRAPM? Was 2013 an outlier for Durant? In his past 4 seasons, his RAPM falls within 5-6 for 3 of those, including the last season, while in 2013 it jumped up to 8. Does it make more sense to expect it to return to that level regardless, now that Fisher is gone?

I've tried giving the Thunder a generous minutes distribution and it doesn't really make a difference, yet I just find it hard to believe that this team, now expecting to have Westbrook for a full season, will somehow drop ~3-4 wins. Am I underrated the impact of losing Sefolosha and Fisher? I'm inclined to think a further year of development for Lamb, along with a increase in total minutes for him, RJackson, and Westbrook would offset that impact, but I don't want to blindly dismiss what my projections tell me.

[J.E.]

I'm making a projection by taking the average each team's WP and RAPM projection, and I'm getting oddly low records for the OKC Thunder. Both have the Thunder in the mid-50s, and while there are a number of teams whose projections are slightly off from the range I would expect, this is the only one I struggle to believe. J.E., could you help explain why Durant and Ibaka both slipped in RAPM last year while Fisher shot up by 2.8 netRAPM? Was 2013 an outlier for Durant? In his past 4 seasons, his RAPM falls within 5-6 for 3 of those, including the last season, while in 2013 it jumped up to 8. Does it make more sense to expect it to return to that level regardless, now that Fisher is gone?

I've tried giving the Thunder a generous minutes distribution and it doesn't really make a difference, yet I just find it hard to believe that this team, now expecting to have Westbrook for a full season, will somehow drop ~3-4 wins. Am I underrated the impact of losing Sefolosha and Fisher? I'm inclined to think a further year of development for Lamb, along with a increase in total minutes for him, RJackson, and Westbrook would offset that impact, but I don't want to blindly dismiss what my projections tell me.

Mid-50s is not really that different from what Vegas says (56.5) so I don't see how that's a headscratcher. All numbers on my site haven't been updated since ~march, so that might make a slight difference. Also, but I'm not sure about this point, the RAPM on my site may be coach adjusted. Brooks' very high rating in turn lowers the RAPM of all OKC players

[jimmytonic]

Do you have a non-coach-adjusted set for the full 2014 regular season? I came across this: http://www.gotbuckets.com/statistics/rapm/2014-rapm/, but since most include the playoffs and calculating RAPM is a black box for me, so I've just ignored it.

[talkingpractice]

the gotbuckets RAPMs are a RiRAPM variant that we provide, for people interested in a pure RAPM model. it does include playoffs.

youd do better using jerry's xRAPM, probably.

you definitely want to eliminate WP from whatever youre doing.

if we put on any long positions in these this year, ill probably mention them here in december or so (ive always kept them secret before). no real reason to hide it after like dec 1st, though.

[Crow]

Pistons at 36.5? I'd favor the under.

[J.E.]

Pistons at 36.5? I'd favor the under.

They had 31 PWins last season. They went 21-29 under Cheeks, then 8-24 under Loyer. Van Gundy is probably a lot better than both of them, esp. Loyer. KCP and Drummond are young and should improve next season. I can definitely see why their O/U is so "high"

[gzchen]

the gotbuckets RAPMs are a RiRAPM variant that we provide

What does RiRAPM mean/stand for?

[xkonk]

Pistons at 36.5? I'd favor the under.

I think I looked it up for a different thread; if coaching RAPM is to be believed, van Gundy alone would have made the Pistons just about an average team last year.

[Crow]

I'll stick with the under. They are well below avg. at PG and probably wings too. Jennings is -4 on rpm and Meeks has pretty weak D. I dont see anything special about KCP yet. Decent chance Monroe gets traded. Drummond ourperformed expectations of many others but was barely above neutral on RPM, may not get better, especially in new offense. I am guessing Stan is not as good with a weaker team. The Butler contract was so atrocious and he might do another bad move. Skeptical Josh Smith focuses on his new assignments consistently. Will he able to avoid the 3 pt party? There are too many better teams for me to believe they win 37 plus this season. They might hit a good stretch but I doubt they stay together and achieve their max the whole way.