Highly Plausible Win Projections

Over at Detroit Bad Boys, Ben Gulker asked last week if the Detroit Pistons can win fifty games.  The Wins Produced projection had them between 53 and 46 wins.  Gulker's post reminded me that I had done some initial projections myself.  I actually cribbed off of WoW-ster Arturo Galleti's minutes projections as a starting point.

But, in addition to WP, I added Myers' ASPM, an xRAPM projection by Nathan Walker and  Win Shares.  Then I normalized the projections to make sure that they all add up to 1230 wins.

The point of doing this is only in part to project records.  Projecting a team or the league's record is only partly related to the player metric, or whatever system you're using.  It also involves the playing time allotment, injuries and luck.  Sometimes everyone just has a career year at the same time. Using four metrics with the same playing time allotment helps me understand how the different metrics see different teams and players.  And how they view the game.

Plus, everyone else seems to do it.

Here's what I came up with:

Team	WP Adj	ASPM Adj	WS Adj	xRAPM Adj	Conf	Ave Wins	Low	High	Ave Rank
MIA	57	60	63	57	E	59	57	63	1.0
BRK	37	51	51	51	E	48	37	51	4.3
ATL	48	48	46	44	E	46	44	48	3.7
IND	40	48	43	47	E	44	40	48	5.0
DET	48	45	37	45	E	44	37	48	5.0
CHI	48	41	42	43	E	43	41	48	5.3
NYK	34	43	47	41	E	41	34	47	7.0
TOR	43	37	40	41	E	40	37	43	7.0
WAS	39	37	36	39	E	37	36	39	9.3
CLE	36	37	36	38	E	37	36	38	9.3
MIL	38	32	36	33	E	35	32	38	9.7
BOS	37	31	33	31	E	33	31	37	11.3
PHI	27	31	26	32	E	29	26	32	13.3
ORL	28	24	25	27	E	26	24	28	14.0
CHA	26	26	21	29	E	26	21	29	14.7
LAC	61	58	60	57	W	59	57	61	1.7
SAS	57	59	59	51	W	56	51	59	2.3
HOU	69	52	48	55	W	56	48	69	4.0
OKC	50	55	60	56	W	55	50	60	3.3
MEM	50	49	53	49	W	50	49	53	4.3
DAL	45	47	49	38	W	45	38	49	6.0
DEN	42	45	52	36	W	44	36	52	6.7
GSW	39	41	41	47	W	42	39	47	8.7
MIN	40	41	38	43	W	41	38	43	9.0
NOP	36	38	32	38	W	36	32	38	11.3
UTA	43	31	35	35	W	36	31	43	10.0
POR	34	35	32	38	W	35	32	38	11.7
LAL	27	32	34	31	W	31	27	34	12.3
SAC	28	29	31	33	W	30	28	33	13.7
PHO	23	27	25	26	W	25	23	27	15.0

 

Using Detroit as an example the range was between 37 and 48 wins, with 44 as the average.  That seems plausible!  Or Boston, the range is between 37 and 31 with an average of 33.  Also, plausible!

On the surprising side Dallas comes out ahead of Golden State, everywhere except xRAPM and everyone loves Brooklyn except Wins Produced.

I will likely update the projections after training camp in a slightly more rigorous manner.  Again, the everyone does it factor.

But, I am also going to do a wins over replacement estimate using the metrics to get a power and depth rating for each team based on the Wins over Replacement per 36 of their top seven players in terms of expected minutes and the depth rating on the rest of the team.  The idea being that the power and depth ratings would  give a somewhat more realistic idea of what we know about a team and, also, some idea which teams are able to withstand injuries.

Comments

[DSMok1]

How did you deal with Rookies, Andrew? That's always a tough nut to crack. I have some rough values for ASPM and WS based on draft pick slot, but it's highly variable.

[Andrew]

Averaged Hickory High and WoW draft projections. Also found a Win Shares based one, but after I did this. Rooks are a huge hole, I doubt any projection thought Drummond would be as good as he was or Austin Rivers as historically bad as he was. Very rookie mean reversion heavy.