Offseason's Over: Regular Season Prediction Time

[Mori Chu]

I don't think I have posted my predictions for regular season standings yet. Here's a quick rundown of my best guesses:

East
1. Cleveland
2. Boston
3. Toronto
4. Atlanta
5. Indiana
6. Detroit
7. Orlando
8. Milwaukee
9. Charlotte
10. New York
11. Washington
12. Chicago
13. Miami
14. Philadelphia
15. Brooklyn

West
1. Golden State
2. San Antonio
3. LA Clippers
4. Houston
5. Utah
6. Portland
7. Memphis
8. Minnesota
9. Denver
10. Oklahoma City
11. New Orleans
12. Phoenix
13. Sacramento
14. Dallas
15. LA Lakers

[O_Gardino]

Wow, big jump for Min and a big drop for Dallas and OKC

[SDC]

i have a better handle of the west than east, so west prediction

1. Golden State
2. LA Clippers
3. Houston
4. San Antonio
5. Memphis
6. Minnesota
7. Phoenix
8. Utah

i would have put utah higher, but the coach...

[Hermen]

It's hard for me to have any belief that SAC will make the playoffs.

I yolo-ed that one I am apparently not nearly as high on the Pacers as others seem to be.

[Mori Chu]

I don't think I have posted my predictions for regular season standings yet. Here's a quick rundown of my best guesses:

East
1. Cleveland
2. Boston
3. Toronto
4. Atlanta
5. Indiana
6. Detroit
7. Orlando
8. Milwaukee
9. Charlotte
10. New York
11. Washington
12. Chicago
13. Miami
14. Philadelphia
15. Brooklyn

West
1. Golden State
2. San Antonio
3. LA Clippers
4. Houston
5. Utah
6. Portland
7. Memphis
8. Minnesota
9. Denver
10. Oklahoma City
11. New Orleans
12. Phoenix
13. Sacramento
14. Dallas
15. LA Lakers

A few details and comments on my predictions, now that I have more time:

EAST:

Boston seems like the clear #2 in the East to me. They added Horford, have a great coach/system, and they just seem deep and balanced.

I don't really like Toronto, but I want to give them the #3 in the East by default. They always seem to quietly have strong regular season records, and they've kept most of their core (sans Biyombo) intact.

After that it gets a lot murkier for me. I put Atlanta at #4 because I think Dwight will have a comeback year. I put Indy at #5 because Paul George is a monster. After that we start getting into East teams I don't like very well and don't have a strong sense of. The #6 for Detroit is mostly a nod of respect to SVG and Drummond, but I think their team has a lot of exploitable flaws and could see them dropping. Orlando at #7 has a ton of size and athleticism, kind of like Milwaukee, but I don't know if they have enough shooting or point guard skill to be a good team. I'm not at all impressed by the squads the Knicks and Bulls have put together, especially Chicago. I don't have a good read on Charlotte at all and am mostly guessing on my placement of them. As for Miami, they seem to be starting a rebuild and actively looking to dump assets and make trades. Philly has great young talent (go Embiid!) but probably won't be able to translate it into wins, and Brooklyn is just a walking nightmare.


WEST:

Golden State is going to be frighteningly good. I don't know exactly how many games they will win, because they may try to rest a bit more than last year if they've learned anything. But they can probably sleepwalk their way into about 65-66 wins despite resting guys, which is scary.

I think the Spurs are the clear #2. They lose the elderly Duncan but pick up Pau Gasol, who probably gives them a similar amount of contribution or more. The only real concern there is the latest rumors that LMA is mad about not being "the man." That's not very Spurs-y. Could lead to drama and struggles if they don't take care of it. Hmm.

I put the Clips at #3 due to all the vets they have, the immense talent of CP3 and Blake, the fact that they've kept the same core of players and coach together for several years. I think this may finally be the year that they are in the WCF.

I don't think there is a consensus #4 team in the West, but I think that the Rockets are due to bounce back from a very disappointing last year. I bet D'Antoni will get them running and gunning and leading the league in scoring. I expect crazy numbers and MVP consideration for Harden.

I put Utah at #5 because when you look at their roster, they made really smart and crafty additions of veterans (George Hill, Joe Johnson) to their young core. They also get Exum back, and he could be good. I just really like the overall roster composition here. A bit raw and inexperienced and they haven't been together long, but this feels solidly like a playoff team to me.

The next four, Portland-Memphis-Minny-Denver, I could kind of shuffle the order of these into any ordering and be okay with it. Don't have as good a feel for them. I gave Portland the edge due to keeping most of their guys together longer. They have a bunch of "Who he play fo'?" type of everyman guys, but it's a balanced and talented roster overall. Love their backcourt of Lillard/McCollum; like the Ezeli addition and the Ezeli/Leonard center rotation; and they have nice hard-working guys at the 3-4 like Aminu and Harkless. Kind of a sneaky good roster that doesn't jump out at you but will win a lot of games. I put Memphis at #7 out of respect because of all the veterans, but I could see them slipping out of the playoffs.

I gave Minny the #8 seed because they just have such crazy young talent with KAT and Wiggins and the others. Would put them even higher than #8 but I'm too scared; they have the talent where they could be like a 4-5 seed if everything came together. Really interested to see how long it takes them to bench or trade Rubio. (Pleeeeeease McD, trade for tricky Ricky!)

I like a lot of Denver's players and think they will be fun to watch, but I don't think it will translate into a playoff team. I think OKC will be a train wreck with Westbrook taking 40 shots a game and shooting them to loss after loss. Can't wait to watch them fail. I don't have a strong sense of the New Orleans Pelicans; love Anthony Davis but dislike most of the rest of the roster, and am worried about injury issues.

I put our beloved Suns at #12. I could see us higher than that, but I just want to have low/modest expectations this year and not be disappointed if we lose a lot of games. I'm tired of the emotional roller coaster of "We should be competing for a playoff spot!" only to watch us fail at it. Play the young kids; don't worry about the record.

The last three teams are all train wrecks IMO. I think this is the year that the Mavs really fall off. I hate their pieces and don't think Dirk can give them much any more. I put the Lakers last, which is probably wrong; you have to figure that the 1-2 punch of losing Kobe and losing Byron Scott will lead them to a better season than last year. I probably should have put the Lakers at #12-13 but I am probably blinded by my hate for them.

[Superbone]

I'm confident Watson is going to be playing the young guys. I don't think we're going to be worrying about wins and losses. Don't get me wrong, we're going to try to win but not at the expense of not playing the young guys. It's going to be a year of growth. I think it'll be a lot of fun to watch. I don't have very high expectations but I too am going to "enjoy the process". We could surprise a bit.

[Cap]

538 sees us at 31-51, 14th in the West, with a 12% chance to make the playoffs.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/201 ... edictions/

[Superbone]

538 sees us at 31-51, 14th in the West, with a 12% chance to make the playoffs.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/201 ... edictions/

Sounds about right.

[Mori Chu]

^ About the same odds as they give a certain Presidential candidate. Hmm...

[SDC]

538 sees us at 31-51, 14th in the West, with a 12% chance to make the playoffs.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/201 ... edictions/

thunder and jazz way too high. knicks and pacers too low.

[carey]

Simmons has us as the worst team in the West.

[ShelC]

Hadn't seen this posted anywhere, sorry if it's a repost. I always liked this preview, reading what other scouts say. Highlighted what I thought were the interesting points. The rest of the preview for the WC is solid and pretty spot on.

http://www.si.com/nba/2016/10/19/nba-sc ... conference

"Their ceiling is third in the Pacific but it’s so health dependent. Chandler, Bledsoe and Knight have all had injury issues and need to stay on the court if they’re going to make any noise. …

Among new coaches, Earl Watson is the hardest to peg style-wise because he’s so young and inexperienced. This is a wait-and-see team as he gets his bearings, although he has a bunch of pretty good guards who should help ease his transition. He’s not facing any pressure to win this year, which helps. …

They have two rosters in one: a roster of vets and a roster of all their recent really young draft picks. They’ll probably try to win out of the gate and if something goes wrong they will shift to a youth movement. … The vets won’t really block the young guys too much. This will be Booker’s team sooner rather than later. I don’t think Chandler is blocking Len’s development because Len just isn’t that good. Bender and Chriss should be able to get minutes because they don’t have a rock solid option at that four spot. …

Knight is a guy who gets numbers on bad teams. Phoenix lost that trade when they added him. … Don’t give up on Bledsoe. He’s an All-Star candidate if he stays healthy this season; If not, they probably need to move on. …

Booker is their best asset and it’s not close. He has a higher ceiling than guys like CJ McCollum and Bradley Beal. He’s 19, high-level makeup, doesn’t get rattled, smooth on the ball, very calm and plays with great pace. He can be an All-Star in 2017-18, even in the West. …

The Suns could wind up being second-guessed on this draft for sure because both Bender and Chriss will play the same position as stretch fours and both need a lot of work. This is the type of draft that can get a GM fired in two years. …

Bender was one of the biggest disappointments in Las Vegas. Turnovers, bad decisions, not hitting his shots. I don’t see him having an impact on this team in his rookie year. …

I love Ulis. He’s going to stick in the league for sure. They can use him as a full-court press guy, harassing ball-handlers and then let the offense come in minor doses. He has a chance to score a little bit out of pick-and-rolls. …

They added Dudley and Barbosa because their locker room was a mess last year. …

Chandler’s activity is starting to wane. … Len is 7-foot-1 and shoots 42%. Come on. I don’t know what he does that’s helpful at all. His size and supposed strength doesn’t translate into gameplay. He’s a top-five pick who is entering his fourth season and might not even have starter potential. A guy like Nikola Jokic already looks way better than him."

[carey]

That one is always a good read.

[Gladiator]

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere: Zach Lowe's season preview with teams in tiers. Here's his take on the Suns.

http://www.espn.com.au/nba/story/_/id/1 ... -zach-lowe

Phoenix Suns

Phoenix sports perhaps the best pile of young talent and future picks outside Philly (ironic, since it flipped the league's most coveted traded pick to Philly in exchange for Brandon Knight), including Devin Booker, an untouchable with a preternaturally diverse offensive game. They also have Tyson Chandler, Jared Dudley, Leandro Barbosa, a six-year playoff drought, and an owner who has been vocal about his impatience to break that drought.

These guys don't appear willing to just let the kiddos play, and swallow the losses. That's fine; losing sucks, and there is value in veteran mentorship. Squint, and you can see the outlines of a feisty team: Eric Bledsoe is back, and he should help the league's most turnover-prone team value the ball. Surround a Bledsoe-Chandler pick-and-roll with some shooting (Booker, Dudley) and playmaking (T.J. Warren), and Phoenix could cause some stress. (They also plan to run more Portland- and Dallas-style flow offense, with bigs handling at the elbows and a ton of off-ball movement, to take some pressure off of Bledsoe.)

But any lineup featuring Booker, Warren, and Dudley will bleed points and rebounds, even with Bledsoe and Chandler bookending it. The bench is almost like a post-grad team of guys beefing up their college applications, though one of them, Marquesse Chriss, could start by the end of the season.

The Suns have to avoid doing something dumb to chase a short-term high.

The last sentence is spot on and his whole take pretty solid.

[Cap]

They also plan to run more Portland- and Dallas-style flow offense, with bigs handling at the elbows and a ton of off-ball movement, to take some pressure off of Bledsoe.

Too bad Bender doesn't look ready, because he's the only one of our bigs who seems to fit that plan.

[ShelC]

In case you were wondering, our franchise is the worst in the league. So there's that.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1784 ... -franchise

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2016/ ... -franchise

[carey]

In case you were wondering, our franchise is the worst in the league. So there's that.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1784 ... -franchise

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2016/ ... -franchise

Saw that this morning. Don't really buy it but whatever. The media writes & says what they want.

[jonh]

I think there is a 2-3 year lag on the perception of Suns ownership. There was a time where my opinion of Sarver's ownership was significantly worse than the general population. However, I actually think that the players that McD (and by extension, Sarver) have acquired over the past few years appear capable of providing a pretty solid foundation for the team to build off of for the next few years.

As far as this year is concerned, I think the team wins 30 games this year--I could see them winning 35 if Chandler, Tucker, and Barbosa have a heavy workload, and I could see them winning 25 if Warren, Chriss, and Bender are given more time to play.

[Cap]

Welcome to the board, jonh! You seem quite sensible.

[jonh]

Well, I used to post on here back when Sose had the site up--my moniker was littlezippity. Since the site went down, I've primarily spent my time over at BSoS. I was excited to hear that Mori got the site up and running again.