I started this last season but didn’t have time during the season to update it. However, we’re going to run it back. Same idea as last year:
I and most other NBA fans live for Zach Lowe’s yearly LeaguePass Rankings. He misses on some and hits on others, but he’s largely right because he watches more of this sport than anyone else, and that includes scouts paid by teams to do so.
I toyed with the idea of doing this last year, but I figure this is the most quantifiable way to give recommended viewing games for all basketball junkies across the universe. Below is a spreadsheet with composite ratings based on both teams playing for each game in the first week of the NBA season. I’ve highlighted the highest-rated game or games for each day, along with a table on the front end showing Lowe’s ratings from best to worst. This should give you an idea of what games are the most watchable past opening night, and I’ll be doing this weekly throughout the season with tweaks to the rankings as need be. Those tweaks will be based on injuries, surprises, disappointments, and much more.
Here’s your first Weekly TV Guide for NBA League Pass of the 2017-18 season:
This is a 2017-18 update of a simple and easy project I did last year: take the five projected starters for all 30 NBA teams, average their projected Box Plus-Minus by CARMELO, and rank the teams in each conference.
Teams’ projected over/unders for wins by Las Vegas are in parentheses:
Eastern Conference
Cleveland (56.5)
Boston (N/A)
Milwaukee (42.5)
Toronto (47.5)
Charlotte (40.5)
Philadelphia (40.5)
Washington (45.5)
Detroit (40.5)
Orlando (40.5)
Miami (40.5)
Indiana (30.5)
New York Knicks (34.5)
Brooklyn (21.5)
Atlanta (34.5)
Chicago (29.5)
Western Conference
Golden State (67.5)
Houston (55.5)
Oklahoma City (46.5)
San Antonio (55.5)
Minnesota (46.5)
New Orleans (43.5)
Denver (42.5)
Utah (N/A)
Los Angeles Clippers (34.5)
Portland (38.5)
Memphis (42.5)
Dallas (34.5)
Phoenix (25.5)
Sacramento (N/A)
Los Angeles Lakers (36.5)
Some observations:
Systems such as this will overvalue the impact one player may have in a lineup of duds. I believe this to be the case with the New Orleans Pelicans, who, on the surface, were still bad even after the DeMarcus Cousins trade. In fact, this small sample size treasure exists: post-Cousins trade, the Pelicans went 4-4 without Cousins playing and 7-10 with. Together, that’s 11-14 (36-46 pace full season), which isn’t much different from the average 25-game sample before (10-15). However, New Orleans outscored their opponents (+0.3 per 100 possessions) over those final 25 games, a stark improvement from the -3.2 Net Rating they posted in the first 57. They were average-ish defensively (108.1 DRtg, 11th full season), but much better on offense – 108.4 ORtg (16th full season) over the final 25 games compared to 104.7 (28th) in the first 57. If they’re average offensively and defensively, they probably won’t make the playoffs. But the chance of them making the playoffs is much higher than most think.
The Eastern Conference version of this is Orlando, who actually ranks 8th in non-minutes-adjusted starting lineups. This seems very wrong, considering this same team with minimal adjustments went 29-53 last year and should’ve been much worse (24-58 by Pythagorean W-L). But – HOWEVER! – there’s reasons to be optimistic.
None of Orlando’s top five minute-getters in 2016-17 were older than 26.
Terrence Ross is somehow still only 26, too.
The projected starting lineup in 2017-18 for Orlando, by age: 23, 25, 26, 27, 22.
No projected starter for Orlando ranks worse in Box Plus-Minus than -0.5. Pretty good! That’s better than all but three teams in the Eastern Conference.
Of course, Orlando’s best player by BPM (Aaron Gordon) comes in at a projected +1.2. That’s the fourth-worst top player in the conference. We’ll see on this one, but it makes me a lot more curious about the Magic than I was previously. My early guess is that it’ll take around 38-40 wins to make the playoffs in the East next year, and Orlando’s O/U is 40.5. Why not take a stab here?
Here’s a couple teams these rankings see as major sells: Washington and the Los Angeles Lakers. (I’m letting Memphis slide, because 42.5 is pretty absurd for a team with no Randolph/Allen/JaMychal Green.) My system likes John Wall and Bradley Beal, of course, but it sees two problems: Otto Porter’s departure to Brooklyn single-handedly takes their small forward position from fourth-best in the conference to second-worst (Oubre Jr. still can’t shoot from three) and is really disenchanted with the Morris/Gortat frontcourt. Porter was a major reason why the Wizards didn’t finish closer to their true expected wins of 45-37/46-36, and his departure could cost Washington as many as six wins if Wall/Beal don’t take yet another step upward. 42 or 43 wins may still get Washington the 5 seed, but I’m not in love with this lineup.
The Lakers are a lot simpler to figure out: the best player in the lineup (Brook Lopez) is the only positive BPM projection they’ve got. Lonzo Ball’s -0.8 projected BPM is #2. I think Lonzo will be quite a bit better than that, but I can’t quantify that right now. Plus, they’ll be starting Jordan Clarkson (has gotten worse every year), Brandon Ingram (the list of players who started their career with a -3.5 BPM or worse and went on to succeed is very small), and Julius Randle (probably about league average right now, but no real shooting range past 10 feet). If LaVar Ball’s prophecy comes true and the Lakers do make the playoffs, it’ll be primarily because of Lonzo and a massive Year 2 jump from Ingram.
In the Western Conference, there’s about ten teams that can make the playoffs. The cutoff is Portland; the starting lineup dropoff from Portland to Memphis was more than 4 points per 100 possessions. The top seven teams would all rank higher than the second-best team (Boston) in the East. That’s wild.
In the Eastern Conference, there appears to be 11 or 12 teams that can realistically make the playoffs. The cutoff is either Miami or the Knicks depending on how you look at it: Miami ranks about 1.6 points on average behind Orlando and Detroit on average, which can be made up with some end-of-game luck. The Knicks are closer to a 2.5 point deficit, which is very tough, but I’ll let it slide on the idea that Porzingis could continue to improve and carry the team.
The projected top five teams in the 2018 NBA Draft: Chicago, LA Lakers, Atlanta, Sacramento, Brooklyn.
I think about my own youth pretty often – I’m 22 hinging on 23, and it seems crazy to me to think about what I already am but also the fact that I have a long, long road of growth and development ahead. I would prefer to think this is not at all dissimilar with the current wave of great young players in the NBA. Thanks to free time, I’ve ranked the 15 best 23 and under players in the NBA based on several past performance metrics combined with future WARP projections based on 538’s CARMELO tool.
Of course, you’ll notice that there are a lot of problems with this formula. I am no mathematician. My best answer to give you is a mostly-unbiased look into what the statistics are telling me, and mostly it’ll line up with your own eyes. Past performance stats don’t necessarily give you the best picture of where a player is going, though: that’s why we need metrics to measure out those predictions.
There were two imperfect answers to this assignment:
Using past performance metrics such as VORP, RPM, WARP, On/Off ratings, etc.;
Using predictive metrics such as 538’s CARMELO tool.
So, in imperfect mathematical fashion, I’ve merged both answers with preferences to the future predictions to see what they could be as opposed to what they already are. However: this is a ranking that features both. The rankings for each past and future are provided here and here. The three rules for this assignment:
All players listed must be 23 years of age or younger on October 1st, 2016. (I was willing to fudge a few days here or there.)
Each player must have played at least 1000 minutes in 2015-16.
They also must have a Usage Rate of 15% or higher, to rule out offensive albatrosses.
Lastly, some honorable mentions of near-misses who could very well jump onto this list by next summer: Gary Harris, Clint Capela, Myles Turner, Trey Lyles, and Zach LaVine.
15. Evan Fournier, SG/SF, Orlando Magic (5 years, $85 million), 23 years old
Never Google is a happy addition to this list and was one of a slim few reasons to watch the Magic after December. The franchise itself is a management disaster, now on their fourth coach in two years and now having traded possibly their two most talented players in Tobias Harris and Victor Oladipo. As a fully intended consequence, this freed up more shots for NG, despite unwilling doofus Scott Skiles bringing him off the bench for eight games in January and February. NG was fun before the All-Star break (44.5% FG, 39.8% 3s, 14/3/3 statline in 31.5 MPG), but after, he was capable of some very exciting performances (such as this) en route to the following: an 18/3/3 statline on 49% from the field, including 40.3% from 3 and a 61.1 TS%. Those are pretty good stats, and any time you end up on the same small list as Stephen Curry, you’re doing well.
14. Bradley Beal, SG, Washington Wizards (5 years, $128 million), 23
This is pretty easily the player and contract I dislike the most on this list. The Beal max deal was a terrible decision from Wizards management from the moment it was signed, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if they’re trying to find a trade-deadline taker on him by 2019. But: with all that said, Beal is still a good basketball player. He’s just never healthy. Beal has missed 81 games over his four years in Washington so far, and while there’s only so much that can be done about that, it’s an alarming thing to miss 25% of your team’s games on average. But, again: Beal can do some amazing things as evidenced in the video above, and, when available, he is absolutely capable of helping John Wall carry a poor Wizards roster to the #8 seed or a little better. (Again, not his fault.) Plus, last year, he finally decided to cut down the long twos (36.1% of his attempts in 2013-14, 17.9% last season) and shoot more threes (career 39.7% rate), which is a very positive step in the right direction. Just don’t make me watch him or the Wizards play more than twice a year.
Caldwell-Pope seems like an obvious candidate for a huge salary upgrade next summer, and regardless of if it’s with Detroit or not, he probably deserves it. Few players in the league seem to be more quietly important than KCP, who has a career On/Off rating of +7.2 per 100 possessions and is Detroit’s best perimeter defender by a significant margin. That’s almost more of a compliment to the Pistons, who are building what should be a very tough defense to beat over the next three years. It would be a missed opportunity to not recognize KCP’s importance in shutting down key opponents such as the ones you’ll see in the video above. He still isn’t really a good shooter (30.9% from 3 last year on 369 attempts), but he’s 23, so there’s time. (As a Pistons fan, time cannot move fast enough for me.)
Obviously the most shocking inclusion on this list by a wide margin. I can’t remember a single Cody Zeller play for the life of me other than when he got his ass kicked in the Sweet 16 by Syracuse when he was at Indiana. But – and I’m just as shocked by this as you are – he’s a huge benefit for the Hornets on the floor (+7.0 and +3.2 On/Off ratings the last two seasons), his defense has always been very stout (1.8 DRPM or better all three seasons), and look how often his name pops up in the Hornets’ best lineups. His PER has steadily climbed from 13.1 to 14.1 to 16.1. He skated in past my 15% Usage rule with a 15.4% Usage Rate, so he’s still a bit invisible offensively. But I don’t know if it matters much: he runs the pick-and-roll with Kemba well, his rim protection is strong for a team that needs it, and he’s reliable at almost everything on the court. He’s the perfect Just Another Guy to have on your 4 seed.
11. Rodney Hood, SG, Utah Jazz (2 years, $3.8 million), 23
This dude is AWESOME. I could watch Rodney Hood play basketball for hours at a time – he just makes it look like so much fun! He was the best offensive player behind Gordon Hayward on last year’s snake-bit Jazz team that, when we’re in 2019 and this team is a perennial 2 or 3 seed, will seem confounding that they didn’t make the playoffs. Hood is already a solid, reliable shooter from all areas of the court (as you’ll see in the Lakers highlights above), and he quietly seems like a super-dark horse contender for the hallowed 50/40/90 club: Hood went 47/36/86 last year and he’s still just 23. Would I like to see him drive the ball even more and become a more diverse offensive player? Absolutely. But he’ll probably do that anyway regardless of my advice.
10. Andrew Wiggins, SG/SF, Minnesota Timberwolves (2 years, $13.5 million), 21
Subjectively, I would put Wiggins significantly higher on this list: I think he has most of the tools required to be a very good player in the modern NBA. But objectively, I totally understand the criticisms: he’s still a poor three-point shooter (30.4% career), he’s atrocious defensively (-2.1 career DRPM), and while he took a solid step up from his rookie year, he still takes way too many twos outside the paint (37.5% of his shots) and his rim efficiency actually went down last season (66.5% to 64.8%). So there are strong reasons to be skeptical of Wiggins and his future. But…look what he’s doing here. Not many players above the age of 23 can do some of the offensive moves he does. It’s all about putting the complete package together, and when he does, I’d imagine he’ll jump towards the top of this list. He’s got a phenomenal pull-up stroke already – just fill out the rest!
9. Otto Porter, Jr., SF, Washington Wizards (1 year, $5.9 million), 23
The summary of that video is pretty accurate to how Otto Porter can be summed up: “Is it because he kind of looks and plays like a savvy veteran already? Or because he plays for the Wizards? Maybe it’s due to the fact that he was only ever supposed to be a role player and now that he is one people have decided that they want something more out of a top 5 pick? Let’s go with ‘All of the above’ on this one.” Porter fills his role extremely well and did indeed put together the season of a quality role player this year: a 47/37/75 statline from the field, 1.8 RPM, strong defense (105 steals in 75 games and a 1.0 DRPM), and his first positive On/Off rating (+2.7). Porter feels destined to either be underappreciated by the impotent Wizards front office and released to a better team with better management in free agency or to get a 5 year, $100+ million contract from Washington that many will ridicule. Regardless, I hope he ends up in a role appropriate to his playing style: the fourth scoring option on a contender where he’s allowed to guard multiple positions. Basically, this is the modern NBA’s Derrick McKey, if slightly lesser.
8. Steven Adams, C, Oklahoma City Thunder (1 year, $3.1 million), 23
Like several other players on this list, Steven Adams is due to get a massive bump in pay next summer, and for good reason. The Thunder don’t come within four minutes of knocking a 73-win team out of the playoffs without him, and for most of the Warriors-Thunder series, Golden State struggled mightily to stop the pick-and-rolls he ran with Russell Westbrook and others. He was also phenomenal defensively in that series and gave Draymond Green all sorts of struggles, both internally and externally. Adams is pretty limited in his offensive versatility – 72% of his shots come at the rim – but he was a huge part of a better-than-they-looked Thunder team all year long (+7.8 On/Off) and was their best interior defender by a healthy margin. His next development will be to get better at free throws (55.1% career) and to get better at boxing out; his rebounding numbers are oddly average for such a strong rim protector. But without a doubt, this is a max-contract guy in summer 2017, and it will make sense.
If you’re a casual NBA fan, you know Aaron Gordon for one thing: dunking. That’s okay, because Aaron Gordon is easily the second-best dunker in the NBA. (Congrats, Zach LaVine – you’re non-frustratingly good at something!) It’s also okay because at this point, Gordon has started a total of 45 games in two seasons. But it’s not okay if we don’t mention that he’s had four coaches in two years, his GM (Rob Hannigan) might be in over his head, and his team blew up around him without him having any say in it. Now, he’s a 6’9″ power forward forced to play the 3 because his GM decided a frontcourt of Serge Ibaka and Nikola Vucevic was what was necessary to get a 35-win team to the playoffs. (Spoiler: it is not.) So please, root for Aaron Gordon to get out of this situation, because he is rapidly shooting towards being a top-25 player in the league by 2020, when he’ll be 24 and hopefully on the team of his choice. Please watch this awesome performance of his.
Wait, I’ve got something for this guy somewhere…where is it…
Ahhhhh. There it is! Terrible offensive player, future Defensive Player of the Year. Eventually he’ll have to figure out how to make shots, but maybe he’ll do that when he’s traded to a playoff team next year. God, I can’t wait.
5. Kristaps Porzingis, PF/C, New York Knicks (3 years, $14.5 million), 21
If you are reading about the NBA on a little-read blog, you have watched Kristaps Porzingis play basketball. Multiple times, probably. So why waste the time of readers who already know this man’s appeal? Porzingis can already do the following things:
Be 7’3″ and hit 81 threes in his rookie season
Hold the best On/Off rating of any player on his team not named Carmelo Anthony (+5.2 v. Melo’s +5.4)
Have the 5th best Block% in the NBA (5.0%)
Average nearly two blocks per game
And when his body fills out, he will be able to do even more: draw fouls seemingly every other possession, hit threes with average regularity (I anticipate a career 3P% of around 35-36%), and get even more offensive rebounds. Instantly one of the most valuable players in the entire league after one year of basketball.
It’s very difficult to put into words how Giannis makes the devoted NBA fan feel when he’s playing well: excited, jubilant, overjoyed, in awe, afraid. I can’t think of any recent player who could reasonably be described as a 6’11” point guard, unless you want to call Kevin Durant that. No one’s physical abilities are more astounding than Giannis right now. There isn’t a player I enjoy watching more when he’s playing well. And yet…he still can’t hit threes (25.7% in 2015-16), he struggles with fouls (3.3 per 36 minutes), and his free throw rate has dropped steadily since his rookie year (though it’s still high at 40.4%). In reverse: his PER has jumped from 10.8 to 18.8 from 2014 to now, he’s the best defender and best offensive player on his team, he was the only reason to watch the Bucks last year, he’s already a top-30ish player by almost any metric you choose, and he’ll be 21 until December. The only reason he’s stuck here at fourth is because the next three players are truly that impressive.
3. Nikola Jokic, C, Denver Nuggets (3 years, $4.2 million), 21
This dude is amazing. There isn’t a better passing frontcourt player in the game already. I’m able to say this after year one because he’s backed it up already – this video will tell you more. (Nick Sciria also did a great thread on Jokic recently.) He has the best contract value of anyone on this list, being worth nearly $217 million over the next five years while earning just $4.2 million. I’m not sure how, but everyone just kind of collectively missed on this kid except for Denver, and they are forever better off for it. He was already the second-best rookie in a strong upper tier behind Karl-Anthony Towns last year; Porzingis just got the better media coverage for very obvious reasons. Also, there’s weirdly several reasons to watch the Nuggets now: Jokic, Emmanuel Mudiay developing, Gary Harris, Will Barton, an interesting coach in Mike Malone. I nearly forgot: pretty good TV guys as well.
This dude is even more amazing. He’ll be one of the five best players in the league (if not three) by the end of the decade if not before. I can’t believe Minnesota has all these assets.
1. Anthony Davis, PF/C, New Orleans Pelicans (5 years, $119.5 million), 23
A few notes on Anthony Davis: it is not Anthony Davis’s fault that he now officially has the most incompetent management in all of basketball. It is not Anthony Davis’s fault that he is on a roster with zero other quality NBA players. It is even less of his fault that he is required to score 30 points and bag 15 rebounds in order for the Pelicans to beat a team on the fringe of the playoffs. It is even less of his fault that 40 and 20 is required to beat a contender, and even that doesn’t work sometimes. This is the biggest waste of superstar talent since Tracy McGrady in early-2000s Orlando, and possibly since Kevin Garnett in Minnesota, and even more possibly since LeBron James in Cleveland the first time around. They are actively hindering Davis’s development by putting him on a 76ers-level roster. What’s amazing is I still think Davis can drag a healthy 76ers roster to the playoffs. He’s that amazing, and if he gets back on track after a disappointing 2015-16, he’ll be the best player in the world by 2019. Anything less would be a crime to his talents.
Thanks for reading – if you have any further suggestions for lists or articles I can write up, leave them in the comments.
As a note up front, this is entirely unscientific and was only done for me to get an early cut at what I think might happen in the NBA this winter. I love this sport and am grateful for the predictive metrics that have come to the forefront over the last few years. One of these – though an extremely imperfect science and tool – is 538’s CARMELO ratings.
I’m intrigued by these because they seem to be one of the few freely-available tools to measure a player’s future performance that essentially everyone with some form of basketball knowledge can understand. They’re far from perfect and I much prefer Nathan Walker (@bbstats) and @NBAcouchside‘s RAPM/RPM/BPM work on Twitter and other sites, but this is what someone who isn’t that great at Excel can develop. (Not much.)
Anyway, I wanted a rational first look at what the NBA standings might look like next fall. I did this in a quick amount of time and am looking forward to better versions of this, but some of the results were interesting enough that I thought writing them out may help. I took the probable starting lineups for each team, used their projected RPM from 538, and measured out who has the best five players. This is imperfect for the following reasons:
This is no way measures team depth;
The projections are very imperfect, as they only really measure box-score stats and not player tracking or movement;
There are no projections for international players like Dragan Bender;
All but three lineups were projected in positive plus-minus. This seems odd to me and the Basketball-Reference Lineup Tool is down at the moment to confirm or deny my suspicions.
But:
This gives a reasonable expectation for each team’s somewhat-likely starting lineup;
All the answers that I came up with made a lot of sense, surprisingly;
I had little else to do on a Thursday, and college football doesn’t start for nearly two months.
So, without further waste of words, here’s the Eastern Conference by projected starting lineup RPM. This is a first cut, and actual win projections won’t come for some time, but I’ll see what I can do.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Cleveland (13.4)
Boston (8.1)
Toronto (7.9)
Charlotte (7.2)
Chicago (5.5)
Washington (5.1)
Detroit (3.8)
New York (3.3)
Atlanta (3.1)
Orlando (2.9)
Miami (2.7)
Indiana (2.1)
Milwaukee (2)
Philadelphia (-2.6)
Brooklyn (-5.5)
This confirmed my general thoughts about the Eastern Conference: there is a clear #1 and a clear bottom two, though I was surprised at how much worse Brooklyn’s lineup was than Philly’s. (CARMELO is hanging a lot on Ben Simmons developing quickly, which I’m questionable of.) The obvious shockers are Chicago and their embarrassing offseason rolling in as the #5 seed and Washington’s very weird roster at #6. These are hard to defend, but then again I would’ve told you last year that the Pelicans seemed like a lock for the #6 seed or higher and Dallas had little chance of a playoff bid. Who knows?
I’m also surprised at how close Charlotte is to the Boston/Toronto race for #2, though they have a very solid roster with good players nearly all around. Plus, getting rid of Jeremy Lin was a mild upgrade, actually. There’s something perfect about this for the East – just four teams seem like safe playoff picks.
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Golden State (22.8)
San Antonio (12.4)
Los Angeles Clippers (11.8)
Utah (11)
Oklahoma City (8.8)
Houston (7.4)
Portland (6.4)
Minnesota (4.8)
New Orleans (4.6)
Memphis (4.3)
Dallas (3.4)
Denver (3.4)
Sacramento (1.7)
Phoenix (0.9)
Los Angeles Lakers (-3.9)
This was much less surprising. Golden State reigns supreme; San Antonio and the Clippers will fight it out for #2 depending on health of each individual roster; Utah is a playoff lock even though the rapid rise to #4 is a little unusual; Oklahoma City’s roster is still good; Houston can’t possibly be worse than last year; Portland faces an uphill climb but still has the third-best coach in the conference and the second-best backcourt. What fascinates me is the potential five-team race for one spot – the #8 seed. I had Minnesota barely beating out New Orleans (a ton hinges on Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine), but all five teams had good cases: New Orleans can’t possibly have that many injuries again, Memphis added Chandler Parsons, Dallas has Rick Carlisle, and Denver’s roster appears to be on the rise.
gyrateplus: the website 