The Moose wrote:Snakebites wrote:The Moose wrote:
yeah I agree mid jan, we will be out of the top 8, but this team has a fairly easy schedule to end the season, softer than magic or nets schedule.
we are destined for that 8th seed, which is sad because they have flattened the odds significantly in the lottery
Yeah, color me skeptical still.
Our strength of schedule is still a little below average (yes, our first couple months were THAT easy), so the schedule after December isn't going to be crazy easy, and it's hard to imagine us playing as well as we did at the beginning of the season after what's going to shape out to be a pretty brutal 2 month stretch here. The momentum isn't exactly going to be going our way, and momentum matters. We won games early in the season that we wouldn't win now, and may very well not win later in the season.
Plus we're a bit worse than our record at this point too. Not drastically so, but measurably so. Our expected W-L based on offensive and defensive ratings has us out of the playoffs right now. Playoffs is a possibility, sure, but to say we're "destined" is stretching things to say the least.
We have the 10th easiest remaining schedule according to tankathon, while the Nets have the 7th hardest so its hard for me to see them there with us.
I think it will be between us and the Magic for the 8th spot. But I agree, the team morale might drop significantly and we might regress further as the season moves along. I'm still clinging to the slim hope we become sellers at the deadline, but at this point I'll take standing pat. Hearing us as buyers is very worrying
The schedule may lighten up but it would be pretty surprising for Blake and Jackson not to have some type of injury pop up that knocks one of them out for 10 games or whatever. Blake hasnt had a healthy year since 2013 so he would be really defying the odds staying healthy esp if Casey keeps running him out in garbage time like he did vs the pacers to prove a point. As much as we hate Jackson we've seen how bad it gets when hes out. If Blake misses any time this roster is bot 5 in the league, hell its like bottom 10 with him.
I'm also worried were going to be buying something to cement us in the playoffs. Reading this comment:
“We would definitely give up an asset,” Stefanski said. “(Pistons owner) Tom Gores would go into the luxury tax only — and I agree with this — if it would move the needle for us to be a team that would allow us to compete in the conference"
“If we’re asked to give up a big asset like a first-round pick to help the growth of the franchise, we would consider it. But that deal would have to be where we really felt the player coming back would move the needle. If we weren’t sure of that, to make a big commitment with assets, I think could really hurt us. We can’t make a deal to set the franchise back. We have to be very careful about that.”
I'm not going to be surprised to see us moving our 1st rounder and Kennard for some vet to move the needle into that coveted 8 seed of Gores. "Competing in the conference" to these guys could just mean making the playoffs in the east. The only assets he could be possibly talking about are Luke and 1st rounders.
