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If someone has the energy to pull up some of the "Season Prediction" threads, it would probably be an entertaining read. I'm sure I thought we would have to fight for the lower echelons of playoff seedings, if make them at all. But I'm pretty sure I would have placed Chicago, Washington and Milwaukee to be better than us at year's end.

Chicago's window seems to have passed, and with Rose's ravaged body, I don't think they are going to be elite again anytime soon, although Butler is certainly something to build around.

Washington probably needed PP more than they thought. And Beal needs to stay on the court for them. They just didn't seem to click this year.

Milwaukee - with the Greek Freak, Middleton, and the newly acquired Greg Monroe, things seem aligned for them to take the next step. Who knew it was going to be down Glad we didn't take him on with a huge contract.

All I can say is I'm glad we're in, and I hope that was my prediction at the beginning of the season

I can safely say I was completely wrong about my predictions without checking. I thought those three teams were definitely making the playoffs.

I think Chicago had a lot of bad luck with injuries. They need to make some small moves and they should be back to the playoffs again next year if everyone's healthy. The big question with them is Rose and Butlers fit. They both seem to excel when the other guy is off the court so they need to address that. Maybe move Rose to the bench or something?? I don't know, but they need to do something.

Washington has all the pieces on paper to be decent, but for whatever reason they couldn't get it done. I don't care enough to watch their games, so I'm happy they didn't make it.

Milwaukee was the one I really got wrong. I thought they would take some time to get it going, but eventually they'd be really good. It never happened. They have good young pieces, so they'll be ok. Maybe unload Moose to New York or something and start fresh next season.

I called The Bucks out all over on the GB when everyone predicting them as even a top 2 in the east. Got laughed at when I said I would not be shocked for them to miss the playoffs.

I've never been real impressed with Washington but still expected them to be in the playoffs but as a low seed. Their is just not special about that team separating them from most teams in the east besides the east always being weak until now.

Chicago though that was a shocker for sure. I thought their fans were overating them but damn.

Chicago had terrible luck with injuries. Bucks got burned by Monroe, bad fit and all. MCW isn't much of PG, and if anyone can find John Henson contact the Bucks. I always forget about the Wizards, so I can't really guess what happened. I'm guessing injuries and/or lack of depth. The only thing I ever notice, is that they seem to have a guy that makes me go " hes still in the NBA?" This year I know its Drew Gooden, thanks to google.

Chicago missing the playoffs surprised me, but I didn't expect them to be that great. I wasn't quite sure why they were projected to be so highly ranked when they lost a great coach and always have injury issues.

The Bucks missing the postseason didn't surprise me one bit. They were successful last year up until they traded Knight. They got some good talent but are flawed.

Washington shocked me. They had some injuries but I didn't expect them to miss the playoffs. I also didn't expect the Hornets to play as great as they did this season.

I didn't think Washington was going to make it as soon as Paul Pierce left the team. Pierce just took so many clutch shots for the team that it was easily predictable that they wouldn't make the Playoffs and it makes me mad people out there think they had a chance. Bucks isn't surprising either. Playing them in the preseason I saw the major issues they had spreading the floor and they looked like us last season with Josh Smith. Easy prediction. Chicago is the one I'm really surprised about but I think it's all the injuries on that team. In my opinion they need to bank as much buck as they can with all the veterans they have and just go all out rebuilding. I don't think they can do what Stan's office has done though. What Stan's done is actually incredible and it can't be matched in the league. I don't think any team out there built a team full of young prospects with full versatile potential in one offseason and two trade deadlines. Absolutely phenomenal work!

Bucks didn't surprise me. They saw development from Giannis and Jabari, though, so I'm sure they're feeling OK. Greg Monroe has likely gotten his last fat contract, because teams can't seem to win with him in there.

Noah going down wrecked Chicago's spirit. They actually got about as much as the could have expected out of Rose, and Butler was good when healthy, but their bigs let them down. Gasol is starting to show his age, particularly defensively, and Mirotic didn't take a step forward. Portis played like a rookie. McDermott has begun to carve out a role, but he's still a sieve. Snell is just a bad player.

As for Washington, I figured them to be battling for a low spot, and they did. They won 41 games, after all, which is only 5 less than last year, but in the new East that's a drop from 5th to 10th! They had the same record as the Rockets, who snuck into the 8th spot in the West. Whoever pays Beal a max is going to regret it, as he can't stay on the court. Wall was good, as usual, but they didn't get much of a step up from Porter, got nothing (as expected at this point) from Oubre, and play with a collection of "just OK" frontcourt guys.

One interesting point to note about the Pistons' progression... you don't see it in the win totals, which went 29-32-44, but we made just about equal strides each of the last two years in aggregate point differential. -3.7/game two years ago, before SVG, -1.0 last year, and +0.6 this year. Actually, that's bad math -- we made a BIGGER jump in point differential in SVG's first year (+2.6) than we did this year (+1.6). With some bench tuning and development, I'm hoping for another solid jump next year, up to about +3.0, which will hopefully push us close to 50 wins and a series with home court.

tmorgan wrote:One interesting point to note about the Pistons' progression... you don't see it in the win totals, which went 29-32-44, but we made just about equal strides each of the last two years in aggregate point differential. -3.7/game two years ago, before SVG, -1.0 last year, and +0.6 this year. Actually, that's bad math -- we made a BIGGER jump in point differential in SVG's first year (+2.6) than we did this year (+1.6). With some bench tuning and development, I'm hoping for another solid jump next year, up to about +3.0, which will hopefully push us close to 50 wins and a series with home court.

Sorry to thread jack, but I've had this thought about the "Pistons' progression" and am piggybacking tmorgan to share it!

Yes, we went from 32 wins to 44, an AMAZING 12 game improvement ... but that actually doesn't tell the true story at all. Disregard actual NBA seasons and carve SVG's tenure into "eras" —

ERA #1, WITH JOSH SMITH — 5-23: Clearly, we sucked on rocks.

ERA #2, POST JOSH SMITH, PRE TOBIAS HARRIS — 54-54: That's right, we were actually exactly a dead-on .500 team for the remainder of 2014/15 and then the first half of 2015/16 despite so many personnel moves.

ERA #3, WITH TOBIAS HARRIS — 17-11: That's almost a 61% winning percentage, or right on a 50 win pace.

So here's what I'm getting at — going into this season, most pundits looked at our 32-50 record and tagged us for somewhere in the 30's of wins, not realizing we were actually already a much better ball club than that and had been playing .500 ball down the stretch ... which is exactly how we continued the first half of THIS season, before we added Tobias and took another step up. Knock on wood, we'll repeat the pattern again next year; most will expect us to be in the 40's of wins, but really, much like last year's squad was already a .500 team, the Pistons squad that ended this year is already capable of a 50 win season (and can hopefully grow even better from there).

Bucks - They lost Knight which killed their ball movement and spacing overall. Adding Monroe and a recovering Jabari didn't help much. One bright spot is Giannis literally becoming the next Magic Johnson-lite. KMid is balling out as a sniper as always, which I always liked and will not forgive Dumars for since he is literally the most perfect player fit-wise for our team.

Washington - I remember someone saying Randy Wittman was a good coach. Clearly they never watched a WAS game as any WAS fan will tell you. That is just pedantic and only looking at their not so great record overall with him despite making the playoffs and the 2nd round. He's stuck in his old school ways which may have hindered the development of Beal and playstyle of Wall. It's too bad they didn't fire him before, because any other coach would've gotten more mileage out of that team even despite the injuries.

Bulls - Only bright spot is DRose looking better and starting to look into form as he gains confidence and conditioning for missing basically 3 seasons. Bulls seem 50/50 on trading Butler for a full rebuild. But they really need to utilize their assets for a mega trade or go on a full rebuild or both. They're going to be bounced out of the playoffs anyways by Lebron if they get back to form (lul).

I had hoped Bucks would make the playoffs and the Bulls certainly in the mix. Interesting way how things unfolded.

I don't remember many Piston fans (at least on the GB) thinking Milwaukee would make playoffs due to losing spacing and adding no D Moose to the mix. There were a couple of Bucks fans (DCE Bucks was one) that thought that too but they were looked down on by most of the rest of the Bucks posters

I expected a drop off in Chicago without Thibs (and their consistent injury issues) more than most but not quite as bad as they did.

Whittman blows as a coach and no PP so no big surprise there but I figured 7-8 spot or so for them. Indy and Charlotte were the 2 East teams that did better than I expected them to as I thought one of them might miss the Playoffs. Also expected Boston to be a little worse than they were this season but not by much as I think Stevens is a great coach.

DocRI wrote:

tmorgan wrote:One interesting point to note about the Pistons' progression... you don't see it in the win totals, which went 29-32-44, but we made just about equal strides each of the last two years in aggregate point differential. -3.7/game two years ago, before SVG, -1.0 last year, and +0.6 this year. Actually, that's bad math -- we made a BIGGER jump in point differential in SVG's first year (+2.6) than we did this year (+1.6). With some bench tuning and development, I'm hoping for another solid jump next year, up to about +3.0, which will hopefully push us close to 50 wins and a series with home court.

Sorry to thread jack, but I've had this thought about the "Pistons' progression" and am piggybacking tmorgan to share it!

Yes, we went from 32 wins to 44, an AMAZING 12 game improvement ... but that actually doesn't tell the true story at all. Disregard actual NBA seasons and carve SVG's tenure into "eras" —

ERA #1, WITH JOSH SMITH — 5-23: Clearly, we sucked on rocks.

ERA #2, POST JOSH SMITH, PRE TOBIAS HARRIS — 54-54: That's right, we were actually exactly a dead-on .500 team for the remainder of 2014/15 and then the first half of 2015/16 despite so many personnel moves.

ERA #3, WITH TOBIAS HARRIS — 17-11: That's almost a 61% winning percentage, or right on a 50 win pace.

So here's what I'm getting at — going into this season, most pundits looked at our 32-50 record and tagged us for somewhere in the 30's of wins, not realizing we were actually already a much better ball club than that and had been playing .500 ball down the stretch ... which is exactly how we continued the first half of THIS season, before we added Tobias and took another step up. Knock on wood, we'll repeat the pattern again next year; most will expect us to be in the 40's of wins, but really, much like last year's squad was already a .500 team, the Pistons squad that ended this year is already capable of a 50 win season (and can hopefully grow even better from there).

THIS!

"Small" moves over 18 months has us primed and we're flying under the radar.

SVG has already saved the sinking ship - now we're gonna find out how she sails

I remember making some pretty embarrassing projections with respect to the Bulls this year.

So foolish of me to assume they'd be healthy.

I thought the Bucks would make the playoffs but I was not buying the hype with Greg making them into a top team.
Had no clue Chicago would fall off a cliff.