RealGM

That time of year again...

At least this is a "playoff" predictor, not a "lottery" predictor

So the assumptions are as usual:
- There are 3 buckets of teams - Great, Good, Bad
- Great teams always win, Bad teams always lose, and Good teams only win at home

So my first pass this year, and rather shocking results for the last few playoff spots in the East. The predictions 2/20/2019:

# Team (Predicted W-L) (Remaining W-L)
6. Brooklyn (38-44) (8-15)
6. Orlando (38-44) (11-12)
8. Detroit (37-45) (11-15)
9. Charlotte (36-46) (9-16)
9. Miami (36-46) (10-16)

Go Pistons! Looking pretty good! (Note - I did update this post once after I fixed a little bug).

I sure hope we don't throw away a couple of those SeGaBaBas against 'weaker' teams.

The last thing we need are losses like that, including suicide-inducing upsets against teams that, for all intents and purposes, are already tanking.

I guess one last thing - I should post the team ratings that were applied this year. A little tough because there were smooth transitions between the groups. And also, I had to consider all these East teams I analyzed as good

Atlanta Bad
Boston Great
Brooklyn Good
Charlotte Good
Chicago Bad
Cleveland Bad
Dallas Good
Denver Great
Detroit Good
Golden State Great
Houston Great
Indiana Great
LA Clippers Good
LA Lakers Good
Memphis Bad
Miami Good
Milwaukee Great
Minnesota Good
New Orleans Good
NY Knicks Bad
Oklahoma City Great
Orlando Good
Philadelphia Great
Phoenix Bad
Portland Great
Sacramento Good
San Antonio Good
Toronto Great
Utah Great
Washington Bad

oops, found a flaw - I didn't copy/paste new formulas to some of the games. update coming....

Uhm, what's the final outlook if you reclassified the Pistons as...
:
:
:
...a 'bad' team? Purely hypothetical, of course.

Ok, all fixed and we're still in the playoffs So is Orlando? Wow. This is going to be a close race

If we win the games we should win then we’ll finish 14-12

Detroit's path to playoff glory...

Fri, Feb 22 at Atlanta Win 27 30
Sat, Feb 23 at Miami Loss 27 31
Mon, Feb 25 vs Indiana Loss 27 32
Wed, Feb 27 at San Antonio Loss 27 33
Fri, Mar 1 at Cleveland Win 28 33
Sun, Mar 3 vs Toronto Loss 28 34
Wed, Mar 6 vs Minnesota Win 29 34
Fri, Mar 8 at Chicago Win 30 34
Sat, Mar 9 vs Chicago Win 31 34
Mon, Mar 11 at Brooklyn Loss 31 35
Fri, Mar 15 at Miami Loss 31 36
Sun, Mar 17 vs Los Angeles Win 32 36
Tue, Mar 19 vs Toronto Loss 32 37
Thu, Mar 21 at Cleveland Win 33 37
Sat, Mar 23 at Phoenix Win 34 37
Sun, Mar 24 at Portland Loss 34 38
Tue, Mar 26 at Golden State Loss 34 39
Fri, Mar 29 at Denver Loss 34 40
Sun, Mar 31 vs Orlando Win 35 40
Mon, Apr 1 vs Portland Loss 35 41
Wed, Apr 3 at Indiana Loss 35 42
Fri, Apr 5 vs Indiana Loss 35 43
Sun, Apr 7 at Oklahoma City Loss 35 44
Tue, Apr 9 vs Charlotte Win 36 44
Wed, Apr 10 vs Memphis Win 37 44
Wed, Apr 10 at New York Loss 37 45

Making the playoffs at 37 wins makes me sad. I’d like to at least hit 40.

I see an easy 3 more wins.
-Indy not as good without Oladipo and we play them 3 times. Should be able to grab 1.
-Miami we play twice. 1st is a b2b this Saturday so a loss probably but 2nd time is with 4 days rest. Win likely
-Knicks. Win likely

Plus there's Brooklyn and 2 games vs Portland where we have a good shot

I predict 41-41

We’ll likely land anywhere between 7-10. Given that we have our pick this year, it doesn’t seem like the stakes are high to make the playoffs, but I’d prefer to make it in as opposed to a late lottery pick. I think a monster game from Blake is good enough to steal a playoff game, which could go a long way in helping this team establish a winning culture. That’s a nice way to end the season for a team that likely won’t even finish above .500.

theBigLip wrote:Detroit's path to playoff glory...

Fri, Feb 22 at Atlanta Win 27 30
Sat, Feb 23 at Miami Loss 27 31
Mon, Feb 25 vs Indiana Loss 27 32
...

So far, we're ahead of this projection by two games. Despite this stretch of good play going back to pre-ASB, it's prudent to assume we could still drop a game or two against bad teams on our bad days. But I'm hoping we'll have stolen enough wins like this against good/great teams to still finish the regular season at .500 or above, and carry loads of momentum & confidence into the playoffs.

After handling the Pacers, the next one against the Spurs should be another good test.

_Und3r][D4wg_ wrote:

theBigLip wrote:Detroit's path to playoff glory...

Fri, Feb 22 at Atlanta Win 27 30
Sat, Feb 23 at Miami Loss 27 31
Mon, Feb 25 vs Indiana Loss 27 32
...

So far, we're ahead of this projection by two games. Despite this stretch of good play going back to pre-ASB, it's prudent to assume we could still drop a game or two against bad teams on our bad days. But I'm hoping we'll have stolen enough wins like this against good/great teams to still finish the regular season at .500 or above, and carry loads of momentum & confidence into the playoffs.

After handling the Pacers, the next one against the Spurs should be another good test.

I think we'll lose because they're desperate and at home. That's fine as long as we win against Cleveland. Toronto is next after that.

A serie against Toronto would be entertaining.

Projection now up to 39 wins, and that’s assuming we still lose all the games we’re projected to lose, which we haven’t done.

I just want it not to be a losing season. Call that irrational if you want.

vege wrote:A serie against Toronto would be entertaining.

They would probably overrun our crowd in the playoffs giving them a home court comfort the whole time

MotownMadness wrote:

vege wrote:A serie against Toronto would be entertaining.

They would probably overrun our crowd in the playoffs giving them a home court comfort the whole time

For sure. I’d still rather them than Milwaukee though.

Philly would be interesting because of the Dre/Embiid dynamic.... also them having Tobias.
Toronto would be interesting because of the Casey/Toronto history.
Milwaukee has firmly established themselves as the best team in the east. Blake/Giannis battle would be great and we have Thon.
Indy is obviously the clear cut worst top 4 team with who they've lost but Matthews will be solid and they play well together as a unit, winning 8 of their last 9 before we beat them last night is impressive.

I still think we finish 41-41 and end up in that 6th seed as long as our shooting doesn't go cold and we don't have any more injury issues down the stretch.

If we got Indy in the first round then Pistons better be happy as ****. They are on our level now after injuries and it would feel like the goin to work gritty rivalry in the playoffs to really start bringing in some fans.

Pistons string together some wins and we're looking a little better

Team (Predicted W-L) (Remaining W-L)
6. Detroit (40-42) (11-12)
7. Brooklyn (39-43) (7-13)
7. Orlando (39-43) (11-10)
9. Charlotte (35-47) (7-15)
9. Miami (35-47) (9-14)