Winner: Caliban! Vegas Team Win Lines (Prediction time!) 2016 Version and Contest! (Entries Locked)

[HartfordWhalers]

Edited to just give picks....also I didn't end up with the over for Houston at all.


Modified from the reviews a bit.


A few more unders for me are probably Orlando and Chicago.

Code: Select all

Golden State   67
San Antonio   58
Cleveland   60
LA Clippers   53
Boston   50
Toronto   52
Utah   47
Portland   44
OKC   46
Detroit   45
Atlanta   45
Memphis   49
Indiana   47
Washington   40
Houston   41
Minnesota   36
Charlotte   46
Dallas   41
Milwaukee   40
Chicago   37
NYK   36
Miami   35
Orlando   34
New Orleans   37
Denver   36
Sacramento   33
Philly   25
Phoenix   34
Lakers   21
Brooklyn   21


[/quote]


I have you at 1256 wins.

[Trader_Joe]

OVER:
Bulls
Hawks
Grizz

UNDER:
Wolves
Heat
Sixers

[winter_mute_13]

(You might want to check that your win totals sum to 1230)
Entries so far

Those Vegas totals exceed 1230 too

Guess they're concerned less about accuracy, than about making money. Interesting implication: the betting public is biased towards higher win predictions than reality. But I guess this isn't news - we see this all the time when people make predictions here .

[bondom34]

Modified from the reviews a bit.


A few more unders for me are probably Orlando and Chicago.

Code: Select all

Golden State   66
San Antonio   55
Cleveland   57
LA Clippers   53
Boston   50
Toronto   52
Utah   47
Portland   44
OKC   46
Detroit   45
Atlanta   45
Memphis   47
Indiana   45
Washington   39
Houston   41
Minnesota   36
Charlotte   46
Dallas   39
Milwaukee   40
Chicago   35
NYK   33
Miami   34
Orlando   33
New Orleans   37
Denver   35
Sacramento   33
Philly   25
Phoenix   32
Lakers   20
Brooklyn   18

[HartfordWhalers]

(You might want to check that your win totals sum to 1230)
Entries so far

Those Vegas totals exceed 1230 too

Guess they're concerned less about accuracy, than about making money. Interesting implication: the betting public is biased towards higher win predictions than reality. But I guess this isn't news - we see this all the time when people make predictions here .

Wrote this elsewhere:

The Vegas lines add up to 1246 wins, so 16 more wins than will mathematically happen. However, there is a logic to this as they are trying to get the totals that each event has a 50-50 over or under (or betters think so). Or they are trying to predict the median and not the mean result for each team. The gap between the two often happens with injuries as some team in the league suffers injuries that drag its win total down 10-15 games each year, but that is a low probably event for each team.

[KqWIN]

(You might want to check that your win totals sum to 1230)
Entries so far

Those Vegas totals exceed 1230 too

Guess they're concerned less about accuracy, than about making money. Interesting implication: the betting public is biased towards higher win predictions than reality. But I guess this isn't news - we see this all the time when people make predictions here .

Wrote this elsewhere:

The Vegas lines add up to 1246 wins, so 16 more wins than will mathematically happen. However, there is a logic to this as they are trying to get the totals that each event has a 50-50 over or under (or betters think so). Or they are trying to predict the median and not the mean result for each team. The gap between the two often happens with injuries as some team in the league suffers injuries that drag its win total down 10-15 games each year, but that is a low probably event for each team.

If you take out the half wins, the average amount of wins is very close to 41 IIRC. That said, I'm not sure that predicting 1230 total wins is necessarily the most accurate way to do things from my knowledge of how these models work. Catastrophic events have low probability for each team, but they will almost certainly happen to someone. I wonder if it's more accurate to lower everyone's projections to account for these events or ignore it and accept that some of the projections will be far off. Projections based only off net ratings almost always overshoot, but I think most people use a markov process to get back to 1230.

[Mystical Apples]

My confidence level drops sharply after 1-2 teams so I expanded the list according to how I'd bet. I'm also banking on circumstantial roster changes for teams I'd otherwise stay away from. For example Miami (Bosh) and Brooklyn (absorbing a contract + low baseline) each have an additional path to win games. Conversely, Detroit has limited means to improve upon their already high 45.5 O/U.

Most to least confident:

Over
1. Houston
2. Charlotte
3. Brooklyn
4. Golden State
5. Sacramento
6. Miami

Under
1. Minnesota
2. Memphis
3. Detroit
4. Portland
5. Indiana
6. Cleveland
7. Philly

[jayjaysee]

Those Vegas totals exceed 1230 too

Guess they're concerned less about accuracy, than about making money. Interesting implication: the betting public is biased towards higher win predictions than reality. But I guess this isn't news - we see this all the time when people make predictions here .

Wrote this elsewhere:

The Vegas lines add up to 1246 wins, so 16 more wins than will mathematically happen. However, there is a logic to this as they are trying to get the totals that each event has a 50-50 over or under (or betters think so). Or they are trying to predict the median and not the mean result for each team. The gap between the two often happens with injuries as some team in the league suffers injuries that drag its win total down 10-15 games each year, but that is a low probably event for each team.

If you take out the half wins, the average amount of wins is very close to 41 IIRC. That said, I'm not sure that predicting 1230 total wins is necessarily the most accurate way to do things from my knowledge of how these models work. Catastrophic events have low probability for each team, but they will almost certainly happen to someone. I wonder if it's more accurate to lower everyone's projections to account for these events or ignore it and accept that some of the projections will be far off. Projections based only off net ratings almost always overshoot, but I think most people use a markov process to get back to 1230.

I think we don't take this that seriously.

If I'm within 2-3 games of 15 teams - I'll be impressed.

And if I'm off by 20 games because Paul George got hurt or because the Nuggets traded for Blake.. I better get an asterisk.

And yes, I was at 1248 wins after about 2 minutes and had to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out which teams I was too nice to.

[Kings2013]

You might be a homer if the baseline prediction for your team is 1.2x the line, lol.

Under - Warriors, Spurs, Timberwolves

Over - Cavs, Magic, Knicks

[damecurry]

Advanced Version:
Too Low Golden State; Denver Nuggets; Charlotte Hornets
Too High New York Knicks; Houston Rockets; LA Clippers


Golden State Warriors 66.5 - Over, I see another 70 win season
San Antonio Spurs 56.5 - Under, but close, 55ish
Los Angeles Clippers 53.5 - Under, very low on them and blake, 50 wins.
Utah Jazz 47.5 - Over, but close
Portland Trail Blazers 46.5 - Over, but close
Oklahoma City Thunder 45.5 - Under
Memphis Grizzlies 43.5 - Too close to call, they'll be over if healthy under if not, no idea how their health will work.
(tied 8th/9th) Houston Rockets 41.5 - Wayyy under, won't be close to .500 or a playoff team
(tied 8th/9th) Minnesota Timberwolves 41.5 - Too close to call, this is spot on imo.
---------------------------
Dallas Mavericks 39.5 - Too close to call, see wolves
New Orleans Pelicans 36.5 - Over, but close
Denver Nuggets 34.5 - Over, by a lot, switch them with houston
Sacramento Kings 32.5 - Over
Phoenix Suns 26.5 - Over
Los Angeles Lakers 24.5 - Under


Cleveland Cavaliers 56.5 - Over, but close
Boston Celtics 51.5 - Under, but close
Toronto Raptors 49.5 - Over, but close, they and boston might tie with 50 each and have to go down to a tiebreaker.
Detroit Pistons 45.5 - Too close to call
Atlanta Hawks 43.5 - Under, slightly
Indiana Pacers 43.5 - Under, below .500 probably
Washington Wizards 42.5 - Too close to call
(tied 8th/9th) Charlotte Hornets 39.5 - Over, more of a 45 win team imo.
(tied 8th/9th) Milwaukee Bucks 39.5 - Over, but I'm always high on the bucks.
-------------------------
Chicago Bulls 38.5 - Under, they have more talent than this but the tire-fire fit will doom them
New York Knicks 38.5 - Wayy under, kinda the same with chicago but less talent.
Miami Heat 36.5 - Too close to call, depends on Bosh who's a crapshoot
Orlando Magic 36.5 - Under, again terrible fitting roster hurts them.
Philadelphia 76ers 27.5 - Under, a little ambitious considering how young they still will be.
Brooklyn Nets 20.5 - Too close to call, this seems right.

[caliban]

3 best Over/3 best Under

All teams later. Hopefully there's no more severe injuries before start of season

[HartfordWhalers]

Read on Twitter

[Golabki]

Over -
Houston - top 5 offense + mediocre D easily gets the over
Charlotte - Lost MKG and beat this last year

Under -
Minny - I love Thibs, but I'm not convinced this team is ready to be 500
Portland - Everything went right last year, and I think Turner makes them worse
Bucks - I don't think "point Giannis" is there yet
Philly - I think this is a REALLY REALLY bad team still

[HartfordWhalers]

I didn't want to change all my numbers because of Middleton (laziness), but Bucks camp quotes might push me over the edge to change them.

MCW and Monroe might be off the bench.
Vaughn(!?) might start.

[caliban]

I can talk myself into liking MCW against 6th men not used to going against a decent defender and Monroe against lesser bench bigs providing an offensive hub to a back up unit in need of such. Off course that doesn't mean that they have a starter of sufficient quality at the C spot. And yes, not having even a replacement level player to fill in for Middleton's minutes is a real sinker unfortunately. Let's hope for Bucks fans sake that Vaughn takes a G. Harris sophomore kind of leap from no where.

[Golabki]

I can talk myself into liking MCW against 6th men not used to going against a decent defender and Monroe against lesser bench bigs providing an offensive hub to a back up unit in need of such. Off course that doesn't mean that they have a starter of sufficient quality at the C spot. And yes, not having even a replacement level player to fill in for Middleton's minutes is a real sinker unfortunately. Let's hope for Bucks fans sake that Vaughn takes a G. Harris sophomore kind of leap from no where.

I would take the under for the Bucks even if they had MIddleton. Offensively they've been consistently bad for years and I don't trust anyone to create efficient shots, including Ginnis. I also don't trust them to be able to keep 3 real 3pt shooters on the floor at all times (again, even with Middleton), which is the bare minimum of spacing you need to run an effective offense IMO.

Defensively I think they don't have a good anchor at center, they have Parker/Tele playing bad D for lots of minutes at forward. I just don't see it being good.

[caliban]

Spoiler:

I can talk myself into liking MCW against 6th men not used to going against a decent defender and Monroe against lesser bench bigs providing an offensive hub to a back up unit in need of such. Off course that doesn't mean that they have a starter of sufficient quality at the C spot. And yes, not having even a replacement level player to fill in for Middleton's minutes is a real sinker unfortunately. Let's hope for Bucks fans sake that Vaughn takes a G. Harris sophomore kind of leap from no where.

I would take the under for the Bucks even if they had MIddleton. Offensively they've been consistently bad for years and I don't trust anyone to create efficient shots, including Ginnis. I also don't trust them to be able to keep 3 real 3pt shooters on the floor at all times (again, even with Middleton), which is the bare minimum of spacing you need to run an effective offense IMO.

Defensively I think they don't have a good anchor at center, they have Parker/Tele playing bad D for lots of minutes at forward. I just don't see it being good.

Excellent points and I don't have much to add, their shooting was just horrific last year. I also had them under at the opening line although just slight before the injury.

[HartfordWhalers]

Spoiler:

I can talk myself into liking MCW against 6th men not used to going against a decent defender and Monroe against lesser bench bigs providing an offensive hub to a back up unit in need of such. Off course that doesn't mean that they have a starter of sufficient quality at the C spot. And yes, not having even a replacement level player to fill in for Middleton's minutes is a real sinker unfortunately. Let's hope for Bucks fans sake that Vaughn takes a G. Harris sophomore kind of leap from no where.

I would take the under for the Bucks even if they had MIddleton. Offensively they've been consistently bad for years and I don't trust anyone to create efficient shots, including Ginnis. I also don't trust them to be able to keep 3 real 3pt shooters on the floor at all times (again, even with Middleton), which is the bare minimum of spacing you need to run an effective offense IMO.

Defensively I think they don't have a good anchor at center, they have Parker/Tele playing bad D for lots of minutes at forward. I just don't see it being good.

Excellent points and I don't have much to add, their shooting was just horrific last year. I also had them under at the opening line although just slight before the injury.

I had them well under before it.

Haven't seen if the Vegas lines have moved, but the Philly line that everyone identified as way too high originally is now online (elsewhere) back to 25.5 and even money at that.

[caliban]

I had them well under before it.

Haven't seen if the Vegas lines have moved, but the Philly line that everyone identified as way too high originally is now online (elsewhere) back to 25.5 and even money at that.

Haven't checked either but it should have. The shark's are fast if they think there's value somewhere.

Do you think the LAL pick will be considered in late season standings for PHI?

[Hawk Eye]

Advanced Version:

West:

Golden State: 66.5 (Over)
San Antonio: 56.5 (Under)
Los Angeles Clippers: 53.5 (Too close to call)
Utah: 47.5 (Under)
Portland: 46.5 (Under but it's close)
Oklahoma City: 45.5 (Too close to call)
Memphis: 43.5 (Over)
Houston: 41.5 (Under but it's close)
Minnesota: 41.5 (Under)
Dallas: 39.5 (Over)
New Orleans: 36.5 (Over)
Denver: 34.5 (Under)
Sacramento: 32.5 (Over but it's close)
Phoenix: 26.5 (Too close to call)
Los Angeles Lakers: 24.5 (Under)

East:

Cleveland: 56.5 (Under)
Boston: 51.5 (Under)
Toronto: 49.5 (Too close to call)
Detroit: 45.5 (Too close to call)
Atlanta: 43.5 (Over)
Indiana: 43.5 (Over)
Washington: 42.5 (Too close to call)
Charlotte: 39.5 (Over but it's close)
Milwaukee: 39.5 (Under, loss of Middleton is big)
Chicago: 38.5 (Under)
New York: 38.5 (Under)
Miami: 36.5 (Over but it's close)
Orlando: 36.5 (Over)
Philadelphia: 27.5 (Under)
Brooklyn: 20.5 (Over but it's close)