DG88 wrote:YogurtProducer wrote:DG88 wrote:Both Blake and Nate were about 2 wins apart at 35 and 33. Which is right were they will probably finish. They're one injury away from collapsing, their bench is not good, they're not strong defensively and they still lack the level of shooting and shot creation to be a winning team.
33-35 wins feels like what the average would be if you played this season 100 times, but I have a feeling the deviations would look more like 23-45 wins almost entirely based on health.
If we don't see major injuries to our main guys playoffs dont seem out of question. If Barnes / IQ / Poeltl go down for 40 games we could be looking closer to 25.
The average winning percentage since the Play-In was adopted is 0.528 for an 8th seeded team in the East. Those teams either had a top 10 offense or a top 10 defense to secure a 0.500 or better record. Even if we are healthy, meaning our main starters miss roughly 10-13 games max, with all of the deficiencies on this team, you really think they have a 45 win upside? I can understand if we had better bench talent, Scottie and Quickley were certified All Star caliber players and we had the necessary shooting to boot. But as currently constructed I don't see it.
100% we have 45 win upside. Barnes takes an all-nba leap, IQ takes an all-star leap and we are well on our way (I understand it is unlikely one, let alone both happen).
Also - I find our bench is being unfairly **** on right now. In the new NBA with the cap rules our bench is really not significantly different from a lot of teams, including playoff contenders. It is far from an elite bench, but it is also much better than what we had in the last 2 seasons as well in which we were near the worst in the league.
Look at Sacramento who won 46 games. I am not seeing a huge talent discrepancy between what our team is and what their team was last year. Assuming a Barnes leap, they don't have any higher level players, they did not have a deep bench at all (Davion was 8th in minutes played total there as well), etc. What they did have was buy-in and a system that worked. If we come into the year and we have something just "work" (either offence or defence), we could take that jump. Unlikely? Yes. But it certainly is an outcome you can squeeze you eyes and see
Edit: and also, not every team .500 or better had a top 10 offense or defence. LAL was 47-35 with the 15th O and 17th D. LAC was 17th on both sides year prior. I think you looked just solely at 8 seeds, but that is SSS galore.