Predict the Wizards record in 2010-2011

[Nivek]

Did you see what Griffin did in preseason? He was spectacular, which is why he's getting some buzz. Wall was good in preseason, but Griffin was better.

Oden isn't a rookie. If Griffin gets hurt again, he won't win the award.

[AceDegenerate]

Precisely. It was Pre-Season and there is a VERY good chance he is injured again. I suppose we'll wait and see.

[Dat2U]

I find myself wavering a bit on my optimism. My concerns are two fold.

1. The ability of our two key vets to stay healthy.

Alot will depend on Howard & Arenas and right now I'm skeptical of both. If I had to estimate the number of games Gil will play this year, right now I'd say that I would be pleasantly surprised if he played 50 games or more. Gil's health legitimately scares me. Much more than any questions about his mindset, work ethic or ability to adapt to his role.

The same goes with Howard. The only difference with him is that I've been skeptical all along. Guys with a torn ACL just don't return at 100% months later and immediately play at the level they were at before injury. And Howard's ability to stay healthy, toughness & attitude has been in question for years. His play had already been in decline before the injury. Again, if he played more than 50 games and was relatively effective I'd be very happy.

This leads into my second concern.

2. Our absolutely horrific bench. To take a page from Arturo Galetti & the folks at WoW, we don't have the worst team of all time but we very well might have the worst bench of all time.

We have 6 legitimate NBA players on our roster. One has never played an NBA game (Wall). Two can't stay healthy (Arenas & Howard) and two more have shown to be incredibly immature & lack consistency (McGee & Blatche). But along with Hinrich, I do believe these six players are very talented and can match up well with many other teams in the league. That was the reason for my optimism in the first place.

However after these six, there's a dramatic drop-off in effectiveness, efficiency & b-ball IQ. Nick & Al are athletic brain dead gunners. Yi seems almost Kwame like in his lack of emotional fortitude. Dude is soft as Jello. All three of these guys have NBA talent but have a history of helping their team lose more than win. The best case scenario would be not playing them at all but unfortunately these guys are likely rotation guys and spot starters. Yikes!

Our deep bench is filled with have nots, fringe NBDL types & guys not ready for prime time. Armstrong just plain stinks. Hudson & Martin are hard working, limited players who are probably best suited to push the kids in practice, not play meaningful minutes in games. Booker probably doesn't have an NBA position. N'Diaye & Seraphin are years away from contributing anything. It's pretty damn ugly.

I'm revising my prediction downward significantly for these two reasons. I've taken off my rose-colored glasses for now. Put me down for 25 wins.

[LyricalRico]

Looked at the team again, and I'm now up to 33 wins. But I don't see myself going any higher than that.

Like Dat, I also have concerns about the bench. It's not as bad as the Arvis, Ruffin, and broken down AD bench of a couple seasons ago. But I do see the current bunch of reserves going through scoring droughts while the starters sit. Longterm, I like Ernie's young players to pan out. But I'm not optimistic about this season.

[Benjammin]

I find myself wavering a bit on my optimism. My concerns are two fold.

1. The ability of our two key vets to stay healthy.

Alot will depend on Howard & Arenas and right now I'm skeptical of both. If I had to estimate the number of games Gil will play this year, right now I'd say that I would be pleasantly surprised if he played 50 games or more. Gil's health legitimately scares me. Much more than any questions about his mindset, work ethic or ability to adapt to his role.

The same goes with Howard. The only difference with him is that I've been skeptical all along. Guys with a torn ACL just don't return at 100% months later and immediately play at the level they were at before injury. And Howard's ability to stay healthy, toughness & attitude has been in question for years. His play had already been in decline before the injury. Again, if he played more than 50 games and was relatively effective I'd be very happy.

This leads into my second concern.

2. Our absolutely horrific bench. To take a page from Arturo Galetti & the folks at WoW, we don't have the worst team of all time but we very well might have the worst bench of all time.

We have 6 legitimate NBA players on our roster. One has never played an NBA game (Wall). Two can't stay healthy (Arenas & Howard) and two more have shown to be incredibly immature & lack consistency (McGee & Blatche). But along with Hinrich, I do believe these six players are very talented and can match up well with many other teams in the league. That was the reason for my optimism in the first place.

However after these six, there's a dramatic drop-off in effectiveness, efficiency & b-ball IQ. Nick & Al are athletic brain dead gunners. Yi seems almost Kwame like in his lack of emotional fortitude. Dude is soft as Jello. All three of these guys have NBA talent but have a history of helping their team lose more than win. The best case scenario would be not playing them at all but unfortunately these guys are likely rotation guys and spot starters. Yikes!

Our deep bench is filled with have nots, fringe NBDL types & guys not ready for prime time. Armstrong just plain stinks. Hudson & Martin are hard working, limited players who are probably best suited to push the kids in practice, not play meaningful minutes in games. Booker probably doesn't have an NBA position. N'Diaye & Seraphin are years away from contributing anything. It's pretty damn ugly.

I'm revising my prediction downward significantly for these two reasons. I've taken off my rose-colored glasses for now. Put me down for 25 wins.

Wow Dat, you really took my post to heart. I mentioned being nervous about Gil's health and our crappy bench (as well as our likely anemic rebounding). Then you have the audacity to undercut my 30 win prediction by going to 25 from your previous 36. Just to spite you I should change my prediction to 24, but I won't as I can see this team winning 30 games.

[WizStorm]

Update...

50 wins: Pancakes
49 wins:
48 wins:
47 wins: JWizmentality
46 wins: Plotintelli, nuposse04
45 wins: Krizko Zero, dobrojim
44 wins: hands11
43 wins: Wizards2Lottery
42 wins: JonathanJoseph, GilArenas88, Joe_Wiz, Illuminaire
41 wins: WizStorm, Scabs304, 1974onWizFan, Tyrone Messby
40 wins: Ruzious, Pine, The Fax, Gil_Kills, sportsshooteral
39 wins: YiOF, Induveca, wizfan1984, miller31time, Rafael122
38 wins: DallasShalDune, CrankyTodd
37 wins: darealhibachi, zaRdsAndZeRos, CCJ, TheGreatWall, eitanr, montestewart, JAR69, bulletproof_32
36 wins: MJG, nate33, bgroban, jimij, wermolwermol777, Donkey McDonkerton
35 wins: AnotherFinn, REDardWIZskin, Zonkerbl, Severn Hoos, lupin
34 wins: KevinFCheng, dangermouse, sfam, tikunit, KiNgSbOi, BigA, Verbal8, long suffrin' boulez fan, AlohaWiz
33 wins: Hooplotta, Floydfan29, wiz99, Nigel Tufnel, fishercob, Halcyon, LyricalRico
32 wins: Gesa2, dandridge10, closg00
31 wins: Consiglieri81, doclinkin
30 wins: Pollinator, Benjammin
29 wins: noDinhibachi
28 wins: willbcocks
27 wins:
26 wins: fugop
25 wins: Dat2U
24 wins:
23 wins: Visigoth

And from the "experts"...
32.5 wins: Vegas odds for over/under bets

30.0 wins: Basketball Prospectus, Bradford Doolittle uses a different statistical prognostication method, which he used to simulate the upcoming season 10,000 times. In his system, the Wizards finish 28th on average with 30.0 wins. Doolittle predicts the Wizards as having a 1.0% chance of finishing .500, a 4.8% chance of making the playoffs and no chance of making the Finals or winning the title. In his 10,000 simulations, the Wizards' high in wins was 45, their low was 8.

23.1 wins: Kevin Pelton at Basketball Prospectus has updated season predictions based on his statistical projection system, which he calls SCHOENE. He plugs in the numbers and simulates the season 1,000 times. The average from those simulations says the Wizards will win 23.1 games and finish with the league's worst record. In those simulations, the Wizards and Clippers were the only teams to not make the playoffs even once.

13.3 wins: Wages of Wins system (via Arturo Galetti, here)

Jeff Sagarin has the Wizards at 27th in the league

[Benjammin]

Ok, with the news about Gil's continuing injury questions, are we going to see an avalanche of downward revisions to the win total?

[Nivek]

Now that I've sent in my season prediction for the blog, I'll release my prediction for the season. This number should be used for MASSIVE wagers. Bet your house, your car, your college fund, whatever spare change you can scrape up from the sidewalk.

- Significant problems on the defensive glass. Excellent on the offensive boards.
- Inefficient on offense (ranking no higher than 20th).
- Close to average on defense (ranking in the teens -- probably in the "just below average" area).

27 wins. No playoffs. BUT, by the end of the season, I think the Wizards will have two building blocks for the future: John Wall and Javale McGee.

[Nivek]

I'll update again when voting closes, but so far there have been 76 predictions. The board's average prediction is 36.4 wins.

[closg00]

Ok, with the news about Gil's continuing injury questions, are we going to see an avalanche of downward revisions to the win total?

Yes, I submitted 32 wins. I am waiting to see how-long he'll be out, I suspect it will be more than 2 games... it's always more games than what they initially estimate.

[Joe_Wiz]

Man, I knew I hadn't been following the Wizards as carefully the last year or so as usual, but I actually completely forgot about the existence of Al Thornton until I saw him mentioned in another thread. Wow, that's embarrassing.

That should probably add marginally to my win totals*, but my predictions were not exactly based on a sophisticated metric, and his presence would effect my realistic (and unofficial) prediction more than my optimistic official one, so I'll stand pat.

* It's not that I think he's that great, but he's one more serviceable solid player on a team with a lot of young or otherwise very much unproven players.

I guess Arenas being out for the 1st two games compensates. It's not that two games of Arenas = a season of Thornton, but if you combine the direct effect of those two games missed with what they imply about his season, the two things might be roughly comparable.

(If Thornton has an excellent season and proves me wrong, I will eat my words quite happily.)

[MJG]

I'm lowering my prediction to 30 wins. When I did 36 originally, that was hoping that everything would more or less go right. Well, I've lost confidence in that. Arenas is starting off the season on the wrong foot. None of the secondary rookies look like they belong in the main rotation. The veterans aren't bringing anything new or unexpected. Wall looks good, but not great. Ditto for Blatche. And so on. I still think 36 wins (or more) is possible, but actually predicting it takes more of a glass-half-full approach than I'm willing to put forth right now.

[greendale]

Put me down for 32 wins. (I really wanted 33 wins but there were too many other posters with that number and I didn't want to share the glory.)

I don't know if anyone else tried the same thing but I did a side-by-side comparison of the starting lineups for this team and the team a few years that won 44 or 45 wins. Without wasting your time with my analysis, I'll just say the comparison was not at all favorable to this year's squad. The comparison quickly dissuaded me from believing that they have any chance of breaking 40 wins.

[willbcocks]

Welcome to the 20's, you who had recent changes of heart.

The good news is that, barring injury, this should be the most fun 2# win season the league has seen in a long time, even with the likely Arenas headache. This team will probably have some dynamic moments, there are no washed up veterans, and we can dream about the future while watching a fast breaking present. Also, the defense might finally be watchable.

And we need a high pick. The team desperately needs more talent. Hopefully this year will net us an athletic swingman next year.

[no D in Hibachi]

I'm dipping my prediction a bit down to 27 in light of the Arenas snag. I think he'll be out for longer than 2 games. Then he'll need to be integrated back to the team and make the uninspired offensive play even less impressive.

[LyricalRico]

For those in the low 30's like me, I wouldn't be too quick to change your prediction. The first two games being against 50+ win playoff teams figured to be losses anyway, so it would make sense for a less than 100% Gil to take them off to make sure he's ready for the very winnable home opener. If it was the knee, I'd be more concerned. But everybody sprains an ankle at some point during the season, so I sort of already accounted for that in my prediction.

[Hoopalotta]

I find myself wavering a bit on my optimism.

(snip)

Put me down for 25 wins.

25 wins? I would suggest you might have gone a bit further with it than "wavering a bit in your optimism".

I'm tempted to swing downward, but I've had 33 wins since the roster was set, so I'll just assume that Gil's getting his troubles out of the way early.

27 wins. No playoffs. BUT, by the end of the season, I think the Wizards will have two building blocks for the future: John Wall and Javale McGee.

I like this, I think there's just a lot of positive elements lined up for Javale at this moment, so it's nice to see a sober prognosticator on board there.

And we need a high pick. The team desperately needs more talent. Hopefully this year will net us an athletic swingman next year.

Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that teams getting top picks this year might still miss out on difference making talent. The 2011 mock on DX looks extremely poor as is, and that's even without half those guys staying in school for the lockout.

[Scabs304]

Put me down for 32 wins. (I really wanted 33 wins but there were too many other posters with that number and I didn't want to share the glory.)

I don't know if anyone else tried the same thing but I did a side-by-side comparison of the starting lineups for this team and the team a few years that won 44 or 45 wins. Without wasting your time with my analysis, I'll just say the comparison was not at all favorable to this year's squad. The comparison quickly dissuaded me from believing that they have any chance of breaking 40 wins.

Nice to see you old man. I'm going to be happy when I win this.

[WizStorm]

Update...

50 wins: Pancakes
49 wins:
48 wins:
47 wins: JWizmentality
46 wins: Plotintelli, nuposse04
45 wins: Krizko Zero, dobrojim
44 wins: hands11
43 wins: Wizards2Lottery
42 wins: JonathanJoseph, GilArenas88, Joe_Wiz, Illuminaire
41 wins: WizStorm, Scabs304, 1974onWizFan, Tyrone Messby
40 wins: Ruzious, Pine, The Fax, Gil_Kills, sportsshooteral
39 wins: YiOF, Induveca, wizfan1984, miller31time, Rafael122
38 wins: DallasShalDune, CrankyTodd
37 wins: darealhibachi, zaRdsAndZeRos, CCJ, TheGreatWall, eitanr, montestewart, JAR69, bulletproof_32
36 wins: nate33, bgroban, jimij, wermolwermol777, Donkey McDonkerton
35 wins: AnotherFinn, REDardWIZskin, Zonkerbl, Severn Hoos, lupin
34 wins: KevinFCheng, dangermouse, sfam, tikunit, KiNgSbOi, BigA, Verbal8, long suffrin' boulez fan, AlohaWiz
33 wins: Hoopalotta, Floydfan29, wiz99, Nigel Tufnel, fishercob, Halcyon, LyricalRico
32 wins: Gesa2, dandridge10, closg00, greendale
31 wins: Consiglieri81, doclinkin
30 wins: Pollinator, Benjammin, MJG
29 wins:
28 wins: willbcocks
27 wins: Nivek, no D in Hibachi
26 wins: fugop
25 wins: Dat2U
24 wins:
23 wins: Visigoth

And from the "experts"...
32.5 wins: Vegas odds for over/under bets

30.0 wins: Basketball Prospectus, Bradford Doolittle uses a different statistical prognostication method, which he used to simulate the upcoming season 10,000 times. In his system, the Wizards finish 28th on average with 30.0 wins. Doolittle predicts the Wizards as having a 1.0% chance of finishing .500, a 4.8% chance of making the playoffs and no chance of making the Finals or winning the title. In his 10,000 simulations, the Wizards' high in wins was 45, their low was 8.

23.1 wins: Kevin Pelton at Basketball Prospectus has updated season predictions based on his statistical projection system, which he calls SCHOENE. He plugs in the numbers and simulates the season 1,000 times. The average from those simulations says the Wizards will win 23.1 games and finish with the league's worst record. In those simulations, the Wizards and Clippers were the only teams to not make the playoffs even once.

13.3 wins: Wages of Wins system (via Arturo Galetti, here)

Jeff Sagarin has the Wizards at 27th in the league

[nate33]

I'm going to wuss out and drop my prediction. I don't like this talk of Arenas' injury. It sounds like he's going to miss a lot of games. Drop my prediction of 36 wins down to 32 wins. I'm tempted to pick that opening at 29 wins but it's not in me to be that pessimistic.