Hollinger forecast: Raptors 22-60 (could be worst)

[dagger]

It's insider, but here's a summary

1. Raps biggest strength is shooting, biggest weakness is interior D.

2. Surprised Jay and BC still around. Says defence usually reflects level of motivation, and Jay's motivator skills on par with "Muzak"

3. Hardly mentions Weems, DeRozan

4. Still thinks Amir Johnson is making $34 million, ergo is overpaid.

5. Thinks Ed Davis overrated because his numbers didn't translate well in Hollinger's draft rater.

6. Had one bit of bad luck - opponent FT % was highest in league, full percentage point ahead of league average. Cost Raptors about 54 points.

7. Shame of last year's failure is that the Bosh-Bargnani offensive duo was really good. Offensive was good even though Turk bombed and DD got "inexplicable" amount of minutes.

8. Sees nothing special in Kleiza's translated Euroleague stats, says they are on par with what he did in Denver. So he's overpaid, too.

9. Says Raps may prefer to let Bosh TPE expire rather than eat into next season's cap space.

10. Liked Hedo trade, Anderson trade was benign, so was Marco for Wright.

11. Sees same strengths, weaknesses as last year.

12. Forecasts lots of lopsided losses. Without Bosh, offence will fall to around league average while defence will continue to be one of the worst.

His conclusion:

Add it all up and it should be a long, bitter winter in Toronto. Raps fans straining for good news will note that Toronto has more rebuilding pieces in place than most teams in this situation, as the roster is fairly young, there's cap space in the future and the draft will begin pushing it forward in coming seasons.

But for 2010-11? This is going to be ugly; in fact, Toronto may finish with the league's worst record. I'd be shocked if the Raptors so much as challenged for the playoffs, let alone qualified for them.

[darth_federer]

I really dont see us being that bad. We ll win 30 games for sure.

[D-Wins-RingsIMO]

there's more upside than downside on 22 wins ...... weird that he picked us for so few since when ppl do these prognostications the tendency is to push everything to the mean, either down or up.

did Hollinger state how he projects wins? If he uses something simplistic like regressing PER then i wouldn't waste my time with it

i'm thinking more like 27 wins myself.

[Macho]

We''ll win 30.

[Ripp]

I wish I'd not let insider lapse. Time to re-up, I guess

[dagger]

there's more upside than downside on 22 wins ...... weird that he picked us for so few since when ppl do these prognostications the tendency is to push everything to the mean, either down or up.

did Hollinger state how he projects wins? If he uses something simplistic like regressing PER then i wouldn't waste my time with it

i'm thinking more like 27 wins myself.

No, he's all stats until the end when he comes all gut instinct.

What his prediction implies is that the loss of Chris Bosh was worth 18 wins because he doesn't seem to give any credit for the possible improvement of young players, swapping out a failure like Hedo for Barbosa, adding Kleiza.

My inclination is like yours, closer to 30 wins.

[DG88]

25-27 is my prediction either way we're getting a high pick this year and we'll use it one Kyrie Irving

[Ripp]

did Hollinger state how he projects wins? If he uses something simplistic like regressing PER then i wouldn't waste my time with it.

Why do you say this? Assuming he does it in an intelligent way to account for usage shifting around, it might not be terrible.

[supersub15]

Apparently, defense will be the problem again:

Not breaking news here, but the Raptors are softer than chenille. The starting center shrinks from contact and spends most of the game camped out on the perimeter, while the starting power forward is 6-9, 210 pounds and about as strong as decaf.

Bargnani is the main problem, as at 7-0, 250 he should be a much more capable defender than he's shown. While he's had his moments as a shot-blocker and on-ball post defender, he's shown no inclination whatsoever to protect the basket or to help his teammates. The next time he uses his body to fight for position will be the first. The team's other 7-footer, meanwhile, is Andersen, one of the league's few players who is even more terrified of contact than Bargnani.

At power forward, Johnson gives a decent effort but simply can't compete strength-wise with NBA power forwards. The fact that his backup, Davis, has a similar build doesn't offer much encouragement for Toronto's ability to deal with muscular opponents inside.

For beef, the Raps can turn to Evans, but he offers a different conundrum -- while he's plenty physical and strong, he's no longer good enough to be part of an NBA rotation.

Finally, they'll get no help from the perimeter guys. With Toronto's other positions just as overmatched defensively as the frontcourt, the Raptors' bigs will spend most of their nights trying to stymie opposing drivers when they aren't getting their brains beat in by bigger post players. If they can't figure out how to make it work, they're likely to repeat as the league's worst defense.

[Pchu]

I have them at 25 wins. So 22 isn't that far off.

On the bright side, you will get a top 5 pick.

[dagger]

That's a pretty rich pickup from Hollinger. Have the rules changed? Can we now lift five consecutive paragraphs from an Insider article? How about six?

[DreamTeam09]

Yea 22 is a lil harsh. I high 20s to low 30s are the amount of wins we'll get this yr.

25-27 is my prediction either way we're getting a high pick this year and we'll use it one Kyrie Irving

p.s. If we are in a position to take pg or a sf do you still take Kyrie??

[dagger]

25-27 is my prediction either way we're getting a high pick this year and we'll use it one Kyrie Irving

I don;t know why people keep jerking off over a guard ranked 9th by DraftExpress. And Duke point guards often make poor pros.

Sorry, if we get a high pick, we have to go BPA. PERIOD!

[stopnpop]

I'm not comfortable with making a bold win prediction, but I think 22 is an insult. This roster has a core group that has great chemistry on and off the court and that is something stats guys can't account for. Bargs will be significantly better as the number one option, and if Demar comes into the season with his momentum from the summer league, we will be a playoff team.

The raptors have enough talent to atleast compete for a playoff spot. There are too many quality nba players for them to win just 22 games.

[Ted Lasso]

HATER!

Now that that's out of the way, i'll read the article.

[Neutral 123]

Fair assessment. More wins possible if this team is going to be motivated, but with Triano's recent comments about Bosh's lack of leadership, it's clear he's not a motivator, and Bargs won't be filling that role either. The team is now short on talent, toughness and heart. That's a bad combination.

[Ripp]

Second, during free agency the Raptors proudly leaked the news that they'd agreed to a two-year, $9 million sign-and-trade deal with Orlando for Matt Barnes. There was only one problem -- it wasn't legal under the salary cap, starting with the word "two" (sign-and-trade deals must be for at least three years) and extending to the dollars and the involvement of Orlando. It was shocking to see an NBA front office foul up something so rudimentary (although one could argue that would explain a lot about Toronto). In reality, the most the Raptors could have legally offered was just $6 million over three years, so Barnes eventually signed with the Lakers instead.

[D-Wins-RingsIMO]

did Hollinger state how he projects wins? If he uses something simplistic like regressing PER then i wouldn't waste my time with it.

Why do you say this? Assuming he does it in an intelligent way to account for usage shifting around, it might not be terrible.

sportsbettors (guys who actually can beat lines, not tards burning their rent money) have already evaluated using every type of metric (corrected for minutes played - which admittedly is a guess as you don't know what a rotation will be) for projecting wins - PER, Winshares, APM, player ORtg & DRtg.

PER is pretty crap. Projecting using APM is actually pretty good, especially if the team keeps a similar minutes played distribution.

Who knows. Last year we were actually lucky to win as many games as we did based on Pyth. But at the same time our opponents ran like God at the free throw line

..... we could easily be a "legit 22 win team" but win 27 just off of some more run good at the free throw line and Pyth.

If you're picking 22 wins you have to do so thinking there chances are 50/50 we can go over or under those wins ....... i jsut feel it's way too low.

Putting it at 25-29 seems much more reasonable

Unless ppl here think there's a more than say 10% chance this turns into New Jersey 2009?

[Ripp]

It is funny, I've spent a decent amount of time reading the different sports betting forums over the past month or so, and they don't really shed any insight into what works and what doesn't (not a surprise, of course...no reason to give away the farm.)

So I have no clue if PER is useful or not, at least for sports-betting. I'd imagine that it would be though...since it captures offense, usage, and rebounding, three of the largest factors in basketball. Of course, defense is also extremely important, and guys like Dwight Howard are thus hurt by PER...and dudes like Andrea Bargnani helped by PER. But it doesn't seem like a terrible first approximation to assume that guys are roughly average defensively.

[LittleOzzy]

Too much quoting of the original article, come one guys, you know better!

Anymore after this point and warnings will be sent out.