Please help me out here

[bearadonisdna]

Well I did a positional grouping that's most favorable to bulls roster construction and my Initial feeling is 35-40 wins

Point guards)
Coby, Dunn, sato

Overall) B for solid roster construction

Wings)
Zach,Otto, Thaddeus, Valentine, hutch

Overall) B- Star power with Zach. Seems a bit of a generous grade , but the top 3 are solid.

Bigs)
Lauri, Wcj, kornet, gafford, Felicio

Overall) C+ Not an abundance of talent here, but doesn't look that bad either.


Could easily see this dialed up a different way though

[dice]

using preseason over/unders (41.5 and under) and actual win totals from the last 6 seasons:

-43 teams went over their projection, 48 went under. so the majority of the teams projected to be mediocre to bad do even worse than projections
-the average mediocre to bad team actually outperforms expectations by 0.6 wins on average, however. obviously this is due to the fact that low expectations team have more upside than downside. so the huge outperformers bring up the average (17/43 outperformers were at least 10 wins better than projections, w/ only 13/48 at least 10 wins WORSE than projections)

standard deviation from projections of 9.31 wins. for those unfamiliar w/ the concept of standard deviation, psychologists will tell you that in order to be compatible with your romantic mate, you should be within 1 standard deviation of them in any particular category (looks, intelligence, financial expectations, etc.). the average person is thus compatible with 68% of others in any particular category (blue part of the graph):



a very attractive person (2 standard deviations better than the average), on the other hand, would be compatible with only 16% of the population (brown and green sections on the upper end, far more likely to end up with someone in the brown, less attractive than themselves section as opposed to the green, MORE attractive section)

anyway...9.31 standard deviation for mediocre to bad win projection teams over last 6 seasons. given the bulls' current win projection of 32.5, an expectation that the bulls will be over .500 (42 wins) is an "out of their league" expectation, or incompatible with realistic thinking. similar to an "average joe" thinking that it's realistic to expect that he can take the well-above average looking (greater than 1 standard deviation) girl across the bar home with him

so, again using the 9.31 standard deviation, here are the #s of standard deviations required for the bulls to outperform expectations in order to get to the various avg. win totals over the last 6 seasons for particular playoff seedings in the east:

1 seed (57.5 win avg. requirement) - 2.69 S.D. - 0.36% chance for bulls
2 seed (54.5) - 2.36 S.D. - 0.90% chance
3 seed (50.0) - 1.88 S.D. - 3.01% chance
4 seed (48.8) - 1.75 S.D. - 3.97% chance
5 seed (46.2) - 1.47 S.D. - 7.12% chance
6 seed (43.5) - 1.18 S.D. - 11.87% chance
7 seed (42.7) - 1.09 S.D. - 13.74% chance
8 seed (40.8) - 0.90 S.D. - 18.54% chance

greater than 2 S.D. results are considered statistically rare. so the bulls ending up with the 3 seed would not QUITE be considered a shocking result. and the 8 seed (just under 1 S.D. from projections) would be the upper end of reality-compatible thinking

[kulaz3000]

Well I did a positional grouping that's most favorable to bulls roster construction and my Initial feeling is 35-40 wins

Point guards)
Coby, Dunn, sato

Overall) B for solid roster construction

Wings)
Zach,Otto, Thaddeus, Valentine, hutch

Overall) B- Star power with Zach. Seems a bit of a generous grade , but the top 3 are solid.

Bigs)
Lauri, Wcj, kornet, gafford, Felicio

Overall) C+ Not an abundance of talent here, but doesn't look that bad either.


Could easily see this dialed up a different way though

I don't know how you can rate the point guards higher than the bigs.

[old skool]

Most fan bases have an unreasonably optimistic outlook for their team. If everything goes right, they foresee the team could exceed expectations. But usually teams improve or decline a handful of games from their record the previous season. Big jumps are rare without a significant roster upgrade. Lottery teams like the Bulls face an additional obstacle in that as their young players start eyeing their next contract, some individuals start playing for themselves and not for team (see Parker, Jabari). It is challenging to keep everyone on the same page. Hard to imagine the Bulls doing much better than the Vegas over/under.

[coldfish]

Also, if you backtrack to last year, the majority of fans here suggested to take the over on that Bulls win total. They all would have lost money.

If you dig up the old posts, I was strongly on the under last year. I thought the team would win mid 20's or so. They even underperformed that but overall, there were tons of bad signs going into last year. I think a lot of that has been cleared up. Getting into the details will just kick up a whole bunch of old arguments so I won't rehash that. Going into this year, I think that the team structurally works far better than going into last year. You have complimentary players playing roles they are comfortable in and experienced depth.

I'll just point out one thing from last year that isn't particularly controversial. Remember when we were trying to convince ourselves that Jabari Parker could be a starting SF?

Our roster to start last year was:
Dunn / ??? (Arci suprised here)
Lavine / ????
Parker? / The corpse of Denzel Valentine
Lauri / Portis
Wendell / RoLo

We aren't trying to do mental gymnastics this year with anyone in the 8-9 man rotation this year. Last year, we were trying to sell ourselves on our own roster.

[coldfish]

Most fan bases have an unreasonably optimistic outlook for their team. If everything goes right, they foresee the team could exceed expectations. But usually teams improve or decline a handful of games from their record the previous season. Big jumps are rare without a significant roster upgrade. Lottery teams like the Bulls face an additional obstacle in that as their young players start eyeing their next contract, some individuals start playing for themselves and not for team (see Parker, Jabari). It is challenging to keep everyone on the same page. Hard to imagine the Bulls doing much better than the Vegas over/under.

Every team couches their projection with "if healthy" and we know that a fair number of teams will get bit hard by injuries which will drastically hurt their win total.

Regardless, the Bulls do have a massive roster turnover. Speaking of "if healthy", I'll do the 8 man rotation by minutes:

Player . . Minutes last year . . minutes this year projected "if healthy"
Lavine 2171 / 2600
Lauri 1682 / 2600
Otto 492 / 2600
Sato 0 / 2400
Thad 0 / 2500
Coby 0 / 2000
Wendell 1110 / 2600
Kornett 0 / 1000

So, out of your top 8 players that I would expect about 18300 minutes out of this year, you got 5455 last year. I think fans are underestimating just how much turnover there has been . . . or possibly, just how little our big guns played last year.

[musiqsoulchild]

Well I did a positional grouping that's most favorable to bulls roster construction and my Initial feeling is 35-40 wins

Point guards)
Coby, Dunn, sato

Overall) B for solid roster construction

Wings)
Zach,Otto, Thaddeus, Valentine, hutch

Overall) B- Star power with Zach. Seems a bit of a generous grade , but the top 3 are solid.

Bigs)
Lauri, Wcj, kornet, gafford, Felicio

Overall) C+ Not an abundance of talent here, but doesn't look that bad either.


Could easily see this dialed up a different way though

Thats where the Otto and Thad acquisitions are on point. They are both very good at PF as well ( solid B's at PF).

So, to add to your analysis - which is actually on point - I broke it up by number of quality minutes and by position. This is NOT a rotation - just a minutes allocation. Rotation and 5 man units is where this can go wrong and I am counting on Jimbo to be a LOT better than most of our prior headcoaches on this aspect of the roster.

PG: Sato ( 20) / Arci ( 12) / Coby ( 10) / Dunn (6) --- Coby's minutes will go up or down based on how he's getting upto speed
SG: Zach ( 30) / Surprise...Dunn (14) / Sato ( 4) --- No Blakeney needed
SF: Otto ( 24) / Thad (16) / Hutch (8) ------ No Valentine needed
PF: Lauri ( 22) / Thad (14)/ Otto (6) --- No Felicio /Gifford needed
C: Wendell ( 30) / Lauri ( 8) / Kornet (10) --- No Felicio/Gifford needed

All 5 major players on the Bulls will play no more than 30 MPG (Zach, Wendell, Lauri, Otto and Thad).

We have a LOT of injury insurance except for at C. We are a bit tight at SG in case of a Zach protracted injury, but we can pull it off thanks to Dunn. We will just play Dunn with a shooting PG (Arci, Sato etc). Denzel coming back also adds further depth. Shaq is also good for a few good minutes at SG/SF.

[musiqsoulchild]

Most fan bases have an unreasonably optimistic outlook for their team. If everything goes right, they foresee the team could exceed expectations. But usually teams improve or decline a handful of games from their record the previous season. Big jumps are rare without a significant roster upgrade. Lottery teams like the Bulls face an additional obstacle in that as their young players start eyeing their next contract, some individuals start playing for themselves and not for team (see Parker, Jabari). It is challenging to keep everyone on the same page. Hard to imagine the Bulls doing much better than the Vegas over/under.

Every team couches their projection with "if healthy" and we know that a fair number of teams will get bit hard by injuries which will drastically hurt their win total.

Regardless, the Bulls do have a massive roster turnover. Speaking of "if healthy", I'll do the 8 man rotation by minutes:

Player . . Minutes last year . . minutes this year projected "if healthy"
Lavine 2171 / 2600
Lauri 1682 / 2600
Otto 492 / 2600
Sato 0 / 2400
Thad 0 / 2500
Coby 0 / 2000
Wendell 1110 / 2600
Kornett 0 / 1000

So, out of your top 8 players that I would expect about 18300 minutes out of this year, you got 5455 last year. I think fans are underestimating just how much turnover there has been . . . or possibly, just how little our big guns played last year.

If I might add to your excellent post:

Lavine 2171 / 2600 ( Will fit right in with Boylen and the team as he is a Bulls vet now)
Lauri 1682 / 2600 (Bulls vet now - should be no transitional inertia in his 3rd year here)
Otto 492 / 2600 ( Experienced vet - played enough last year that he should have no hiccups jumping into Bulls basketball)
Sato 0 / 2400 ( Experienced vet - SOME transitional issues will persist in the first part of the season)
Thad 0 / 2500 ( Highly experienced vet - will have no issues assimilating)
Coby 0 / 2000 ) I dont think he sees that many minutes - I think he clocks a 1000 minutes, with 1000 going to Arci)
Wendell 1110 / 2600 ( This is the biggest question mark for me - we are a body short at C and he is a second year player coming off a surgery)
Kornett 0 / 1000 ( Big plus versus the Felicio garbage)

[League Circles]

All 5 major players on the Bulls will play no more than 30 MPG (Zach, Wendell, Lauri, Otto and Thad).

I'd be shocked if this is the case. When healthy, I think Otto, Lauri and Zach are locks to play over 32 mpg. Probably about 34. I also think Tomas and probably one more perimeter guy (probably White or Dunn) will play more than Young will.

[musiqsoulchild]

All 5 major players on the Bulls will play no more than 30 MPG (Zach, Wendell, Lauri, Otto and Thad).

I'd be shocked if this is the case. When healthy, I think Otto, Lauri and Zach are locks to play over 32 mpg. Probably about 34. I also think Tomas and probably one more perimeter guy (probably White or Dunn) will play more than Young will.

The point of my post is that there are a LOT more quality minutes available this season compared to the prior one. Even while factoring in injuries.

I dont disagree with you on your projections though.
Except for Thad - he will play more than Dunn or White. Easily.

[dice]

Transplant, take the bet. You'll win money on it. Bulls are gonna finish at 39 games won.

The Bulls play 16 games against their Division mates. That's Indiana, Milwaukee, Detroit and Cavs.

More importantly, we play Eastern Conference teams 52 times versus 30 games against the Western Conference.

I am not seeing what Vegas is seeing.

scheduling is not nearly as much of a boost to potential win total as you think it is. might result in a couple more wins than an avg. schedule. it was factored in to vegas's models anyway and that line has been "bid up" by bettors already to 32.5

[dougthonus]

I'll just point out one thing from last year that isn't particularly controversial. Remember when we were trying to convince ourselves that Jabari Parker could be a starting SF?

Our roster to start last year was:
Dunn / ??? (Arci suprised here)
Lavine / ????
Parker? / The corpse of Denzel Valentine
Lauri / Portis
Wendell / RoLo

We aren't trying to do mental gymnastics this year with anyone in the 8-9 man rotation this year. Last year, we were trying to sell ourselves on our own roster.

Not to rehash anything old, so I don't mean this argumentatively, but was there any reason in pre-season to think Valentine wasn't going to play? He had played over 70 games the previous year, shot 38% from 3, and had a decent season and looked like a guy who would be a reasonably valuable role player that could tick up at least some.

Agree with you on Parker though.

[musiqsoulchild]

using preseason over/unders (41.5 and under) and actual win totals from the last 6 seasons:

-43 teams went over their projection, 48 went under. so the majority of the teams projected to be mediocre to bad do even worse than projections
-the average mediocre to bad team actually outperforms expectations by 0.6 wins on average, however. obviously this is due to the fact that low expectations team have more upside than downside. so the huge outperformers bring up the average (17/43 outperformers were at least 10 wins better than projections, w/ only 13/48 at least 10 wins WORSE than projections)

standard deviation from projections of 9.31 wins. for those unfamiliar w/ the concept of standard deviation, psychologists will tell you that in order to be compatible with your romantic mate, you should be within 1 standard deviation of them in any particular category (looks, intelligence, financial expectations, etc.). the average person is thus compatible with 68% of others in any particular category (blue part of the graph):



a very attractive person (2 standard deviations better than the average), on the other hand, would be compatible with only 16% of the population (brown and green sections on the upper end, far more likely to end up with someone in the brown, less attractive than themselves section as opposed to the green, MORE attractive section)

anyway...9.31 standard deviation for mediocre to bad win projection teams over last 6 seasons. given the bulls' current win projection of 32.5, an expectation that the bulls will be over .500 (42 wins) is an "out of their league" expectation, or incompatible with realistic thinking. similar to an "average joe" thinking that it's realistic to expect that he can take the well-above average looking (greater than 1 standard deviation) girl across the bar home with him

so, again using the 9.31 standard deviation, here are the #s of standard deviations required for the bulls to outperform expectations in order to get to the various avg. win totals over the last 6 seasons for particular playoff seedings in the east:

1 seed (57.5 win avg. requirement) - 2.69 S.D. - 0.36% chance for bulls
2 seed (54.5) - 2.36 S.D. - 0.90% chance
3 seed (50.0) - 1.88 S.D. - 3.01% chance
4 seed (48.8) - 1.75 S.D. - 3.97% chance
5 seed (46.2) - 1.47 S.D. - 7.12% chance
6 seed (43.5) - 1.18 S.D. - 11.87% chance
7 seed (42.7) - 1.09 S.D. - 13.74% chance
8 seed (40.8) - 0.90 S.D. - 18.54% chance

greater than 2 S.D. results are considered statistically rare. so the bulls ending up with the 3 seed would not QUITE be considered a shocking result. and the 8 seed (just under 1 S.D. from projections) would be the upper end of reality-compatible thinking

This is what concerns me - that we have an 18.54% chance of finishing as the 9th seed (assuming a normal distribution).

To be fair, I think we are a bit more skewed to the not making the playoffs bucket as opposed to making the playoffs bucket albeit slightly. I'd say that our MOST likely outcome is the 9th seed.

[coldfish]

using preseason over/unders (41.5 and under) and actual win totals from the last 6 seasons:

-43 teams went over their projection, 48 went under. so the majority of the teams projected to be mediocre to bad do even worse than projections
-the average mediocre to bad team actually outperforms expectations by 0.6 wins on average, however. obviously this is due to the fact that low expectations team have more upside than downside. so the huge outperformers bring up the average (17/43 outperformers were at least 10 wins better than projections, w/ only 13/48 at least 10 wins WORSE than projections)

standard deviation from projections of 9.31 wins. for those unfamiliar w/ the concept of standard deviation, psychologists will tell you that in order to be compatible with your romantic mate, you should be within 1 standard deviation of them in any particular category (looks, intelligence, financial expectations, etc.). the average person is thus compatible with 68% of others in any particular category (blue part of the graph):



a very attractive person (2 standard deviations better than the average), on the other hand, would be compatible with only 16% of the population (brown and green sections on the upper end, far more likely to end up with someone in the brown, less attractive than themselves section as opposed to the green, MORE attractive section)

anyway...9.31 standard deviation for mediocre to bad win projection teams over last 6 seasons. given the bulls' current win projection of 32.5, an expectation that the bulls will be over .500 (42 wins) is an "out of their league" expectation, or incompatible with realistic thinking. similar to an "average joe" thinking that it's realistic to expect that he can take the well-above average looking (greater than 1 standard deviation) girl across the bar home with him

so, again using the 9.31 standard deviation, here are the #s of standard deviations required for the bulls to outperform expectations in order to get to the various avg. win totals over the last 6 seasons for particular playoff seedings in the east:

1 seed (57.5 win avg. requirement) - 2.69 S.D. - 0.36% chance for bulls
2 seed (54.5) - 2.36 S.D. - 0.90% chance
3 seed (50.0) - 1.88 S.D. - 3.01% chance
4 seed (48.8) - 1.75 S.D. - 3.97% chance
5 seed (46.2) - 1.47 S.D. - 7.12% chance
6 seed (43.5) - 1.18 S.D. - 11.87% chance
7 seed (42.7) - 1.09 S.D. - 13.74% chance
8 seed (40.8) - 0.90 S.D. - 18.54% chance

greater than 2 S.D. results are considered statistically rare. so the bulls ending up with the 3 seed would not QUITE be considered a shocking result. and the 8 seed (just under 1 S.D. from projections) would be the upper end of reality-compatible thinking

Good post overall.

I just have to note that the basis everyone uses is last year. That's really not a good basis. Otto, for example, only played 492 minutes over 15 games for the Bulls last year. Lauri missed half the year, Wendell missed half the year, Lavine missed one third, Thad wasn't on the team, Coby wasn't on the team and Tomas wasn't on the team.

I basically reject the idea that you can use last season as a reference to project next season. I suspect that 70% or more of the player minutes next year are going to be different than last year. The only real reference you have is the Otto period where half the 2019/20 rotation was playing and they were basically a 0.500 team then. With that point of reference, the 3rd seed is a lot closer to being realistic.

[NDave79]

I am on the side that feels like last years team is not a good barometer for this years team.

To add to a lot of points already made, we spent a long stretch after Boylan took over basically treating games like training camp to teach fundamentals basically intentionally playing a slow brand of losing basketball.

We switched our offensive style mid-season without having a training camp to implement it (even without the training camp to install this offense, it actually resulted in some success).

I remember reading somewhere that Lavine spent a good chunk of the season in a huge funk do to the initial changes Boylen brought that that was so bad that apparently, some beat reporters thought it was inevitable he was going to need to be traded. I think this coincided with one of his worst stretches of the season

I also remember reading (sorry, I don't remember where I read the last 2 points) that Lauri was training in a fashion that wasn't designed to maximize his play last season (maybe this lead to his season ending fatigue issue) since the playoffs were out of reach. Apparently, he was training more like players do in the offseason even if it resulted in less than optimal performances.

Finally, it seems like it took a while to get a lot of the players on board with Boylen. I believe that at this point he has basically won them over and they are prepared to work together.

Basically, besides the huge roster turnover of the players that got minutes last year to this year, I see a lot of factors last year that might have cost us winning that hopefully won't be an issue this year.

[dice]

using preseason over/unders (41.5 and under) and actual win totals from the last 6 seasons:

-43 teams went over their projection, 48 went under. so the majority of the teams projected to be mediocre to bad do even worse than projections
-the average mediocre to bad team actually outperforms expectations by 0.6 wins on average, however. obviously this is due to the fact that low expectations team have more upside than downside. so the huge outperformers bring up the average (17/43 outperformers were at least 10 wins better than projections, w/ only 13/48 at least 10 wins WORSE than projections)

standard deviation from projections of 9.31 wins. for those unfamiliar w/ the concept of standard deviation, psychologists will tell you that in order to be compatible with your romantic mate, you should be within 1 standard deviation of them in any particular category (looks, intelligence, financial expectations, etc.). the average person is thus compatible with 68% of others in any particular category (blue part of the graph):



a very attractive person (2 standard deviations better than the average), on the other hand, would be compatible with only 16% of the population (brown and green sections on the upper end, far more likely to end up with someone in the brown, less attractive than themselves section as opposed to the green, MORE attractive section)

anyway...9.31 standard deviation for mediocre to bad win projection teams over last 6 seasons. given the bulls' current win projection of 32.5, an expectation that the bulls will be over .500 (42 wins) is an "out of their league" expectation, or incompatible with realistic thinking. similar to an "average joe" thinking that it's realistic to expect that he can take the well-above average looking (greater than 1 standard deviation) girl across the bar home with him

so, again using the 9.31 standard deviation, here are the #s of standard deviations required for the bulls to outperform expectations in order to get to the various avg. win totals over the last 6 seasons for particular playoff seedings in the east:

1 seed (57.5 win avg. requirement) - 2.69 S.D. - 0.36% chance for bulls
2 seed (54.5) - 2.36 S.D. - 0.90% chance
3 seed (50.0) - 1.88 S.D. - 3.01% chance
4 seed (48.8) - 1.75 S.D. - 3.97% chance
5 seed (46.2) - 1.47 S.D. - 7.12% chance
6 seed (43.5) - 1.18 S.D. - 11.87% chance
7 seed (42.7) - 1.09 S.D. - 13.74% chance
8 seed (40.8) - 0.90 S.D. - 18.54% chance

greater than 2 S.D. results are considered statistically rare. so the bulls ending up with the 3 seed would not QUITE be considered a shocking result. and the 8 seed (just under 1 S.D. from projections) would be the upper end of reality-compatible thinking

Good post overall.

I just have to note that the basis everyone uses is last year. That's really not a good basis. Otto, for example, only played 492 minutes over 15 games for the Bulls last year. Lauri missed half the year, Wendell missed half the year, Lavine missed one third, Thad wasn't on the team, Coby wasn't on the team and Tomas wasn't on the team.

I basically reject the idea that you can use last season as a reference to project next season.

everyone is projecting substantial improvement from last season though

The only real reference you have is the Otto period where half the 2019/20 rotation was playing and they were basically a 0.500 team then. With that point of reference, the 3rd seed is a lot closer to being realistic.

it's also a small sample size

some guy at ESPN has done an RPM projection the past couple of years that has beat vegas both times. he does a pretty detailed dive, including aging curves and such. i'll be interested to see what his projections are

[nomorezorro]

idk how good the PIPM dude is historically but here's his projection from earlier this summer:

Read on Twitter

for all the pushback i've done itt and elsewhere, i do think the bulls are more likely to be a high-30s win team than low-30s (particularly if you're projecting based on full strength)

[dice]

idk how good the PIPM dude is historically but here's his projection from earlier this summer:

Read on Twitter

for all the pushback i've done itt and elsewhere, i do think the bulls are more likely to be a high-30s win team than low-30s (particularly if you're projecting based on full strength)

PIPM off by 206.3 total wins last season and 194.7 previous year
https://www.bball-index.com/projected-2018-19-nba-wins/
RPM off by 190.6 last season and 173.7 previous year
https://www.google.com/search?ei=4Z1TXcusI8SutQahoZ-oDQ&q=rpm+2017-2018+"kevin+pelton"&oq=rpm+2017-2018+"kevin+pelton"&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i299.22119.25621..25820...0.0..0.97.351.4......0....1..gws-wiz.fNnvVmkOmMI&ved=0ahUKEwiLoc2e0oHkAhVEV80KHaHQB9UQ4dUDCAo&uact=5
vegas off by 209 last season and 179.5 previous year

[dougthonus]

idk how good the PIPM dude is historically but here's his projection from earlier this summer:

Read on Twitter

for all the pushback i've done itt and elsewhere, i do think the bulls are more likely to be a high-30s win team than low-30s (particularly if you're projecting based on full strength)

PIPM off by 206.3 total wins last season and 194.7 previous year
https://www.bball-index.com/projected-2018-19-nba-wins/
RPM off by 190.6 last season and 173.7 previous year
https://www.google.com/search?ei=4Z1TXcusI8SutQahoZ-oDQ&q=rpm+2017-2018+"kevin+pelton"&oq=rpm+2017-2018+"kevin+pelton"&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i299.22119.25621..25820...0.0..0.97.351.4......0....1..gws-wiz.fNnvVmkOmMI&ved=0ahUKEwiLoc2e0oHkAhVEV80KHaHQB9UQ4dUDCAo&uact=5
vegas off by 209 last season and 179.5 previous year

Would be interesting to see all the numbers in one sheet with the actual totals on each side to see how each side was off.

What does RPM say for the Bulls this year, do you know?

[League Circles]

I'd say the basis for evaluation/projection should be .500, not last year's record. Maybe you guys already touched on this, I couldn't read every post.

Really in a league with high turnover, most teams should have a .500 basis and then skew projections up and down from there. Really only teams that were particularly bad or particularly good and either stayed mostly the same, or lost an unequivocal positive impact player if they were bad should be projected with previous year record as a basis as opposed to .500. Rosters are just that hard to predict IMO and there isn't a ton of difference between a lot of teams, like, say, in football.