Highly Plausible 2015/16 NBA Schedule Adjustments

It’s Good to Be the King

The primary advantage of having a LeBron James on your team is that he makes your team much better. The flipside is that if he’s on your team you don’t have to play any games against LeBron. These factors combined with playing in the weaker Eastern Conference gives the Cleveland Cavaliers the easiest projected opponent schedule heading into next year, with an average opponent strength of -.72 net rating team per 100 possessions, equivalent of a 39 win team, according to my analysis[1. Using my pre-season team ratings based on Player Tracking Plus Minus and Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus (RAPM) weighted by projected playing time.].

On the other side of the ledger are weaker teams that don’t get to pad their schedule with a couple extra “chicken soup”[2. Making opponents feel good.] games against themselves. The case in point here are the Los Angeles Lakers, who play in the generally more difficult Western Conference schedule, just without some of the “easiest” games[3. Those against the Lakers themselves.]. Thus, they face the toughest projected schedule, with an average opponent strength of +.71  net rating team per 100 possessions, equivalent to a 43 win team.

Looking at an up-and-coming team that just snuck into the playoffs last season from each conference, my highly plausible win projections have the Boston Celtics as a 49 win team and the New Orleans Pelicans as a 45 win team, a 4 game gap. Part of that turns out to be due to the Atlantic Division’s Celtics’ playing the second easiest projected schedule while the Pelicans have a more typical Western conference schedule. If the Celtics had to face the Pelicans’ opponents their win projection drops to 47 wins, while the Pelicans against the Celtics’ opponents would expect 47 wins as well. Thus half the gap between the final win estimate is due to differing opponent schedules.

Below is the full opponent schedule rating for each team:

Overall the difference between the Eastern and Western conference schedule is somewhat smaller than previous seasons. Still, the average Eastern Conference team plays an opponent schedule equivalent of playing against a 40.35 win team while the average Western Conference team plays an opponents equivalent of a 41.65 win teams.

Keep in mind these are only pre-season estimates based on average expected playing time of the current roster over the course of the season. If your team gets the Spurs on a day Pop is resting LaMarcus Aldridge, Kawhi Leonard and Tim Duncan, their effective schedule will have become a bit easier than the projects. If it’s the Suns after they reload with a mid-year trade for DeMarcus Cousins[Ed. #Sources?], the schedule gets a bit tougher. And, of course, my team strength estimates could just be wrong about some opponents in either direction.