5 biggest surprises from ESPN’s NBA win projections
By Ynal Al-Ouri
ESPN published their annual NBA regular season win projections, and there were quite a few surprises.
To say this NBA offseason wasn’t extremely eventful would be an immense lie. Many high-profile players will be wearing new jerseys this season, whether they were signed through free agency, or acquired via trade. This draft class is also coming in with loads of hype, as many rookies are projected to play big roles on their teams.
ESPN projected the 2017-18 records and standings for each team, using their Real Plus-Minus metric — an estimate of a player’s net impact per 100 possessions based on both on/off lineup data and their box score statistics. We should all know by now that players, or teams can always outplay their peripherals, and injuries will unfortunately occur, but it is always interesting to see what past statistics can predict is going to happen over the course of a full season.
There were quite a few surprises with the results that came out. Whether the team’s record was too high or too low, or a team was ranked higher or lower than another, etc. Here are the five biggest surprises in ESPN’s NBA win projections.
5. The Brooklyn Nets aren’t the worst team anymore
The Nets only won 20 games last season, which was good for the worst record in the league. Of course many people weren’t surprised with that outcome, but what’s surprising is ESPN believes they will win almost 10 more games this upcoming season.
Adding D’Angelo Russell and DeMarre Carroll certainly helps their cause, but they also traded away far and away their best player, Brook Lopez. Russell is going to be a special player, but he is still young and not necessarily ready to lead a team on his own, especially one with the roster it currently possesses. Carroll is also injury prone and there’s no guarantee he can stay healthy over the course of an 82-game season.
Improving by 10 games doesn’t seem like that big of a deal initially, but for the Nets it is. They are also projected to finish with better records than the Chicago Bulls, and Sacramento Kings, who have better players on their rosters. Not to say that the Bulls or Kings are amazing, but they surely look poised to have a better record than the Nets this upcoming season.