Record predictions for every NBA team

Boston Celtics (Projected Record: 44-38)

Even before Gordon Hayward’s gruesome injury, my projection system had the Celtics as a very solid under for their 55-ish win over-under that was common at many sportsbooks. I projected them to win 44 games. Hayward projected as the Celtics second best player, coming in just behind Kyrie Irving’s +1.6 per 100 possession impact, at a +1.4.

Given that I had predicted the Celtics to win between 44-45 games prior to his being lost for the season and I had Hayward set to play over 2,600 minutes, the loss of the talented swingman stings quite a bit. When I re-ran the numbers, Boston looked more like a 38 or 39-win team post Hayward injury. That would put them still solidly in the Eastern playoffs (Eastern Conference basketball, folks! Feel the excitement!) as a seventh seed, just behind the Miami Heat.

Most of the bearishness of my system’s view of the Celtics, pre-injury setback, rested on their reliance on unproven younger players. Jaylen Brown showed flashes last season, but most all-in-one impact statistics took a dimmer view of his contributions than fans wearing green and those who lean more heavily on the eye-test and projecting performance based on athletic tools, rather than prior productivity and skill-level. Brown is a very good NBA athlete, which is no small feat at his age, but his feel for the game is relatively weak at this stage, which is reflected in his low assist and rebound totals for a wing player. Most box-score impact systems value both passing and rebounding very highly and particularly when paired together, so Brown’s deficiencies in both is more damaging. All those go into Brown’s sub-replacement impact projection and that, paired with his over 2,000 projected minutes played, is a big reason why my numbers didn’t much care for the Celtics.