09/10 NBA Predictions Options

[ZoomSlowik]

I know it's a little early, but the off-season is winding down and there's nothing else to talk about before football starts anyways.

What teams do you think are going to be legit threats? Who are your sleepers? Who is going to underachieve? What players are due for a breakout?

[eddog2]

Back to the Wizards. Maybe this will help some of you jump on the bandwagon. Is Gilbert set to make a Wade "light" type comeback following two injury plagued seasons? If so, I think top 4 in the east is for sure a possiblity.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4394425

http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/outlet/.../arenas-update/

[ZoomSlowik]

"There's no question, a player of his talent, when he's playing, he puts us from a team that's competing for the playoffs to a team that's an elite team in the playoffs. When you walk in the gym right now, you wouldn't think that he's hurt," Saunders said.

This quote right here is the big problem. The Wizards weren't a playoff team last year, in fact they weren't remotely close to the playoffs. Even if you say that Arenas makes them 15 games better, which is pretty generous considering Dwyane Wade "only" had 14.4 win shares last year, they'd have to make up another 7 wins just to get to .500, and another 5-10 to get homecourt in the first round. If he's even remotely off, they're still stuck in the 30's for wins.

[Balta1701-B]

This quote right here is the big problem. The Wizards weren't a playoff team last year, in fact they weren't remotely close to the playoffs. Even if you say that Arenas makes them 15 games better, which is pretty generous considering Dwyane Wade "only" had 14.4 win shares last year, they'd have to make up another 7 wins just to get to .500, and another 5-10 to get homecourt in the first round. If he's even remotely off, they're still stuck in the 30's for wins.

So that Miami team last year without Wade was a 36-46 team and was about as good as the Pacers? I'm not sure I buy that.

[ZoomSlowik]

So that Miami team last year without Wade was a 36-46 team and was about as good as the Pacers? I'm not sure I buy that.

As I kind of implied in that post, in the NBA one win share= 1 win (at least using this system). So 43-14=29 which is maybe a bit high but still gets across the general point that Wade single handedly takes them from quite bad to the #5 seed.