2023-24 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

I feel like this would be a knee jerk move by the Heat after missing out on Dame.

I was way more concerned about the Clippers landing Holiday than I am them getting Harden. I do think they could easily weaken their overall team by letting the wrong combo of rotation guys go.

I can’t see Harden being the guy that puts either of those teams over

 

Jimmy Buckets and Harden: seems like a combo that will get along great. No chance of a personality clash there at all

 

i have strong doubts that harden can be influenced by "heat culture". i'm not even fully positive i really buy "heat culture" as a concept. who were they asking about it recently (gabe)? they were like, what's a good example of heat culture? and he said, one time udonis threw a chair at halftime or something like that. ok...

side rant incoming: since lebron left, the heat have basically been a 40-win team that's had some weird playoff success (particularly of late). they look a bit like us after kobe, yet i hear about their vaunted culture when a lot of it has been riley nabbing big name players for nothing to keep the team afloat and then spoelstra doing a good job with a slightly subpar roster.



i think spoelstra's a good coach and riley has a (possibly over the top) interest in conditioning that might be a bit overplayed (though admittedly, all their players always do seem to be in good shape).

anyway...

i don't think dropping a 34-year-old harden there changes him as much as it might disrupt them. morey already clearly thought he'd tame harden in his own way ("surely, he'll see i have the leverage and capitulate" lol).

the clippers make much more sense as a landing spot (and this is why harden's been pushing for that, of course). they already let their star players run everything.

tl;dr: i don't buy harden changing dramatically all of a sudden, no matter where he lands. part of his "harden-ness" is precisely that he does what he wants. everybody hates my foul baiting? don't care. people think i go to the strip club too much? don't care. pat riley thinks i need to run more? don't care. i'm going to shoot stepbacks and put up numbers, and the bloggers are going to be impressed.

 

Laker fans: Don't care!

 

Who ?

 

Wow they are dissing us

 

Memphis 1st without Ja And Clippers barely make play inn
very serious prediction

 

i have many, many questions.

the grizz are going to take the top seed with morant missing 1/3 of the season.
minny is going to use continuity to jump 8 teams, most of which also have some of that.
zion and mike conley are expected to play a lot of games, but lebron, AD, PG, and kawhi are all expected to miss a ton of games (only way this makes sense to me)? let's be consistent.
SGA is an mvp candidate, but okc finishes outside the top 10.

 

They must sit there and laugh at BSPN thinking of ways to diss the Lakers. That ranking above is complete and utter bull pucky.

 

Zion projected here for 47 games and 1,550 minutes, which is more than he managed last season (29 games, 956 minutes) but less than his relatively healthy 2020-21 campaign (61 out of 72 games, 2026 minutes)

 

It's actually not BSPN prediction ,but
stats-based win projections for all 30 teams by Kevin Pelton ,and I think he's C Bags fan

 

most of the staff is, and the stats have loved the C Bags for like, a decade running.

 

in the context of the Heat's stunning march through the Eastern Conference playoffs should a projection in this range be surprising. Miami finished sevent

Western Conference
1. Memphis Grizzlies
Average wins: 48.4

All the attention on Ja Morant's 25-game suspension to start the season seems to have overshadowed the track record of the Grizzlies, who are the only team in the West to win 50-plus games each of the past two seasons. Memphis no longer has Jones to back up Morant, but it tended to win without its star primarily on the strength of its defense and adding Marcus Smart should help it maintain that. The Grizzlies are deep, younger than most of their West rivals, and still likely to rack up regular-season wins.

2. Minnesota Timberwolves
Average wins: 47.7

I figured Minnesota might have a surprisingly strong projection last season after it added Rudy Gobert to a team that had made the playoffs. Turns out I was a year early. After the Timberwolves went 42-40 with Karl-Anthony Towns playing just 29 games, my projections favor them to jump up the West standings with the development of young guard Anthony Edwards as a key factor.

3. Denver Nuggets
Average wins: 46.4

It shouldn't be terribly surprising if the Nuggets' win total falls short of last year's West-leading 53. As I noted in picking them as one of the most likely teams to decline, they outperformed their point differential and saw opponents shoot poorly from 3-point range. Add the loss of Brown, whose minutes will likely go to recent draft picks, and Denver doesn't look quite as deep on paper. The last factor here is that defending champs tend not to put as much emphasis on the regular season, though home-court advantage has more value in the Mile High City than anywhere else.

4. Golden State Warriors
Average wins: 43.7

Last year's preseason projection of 41.9 wins for the defending champion Warriors drew scrutiny but looked on target much of the season. Golden State ended up winning 44 games while narrowly avoiding the play-in. Adding Chris Paul has helped the Warriors' boost their projection as compared to last year, putting them at the head of a pack of four teams separated by 0.6 wins in terms of projected average.

5. Phoenix Suns
Average wins: 43.5

Give the Suns credit for building out their depth with savvy signings for the veteran's minimum and last week's trade turning Deandre Ayton into three potential rotation players. Still, this is a top-heavy Phoenix roster that almost certainly figures to be better in the playoffs than the regular season given the injury track record of stars Bradley Beal, Devin Booker and Durant.

6. New Orleans Pelicans
Average wins: 43.2

Zion Williamson remains the single most challenging NBA player to project. He's projected here for 47 games and 1,550 minutes, which is more than he managed last season (29 games, 956 minutes) but less than his relatively healthy 2020-21 campaign (61 out of 72 games, 2026 minutes). A healthy Williamson could push New Orleans into the mix for the top spot in the West, as we saw through last December. Without him, the Pelicans are back in the play-in mix.

7. Sacramento Kings
Average wins: 43.1

There's reason for optimism about the Kings maintaining last year's success. This is a young rotation relative to the other West contenders, and Keegan Murray in particular is poised for improvement in Year 2. Still, Sacramento's near-perfect bill of health in 2022-23 will be challenging to repeat, which is why it was one of my teams most likely to decline.

8. Los Angeles Lakers
Average wins: 41.5

Expectations for the Lakers are high after their 17-7 finish to the regular season led to a run to the conference finals. I'd still be surprised if the Lakers fell short of last year's 43-win total barring more substantial injuries, but it's worth remembering they benefited from opponents hitting just 34% of their 3-point attempts, the league's second-lowest mark. That's typically a marker that suggests a downturn the following season.

9. Dallas Mavericks
Average wins: 41.4

Although the Mavericks finished six games below .500, their point differential was even on the season, making this a reasonable starting point for expectations in 2023-24. Of course, going .500 would be an improvement on Dallas' 5-11 record in games both Luka Doncic and Irving started after last season's trade for Irving.

10. LA Clippers
Average wins: 40.3

Given the Clippers finished with the West's ninth-best point differential (plus-0.5 PPG), they were somewhat fortunate to avoid the play-in at 44 wins last season. Add in the age of their roster (third oldest based on projected minutes played) and the Clippers project closer to the lottery than serious contention.

11. Oklahoma City Thunder
Average wins: 39.1

With the addition of 2022 No. 2 overall pick Chet Holmgren to a young core that reached the play-in at 40-42 a year ago, the Thunder are a trendy pick to make the top six this season. Their projection for fewer wins is certainly surprising, but it's worth remembering teams that improve by as much as Oklahoma City did (16 wins) often experience regression to the mean -- something Bill James termed the "plexiglass principle" in baseball. On average, teams since 2000 that have improved their winning percentage by between 15 and 17 wins out of 82 have won 0.4 fewer games the following season.

12. Utah Jazz
Average wins: 38.7

After exceeding expectations by being in the play-in hunt before trading away several rotation players at the deadline, the Jazz project to beat last year's final total of 37 wins if they choose to stay competitive throughout 2023-24.

 

"I'd still be surprised if the Lakers fell short of last year's 43-win total barring more substantial injuries, but it's worth remembering they benefited from opponents hitting just 34% of their 3-point attempts, the league's second-lowest mark. That's typically a marker that suggests a downturn the following season."

So completely ignoring what he said himself, the Lakers deep and talented roster, great off season bringing key players back and the "thought" that maybe the 34% from deep by opponents had something to do with the Lakers defense (?) ..... he knocks them down to 41.5 wins anyway.

 

statistician going with the gambler's fallacy ftw.