NBA Preseason Predictions 2016-17: Review & Highlights

NBA Preseason Predictions 2016-17: Review & Highlights

October 24, 2016 – by Seth Trachtman

The 2016-17 NBA season gets underway on Tuesday with three games, including the reigning world champion Cavaliers against the Knicks and the revamped Warriors against the Tim Duncan-less Spurs. That means it’s also time for our 2016-17 NBA preseason predictions.

We recently rolled out our preseason NBA predictive rankings and NBA projected standings pages for 2016-17. Those pages will be updated every single day through the end of the season.

This post serves as a snapshot of our preseason projections, plus we’ll briefly discuss some highlights.

2016-17 NBA Preseason Predictions & Projected Standings

Below are our NBA season projections as of Friday, October 21, 2016.

As they do every season, player injuries, suspensions and other unexpected events that occur as the season goes on are likely to derail at least a few of these initial forecasts. That’s an inevitable risk of trying to predict the distant future, and it’s also part of the reason why we incorporate variance into our season simulations.

Also, note that the numbers in this post may change a little bit from day to day before the season actually starts. That’s not us adjusting numbers behind the scenes; it’s just variance in the results of the season simulations, which we re-run daily.

Eastern Conference Predictions and Projected Standings For 2016-17

Eastern Conference Projections 2016-17
ATLANTIC	W	L	Playoffs	Win Div	Top Seed	NBA Champs
Boston	51.5	30.5	88.8%	47.6%	19.0%	5.1%
Toronto	50.6	31.4	87.3%	44.0%	17.4%	4.3%
New York	38.5	43.5	46.7%	7.4%	1.7%	0.4%
Philadelphia	25.2	56.8	7.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
Brooklyn	24.4	57.6	6.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
CENTRAL	W	L	Playoffs	Win Div	Top Seed	NBA Champs
Cleveland	54.9	27.1	94.3%	62.1%	32.7%	9.5%
Indiana	43.8	38.2	66.5%	15.0%	5.2%	1.1%
Detroit	43.0	39.0	65.8%	14.0%	5.3%	1.1%
Chicago	37.0	45.0	41.7%	5.5%	1.7%	0.3%
Milwaukee	34.8	47.2	32.5%	3.5%	0.8%	0.2%
SOUTHEAST	W	L	Playoffs	Win Div	Top Seed	NBA Champs
Charlotte	43.3	38.7	65.5%	27.9%	4.9%	1.1%
Atlanta	43.2	38.8	65.8%	29.0%	5.2%	1.0%
Washington	41.8	40.2	60.9%	24.2%	3.9%	0.9%
Orlando	36.3	45.7	37.6%	10.0%	1.0%	0.2%
Miami	34.5	47.5	33.0%	9.0%	1.0%	0.2%

Most Likely Division Winners: Cleveland (62%), Boston (48%), Atlanta (29%)

Best NBA Championship Win Odds: Cleveland finally got its elusive championship last season, taking down the 73-win Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. We project LeBron and company’s chances to repeat at 9.5%, by far the best in the Eastern Conference, but less than our preseason champion odds for the Cavs last year (12.6%).

It’s worth noting that our championship odds for Cleveland are below the odds implied by leading sports books, which currently have the Cavs at +272 payout odds to win it all — roughly 27%. Those implied odds are inflated by the “vig” (bookmaker’s commission), so the “true” implied championship odds are lower than 27%. Still, our champion odds for Cleveland are almost certainly more pessimistic.

Part (but not all) of the reason for this is the “shortened playoff rotations” factor. A superstar-driven team like Cleveland clearly benefits from having players like LeBron James and Kyrie Irving play a greater percentage of minutes in the playoffs, compared to the regular season. Our models, however, prioritize a more accurate projection of the regular season over accurate championship odds. As a result, they currently understate the impact of shorter playoff rotations. This is something we plan to improve in the future from an analytical standpoint.

(Bettors are also likely paying a bookmaker a bit stiffer premium to wager on last year’s champions.)

Both our models and sports book odds agree that the young Celtics are the next most likely East team to win it all, though we’re slightly more optimistic (roughly 5% vs. 3%).

Expected To Improve: Even dealing with a foot injury to #1 overall draft pick Ben Simmons, Philadelphia is projected to net +15.2 wins over their pitiful 10-win season last year. However, we give them only about a 7% chance to make the playoffs. Among likely playoff teams, the Celtics see the biggest jump in wins over last season at +3.5 wins (from 48 to a projected 51.5 wins).

Biggest Loser: With Philadelphia looking to climb out of the cellar, Brooklyn earns the honor of biggest expected loser in the East with a 58-loss projection, though that would still be a 3 win improvement over last season.

Western Conference Predictions and Projected Standings for 2016-17

Western Conference Projections 2016-17
NORTHWEST	W	L	Playoffs	Win Div	Top Seed	NBA Champs
Utah	45.7	36.3	71.6%	32.9%	1.6%	1.4%
Okla City	43.8	38.2	65.1%	26.3%	1.1%	1.0%
Portland	43.7	38.3	64.8%	26.2%	1.3%	0.9%
Minnesota	35.6	46.4	33.1%	7.6%	0.2%	0.1%
Denver	35.5	46.5	31.9%	6.9%	0.1%	0.1%
PACIFIC	W	L	Playoffs	Win Div	Top Seed	NBA Champs
Golden State	67.8	14.2	99.8%	89.6%	71.7%	52.0%
LA Clippers	53.0	29.0	91.5%	10.2%	6.2%	5.4%
Sacramento	32.7	49.3	22.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
Phoenix	26.3	55.7	8.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
LA Lakers	23.5	58.5	4.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
SOUTHWEST	W	L	Playoffs	Win Div	Top Seed	NBA Champs
San Antonio	57.3	24.7	96.0%	69.4%	15.1%	11.1%
Houston	45.4	36.6	71.4%	14.4%	1.4%	1.3%
Memphis	40.9	41.1	54.5%	7.4%	0.7%	0.5%
Dallas	39.0	43.0	46.2%	5.2%	0.3%	0.3%
New Orleans	36.9	45.1	38.4%	3.5%	0.2%	0.2%

Most Likely Division Winners: Golden State (90%), San Antonio (69%), Utah (33%)

Best NBA Championship Win Odds: As expected, the Warriors are overwhelming favorites to win it all after adding Kevin Durant in the offseason. We give them 52% odds to win the championship, and that’s not a typo. Futures prices at leading sports books put the Warriors in similar territory (-131 or roughly 57%, which needs to be adjusted downward a bit for the vig).

Also unsurprisingly, we give the Spurs the second best odds in the Western Conference to win it all at about 11%. The Clippers come next at 5.4%, the fourth best odds overall after the Warriors, Spurs, and Cavs.

Expected To Improve: There aren’t many huge improvements projected in the West, but the Timberwolves (from 29 wins to a projected 35.6 wins), Pelicans (30 to 36.9), Jazz (40 to 45.7), and Rockets (41 to 45.4) are all predicted to improve decently in terms of regular season win-loss record. Among that group, though, our simulations only expect the Jazz and Rockets to make the playoffs.

Biggest Loser: Despite a projected improvement of +6.5 wins over last season (17 to 23.5), the Lakers still look to be the bottom feeders of the West. The additions of Luol Deng, first-round pick Brandon Ingram, and head coach Luke Walton don’t seem like enough to expect a major single-season turnaround.

Wrapping Up…

Enjoy the 2016-17 NBA season, and remember, plenty of these projections will end up being wrong, for lots of possible reasons. Our goal is the overall accuracy of the system, and even if the system as a whole ends up being more accurate than lots of other prediction methods, the projections for any one specific team could still be way off.

The value we bring to the table is a sophisticated, systematic model that can precisely evaluate dynamics that human experts are generally terrible at understanding — stuff like the likely impacts of schedule strength, or the chance that a star player breaks his hand a month into the season. Our system is driven by objective data that has demonstrated predictive value, and not by subjective opinions.

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