FiveThirtyEight's 2019-20 NBA Projections: Spurs finish 37-45, 20% chance of making playoffs

[apalisoc_9]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-way-too-early-projections-for-the-2019-20-nba-season/


Discuss...

[rastaspur]

They win at least 42 games. I say 50-32 .

[BSfromTX]

How long has media tried to write off the spurs? Like since '05.. They could be right, but they could be wrong. Jeez the off season sucks.

[Chucho]

I don't follow stat garbage, but have these dudes ever been right in any significant way?

[GrapplingYautja]

IF Spurs end up in the lottery it'd be the end of the league. They would get a sure fire NBA ready player. With the cast we currently have. Game over.

BUT of course we will be top 4 next year with a dark horse chance of ringing. (I don't think either LA teams will stay healthy enough in the long run.)

[ThomasamohT]

Something is clearly broken in their system when it comes to the Spurs. Last year they had us at 40-42(8 games below actual) whereas 2 years ago they were only off by +3 games. Reminds me of all the times ESPN has said we were done.

[Amuseddaysleeper]

Spurs need to miss the playoffs, being a perennial first round exit is a waste of time.

[Russ]

Clippers are a 6 seed and the Kings are dead last. I remain skeptical . . .

[DC23]

Warriors 50 wins? Mavericks 44 wins? Pelicans 43 wins? Timberwolves 43 wins? Thunder 41 wins? Suns 35 wins? Grizzles 35 wins? These all seem extremely rich.
Kings 33 wins, Spurs 37 wins, Blazers 41 wins, and Clippers 48 wins all seem very low.

[timvp]

Nate S:lollver had the Spurs at 1% chance to make the playoffs for long stretches last season, tbh.

[bklynspursfan]

Spurs need to miss the playoffs, being a perennial first round exit is a waste of time.

Spurs need to be healthy.

[Twisted_Dawg]

If we hit 37 wins with no injuries, there will be revolution in the streets. Heads will have to roll.

[John B]

Spurs winning 52-30. 4th seed

Spurs should win those games that we gaveaway last year due to lack of chemistry and injury, Griz, Magic, Kings, Hornets. While losing some to Lakers, Clippers. Our long defensive guards should better defend Curry/D’Angelo, Russ/Harden, Conley/Mitchell, that normally overpower Mills/Forbes. All in all, Spurs should be better than last year 48 wins.

Clippers
Nuggets
Lakers
Spurs
Jazz
Trailblazers
Rockets
Warriors

Kings/Mavs looking in but not enough experience. Pelicans too young and could miss Zion to some injury. He seems overweight. CP3 will be moved and Thunder going tank mode. Suns might win more due to hiring of new Coach Monty. Griz perennial bottomfeeder.

[exstatic]

They take a bunch of individual player CARMELOS, aggregate them into some sort of team CARMELO, and make their predictions based on that. The player CARMELO is based on 3 years of stats. Some of our players don't even have that yet!

If they really want more accurate team predictions, they should look at history. They peg every player right in the middle of their 10%-90% confidence interval. A top flight development program isn't even taken into account. Spurs players always hit higher than expected development milestones. I wonder how different this would look if they skewed that confidence interval placement to, say, 75% vs. 50% for SA, since their development is known to be among the best in the NBA.

[Seventyniner]

This CARMELO shoots even worse than the real one tbh

[DC23]

Spurs winning 52-30. 4th seed

Spurs should win those games that we gaveaway last year due to lack of chemistry and injury, Griz, Magic, Kings, Hornets. While losing some to Lakers, Clippers. Our long defensive guards should better defend Curry/D’Angelo, Russ/Harden, Conley/Mitchell, that normally overpower Mills/Forbes. All in all, Spurs should be better than last year 48 wins.

Clippers
Nuggets
Lakers
Spurs
Jazz
Trailblazers
Rockets
Warriors

Kings/Mavs looking in but not enough experience. Pelicans too young and could miss Zion to some injury. He seems overweight. CP3 will be moved and Thunder going tank mode. Suns might win more due to hiring of new Coach Monty. Griz perennial bottomfeeder.
Underestimating the Jazz and Trailblazers?

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

Meh. Annual Spurs are dead prediction. One day they will be right, but it probably won't be next season if Spurs are healthy.

[Dverde]

Barring injuries this team is a lock for the playoffs. They are deep and the defense will be better than last year. Very surprised with Silvers call on this.

[JuneJive]

Wow. What a shitty model.

Off topic - - Does he have any success in politics?

[Marcus Bryant]

Nate S:lollver had the Spurs at 1% chance to make the playoffs for long stretches last season, tbh.

:tu

[Marcus Bryant]

Wow. What a shitty model.

Off topic - - Does he have any success in politics?

He did when Barack was running. Seems to have problems otherwise.

[GusT15]

Barring injuries this team is a lock for the playoffs. They are deep and the defense will be better than last year. Very surprised with Silvers call on this.

Not surpriced at all tbh

538's prediction model always hates the Spurs.
It focuses too much on what a specific player is capable of and not on the team aspect of the Spurs.
It's the reverse theory of "every Spurs role player only works in the Spurs system".For 538's CARMELO model,it doesn't have the required tweaking needed to recognize that said role player IS on the Spurs,so it disregards many players as inefficient.

Hence,37-45 prediction.Who knows,with our current players on another team,without the system,without Pop,maybe this would be a 37 win team in the West.
We still have Pop and the system tho,so the Spurs will destroy this prediction model just like last year.

[RD2191]

:lol yeah ok

[TimDunkem]

45 seems reasonable but, dear God, you people overrate the players on this team while underestimating every other team in the conference.

"Derr if we have Murray we are best in da west derr"

Yeah. Okay. :lol

[Solid D]

:rollin“Spurs finish 37-45”

:rollin

[Mr. Body]

Wow. What a shitty model.

Off topic - - Does he have any success in politics?

He did until 2016, but was more right than many outlets. He actually gave Trump a chance, if a fairly slim one. This was before we knew Russia was actively monkeying with the election. Regardless, Trump did lose by nearly three million votes...

[Mr. Body]

Back on topic, they've been wrong about the Spurs for ages. Even after starting slow when their young guards all got injured, San Antonio wound up not far from 50 wins. LMA and DDR would have to drop waaaay off to only win 37 and I project White to have a really nice year, the addition of Murray, and the potential of Walker, to have a considerable impact. These pundits rarely take into account non-hyped young players. They probably think Zion's gonna win 20 games on his own.

[John B]

Underestimating the Jazz and Trailblazers?
I just think Spurs can better depend Lillard/McCollum, Conley/Mitchell so I’m putting Spurs ahead of them.

[cd98]

Spurs barely made the playoffs. If the Spurs want to make the playoffs, it will take Walker and Murray legit, something that has yet to be proven on an NBA court.

[FkLA]

https://i2.wp.com/www.towleroad.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nate_silver.jpeg?resize=600%2C322

[TDomination]

Spurs 4th Seed
51-31

[ducks]

Nate silver is right as much as Hilary Rodman Clinton

[offset formation]

Warriors 50 wins? Mavericks 44 wins? Pelicans 43 wins? Timberwolves 43 wins? Thunder 41 wins? Suns 35 wins? Grizzles 35 wins? These all seem extremely rich.
Kings 33 wins, Spurs 37 wins, Blazers 41 wins, and Clippers 48 wins all seem very low.

Lol. WTAF?!? Thunder won't sniff 40 wins. Maybe not even 30. T-wolves are likely in the mid to upper 30s.Suns in the upper 20s. Warriors will be in the low to mid, maybe upper 40s, depending on when Klay gets back. Mavericks will not reach 40 probably. Pelicans the same.

Clippers will be in the low to mid 50s at least. Lakers are slightly above .500, and that assumes full health of both stars the whole season.

Seriously, wtf are these guys smoking?

[RC_Drunkford]

50 win season book it

[Play Boban]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-way-too-early-projections-for-the-2019-20-nba-season/


Discuss...
I think they had us missing the playoffs last year, too, tbh...... :wakeup

[Twisted_Dawg]

Wow. What a shitty model.

Off topic - - Does he have any success in politics?

He had Hillary with an 83% chance of defeating Trump. That should answer your question.

[Leetonidas]

Lol. Spurs won't miss the playoffs as long as Pop is the coach and we have a solid team. Our team is really being slept on, even after we exceeded expectations last year despite the host of injuries and half a new roster. I get that some teams in the west got better but these pundits are overrating the fuck out of teams like Dallas, New Orleans, even Utah imo. Lakers too, since they are top heavy and are relying on being injury free to have a good record.

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

lolk

[DC23]

Lol. WTAF?!? Thunder won't sniff 40 wins. Maybe not even 30. T-wolves are likely in the mid to upper 30s.Suns in the upper 20s. Warriors will be in the low to mid, maybe upper 40s, depending on when Klay gets back. Mavericks will not reach 40 probably. Pelicans the same.

Clippers will be in the low to mid 50s at least. Lakers are slightly above .500, and that assumes full health of both stars the whole season.

Seriously, wtf are these guys smoking?
Yup, probably writing outrageous clickbait to get it spread around forums and Facebook to get this type of reaction. smh.

[DC23]

I just think Spurs can better depend Lillard/McCollum, Conley/Mitchell so I’m putting Spurs ahead of them.
Even so Portland has other weapons - Bazemore, Nurkic, Whiteside and Utah is solidly stacked - Gobert, Ingles, Bogdanovic, Jeff, etc, You may be right about the Spurs being able to get their way with the Blazers but the Jazz are legitimate contenders in the West. Solid team.

[TD 21]

Spurs are never going to rate well by analytics models with this core because their best players aren't analytic darlings and their young players lack pedigree.

Sure, Aldridge and Gay could fall off a cliff and/or like any team, they could be decimated by injury, but the most likely scenario is them riding Aldridge/depth/continuity to get close to or around 50ish wins. Hell, though obviously unlikely, I don't even think the 1 seed is entirely out of the question. In the end though, it doesn't really matter because of the 8 most likely playoff teams, they have the lowest ceiling.

[Dex]

37 wins?

https://media3.giphy.com/media/11u1wf0unV82Jy/giphy.gif

[TrainOfThought5]

Offseason things are happening as scheduled.

[rjv]

This CARMELO shoots even worse than the real one tbh

:lol

[cjw]

538 should stick to politics. Seriously

[rjv]

Nate Silver puts out accurate predictions about as often as Ducks writes a coherent sentence.

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

Nate silver is right as much as Hilary Rodman Clinton


Nate Silver puts out accurate predictions about as often as Ducks writes a coherent sentence.

Silver = Hillary
ducks = Silver

therefore ... Hillary = ducks?

discuss

[GreekSpursfan]

I'm still on the fence on this. People here expect certain players to show improvement and growth and thus we're gonna win more that last season and we are a lock to make the playoffs but... What if LMA is not the same player and we see a decline, Gay the same thing, what if Murray and Walker still need time to develop and DDR goes to depression mode all year and eventually wants out. There are a lot of variables on this team that could go one way or another in a loaded West.

[Hyperhypo]

The Spurs make the playoffs if they dont lose a key player for the season. Take it to the bank

[Drachen]

I don't follow stat garbage, but have these dudes ever been right in any significant way?

Nate Silver has something like a 99% success rate in calling elections.

[Jsmythe]

If you go to the Spurs team page here:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-nba-predictions/spurs/

you can see why the Spurs were rated so low. They predicted that Trey Lyles would play 21 minutes a game and Dejounte Murray would only play 16 minutes a game. I don't know where they came up with these numbers but they are all wrong.

[timtonymanu]

Lol. Spurs won't miss the playoffs as long as Pop is the coach and we have a solid team. Our team is really being slept on, even after we exceeded expectations last year despite the host of injuries and half a new roster. I get that some teams in the west got better but these pundits are overrating the fuck out of teams like Dallas, New Orleans, even Utah imo. Lakers too, since they are top heavy and are relying on being injury free to have a good record.

:tu

[ICEBARREL]

He did until 2016, but was more right than many outlets. He actually gave Trump a chance, if a fairly slim one. This was before we knew Russia was actively monkeying with the election. Regardless, Trump did lose by nearly three million votes...





Lul 'bout Russia monkeying the US elections. We can't even do OUR elections right, to say at least.

[ducks]

He did until 2016, but was more right than many outlets. He actually gave Trump a chance, if a fairly slim one. This was before we knew Russia was actively monkeying with the election. Regardless, Trump did lose by nearly three million votes...

Russia might have spent 20-30 k
Clinton spent a billion
Trump won popular vote minus cal and the illegal votes

[Uriel]

I'm a fan of 538, but even I have to admit, this projection is pretty horrible.

[Uriel]

Nate Silver has a degree in economics from the University of Chicago, tbh, imo, fwiw.

[Collins21]

45 seems reasonable but, dear God, you people overrate the players on this team while underestimating every other team in the conference.

"Derr if we have Murray we are best in da west derr"

Yeah. Okay. :lol

Kinda how you underrate every player on the team??

[timvp]

If you go to the Spurs team page here:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-nba-predictions/spurs/

you can see why the Spurs were rated so low. They predicted that Trey Lyles would play 21 minutes a game and Dejounte Murray would only play 16 minutes a game. I don't know where they came up with these numbers but they are all wrong.

Good catch.

I don't care enough to do the math but if you increase the minutes for White and Murray, the Spurs win projections would go up.

[Mr. Body]

Lul 'bout Russia monkeying the US elections. We can't even do OUR elections right, to say at least.

Are you Russian? Putin has turned your country into a complete shithole. You should probably hang him or something.

[Mr. Body]

If you go to the Spurs team page here:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-nba-predictions/spurs/

you can see why the Spurs were rated so low. They predicted that Trey Lyles would play 21 minutes a game and Dejounte Murray would only play 16 minutes a game. I don't know where they came up with these numbers but they are all wrong.

White, who may be the best player on the team, only getting 26 minutes. Lonnie with 0.

[Mr. Body]

Nate Silver has a degree in economics from the University of Chicago, tbh, imo, fwiw.

Not a degree in sports.

[TheDoctor]

37 wins? Wtf?

[ducks]

Are you Russian? Putin has turned your country into a complete shithole. You should probably hang him or something.

Clinton’s and former president turned country into shitcan
Trump is making America great again

[ducks]

Did nate go to same school as aoc ?

[Divac Doesnt Flop]

Yep, Russia told Clinton not to campaign in Wisconsin, sure ok buddy. Totally their fault that the DNC ran the shittiest candidate imaginable that was having debate questions fed to her in advance and coordinating hit pieces on Bernie with the press. She had every media outlet on her side save Fox and talkradio, including the overwhelming support of international media, but a troll farm whose ads mostly were made after the election and didn't even promote Trump got Trump in, yeah ok.

The American public lacks any critical thinking skills. They just blindly believe anything CNN or the CIA says (same difference). And completely ignore all the interference we do in the rest of the world.

[Divac Doesnt Flop]

Silver had Trump with a 7% of winning the GOP nomination even when he was the clear front-runner for months. He based his entire polling theory on a single book - The Party Decides, and refused to countenance any evidence that the GOP's party machinery was not, in fact, deciding anything.

[Drom John]

538 minute breakdown
Remember these are per Spurs games and not per player games; so that's 82ish season minutes for Weatherspoon.]

PG 20 White, 15 Murray, 13 Mills. [No Murray btb and and managed 2019 minutes and this seems plausible.]
SG 21 DeRozan, 19 Forbes, 6 White, 1 Murray, 1 Weatherspoon
SF 21 Carroll, 11 DeRozan, 9 Belinelli, 7 Johnson
PF 24 Gay, 21 Lyles, 2 Samanic, 1 Aldridge [I think Poeltl will get more minutes, giving Aldridge more PF minutes at the expense of Lyles]
C 30 Aldridge, 16 Poeltl, 2 Carroll

And a 20% chance of making the playoffs is a lot better than the 1% for much of 2018.

As to Western opponents, on the too high, D'Angelo Russell, while less than Thompson is pretty good, that and losing Durant drops Warriors to 50 wins. They have Porzingas playing 26 minutes; I'd predict Dejounte (16 minutes) plays more than Kristaps. On the two low, I noticed two injured players that were given 0 minutes, Paul George and Jusuf Nurkic, at "full strength" the Clippers and Trail Blazers greatly improve.

We have stayed the course while a lot of the Western have improved. I think the Mavericks and the Timberwolves are targets, and the chance that Chris Paul won't get 30 minutes adds the Thunder.

If the Spurs stay healthy and Porzingas and Paul don't get their minutes, then there's the 20%.

[pad300]

Are you Russian? Putin has turned your country into a complete shithole. You should probably hang him or something.

Be fair here, it was a complete, and worse, shithole before Putin took power... They are still in shit up to their neck, but now their noses are above water. Still, finding a better government would be a step forward.

[Poolboy5623]

Theyll be finishing in that 6-8 seed range...again..

[horseshue]

Clippers, portland, denver, Jazz, Lakers, Spurs, gsw, Rockets. That is my top 8 in random order. Than comes Kings, mavs, maybe pelicans. No way Spurs are missing Play offs.

[ICEBARREL]

Be fair here, it was a complete, and worse, shithole before Putin took power... They are still in shit up to their neck, but now their noses are above water. Still, finding a better government would be a step forward.

This. Right now, no alternatives. In the early 2000s we at least knew the direction the country was moving at. Right now I clearly don't understand, what's happening, and other candidates except Putin, can't even explain, what they are going to do, and doesn't really have any political programms exept "We are against Putin".