23-24 Season Win Prediction

[Phrazbit]

Here's the blurb from the ESPN+ article on the Suns, who are listed #5 in the West.

1 - Memphis 48.4 wins
2 - Minnesota 47.7 wins
3 - Denver 46.4 wins
4 - Golden State 43.7

Suns at 43.5 wins. Too bad that isn't the betting odds.

Win projections for the Lakers, Celtics and all 30 NBA teams

ESPN NBA insider Kevin Pelton unveils his annual win projections for all 30 teams. Where does your team land?

www.espn.com

I dunno about the win totals, but any projection that has Minnesota is a potential 2 seed is laughable.

That team is a mess, they need to trade one of their bigs ASAP if they want to be more than a play in squad.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Just want to point out that roughly 67% of NBA champions were the #1 seed. We absolutely should be pushing for that because that home court advantage can be huge.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Just want to point out that roughly 67% of NBA champions were the #1 seed. We absolutely should be pushing for that because that home court advantage can be huge.

That's somewhat self-fulfilling though. If you're the best team, odds are you'll have the best record and you'll have a good chance to win it all. Anyway, I'd weigh those numbers against the need to keep old and injury prone players healthy and ready for the postseason. We need to win games but not as much as we need to protect our key players.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

That's somewhat self-fulfilling though. If you're the best team, odds are you'll have the best record and you'll have a good chance to win it all. Anyway, I'd weigh those numbers against the need to keep old and injury prone players healthy and ready for the postseason. We need to win games but not as much as we need to protect our key players.

Sure in many cases they were just the best team and the record was just a reflection of that, but in plenty of cases the home court advantage played a role in them winning it all. Last year alone may have played out quite differently if we had home court advantage over the Nuggets.

I do agree though. Being healthy is the bigger factor and I am not suggesting they should be putting getting the #1 over being healthy for the playoffs.

 

[Mainstreet]

Sure in many cases they were just the best team and the record was just a reflection of that, but in plenty of cases the home court advantage played a role in them winning it all. Last year alone may have played out quite differently if we had home court advantage over the Nuggets.

I do agree though. Being healthy is the bigger factor and I am not suggesting they should be putting getting the #1 over being healthy for the playoffs.

Home court advantage wasn't the difference between the Nuggets and Suns in the playoffs last season.

Chris Paul was out with a groin injury for four games and showed no signs of coming back. Then Ayton sits out game 6 with a rib injury.

If a picture can tell a story, it's this one. I want to go oof.

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[CardsSunsDbacks]

Home court advantage wasn't the difference between the Nuggets and Suns in the playoffs last season.

Chris Paul was out with a groin injury for four games and showed no signs of coming back. Then Ayton sits out game 6 with a rib injury.

If a picture can tell a story, it's this one. I want to go oof.

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

That's fair, but we still pushed it to 6 games despite not having the home court advantage. The series may well have been Suns up 3-2 going into game 6 if we had that advantage.

 

[Hoop Head]

Until the Suns prove home court is an advantage for them in the postseason, I don't consider it a priority. Look how the Suns season ended the last 2 years on our home floor.

 

[cheesebeef]

Until the Suns prove home court is an advantage for them in the postseason, I don't consider it a priority. Look how the Suns season ended the last 2 years on our home floor.

Man… that’s a hard truth.

 

[Phrazbit]

Until the Suns prove home court is an advantage for them in the postseason, I don't consider it a priority. Look how the Suns season ended the last 2 years on our home floor.

In the last 30 years the Suns have won only one series as the lower seed; in 2000 as a 5 seed vs the 4th seed Spurs... who were without Tim Duncan.

 

[AzStevenCal]

In the last 30 years the Suns have won only one series as the lower seed, in 2000 as a 5 seed vs the 4th seed Spurs.

I'm too lazy to do the work but I suspect this tells us very little. I believe that we've been the higher seeded team in most of our playoff matchups so no chance to win as the lower seed in those situations. Additionally, the higher seeded team is usually the better team so there shouldn't be too many wins as a lower seed in the first place. And we missed the postseason in 13 of our past 30 seasons.

 

[Superbone]

I'm too lazy to do the work but I suspect this tells us very little. I believe that we've been the higher seeded team in most of our playoff matchups so no chance to win as the lower seed in those situations. Additionally, the higher seeded team is usually the better team so there shouldn't be too many wins as a lower seed in the first place. And we missed the postseason in 13 of our past 30 seasons.

Without looking, I'm assuming we had our largest percentage of missed postseasons during Sarver's reign. Even with him inheriting Nash. Maybe not. It sure feels like it though. At least the longest streak of not making it during those Blabby years after Amare moved on until we finally struck pay dirt with Jones and Williams.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Without looking, I'm assuming we had our largest percentage of missed postseasons during Sarver's reign. Even with him inheriting Nash. Maybe not. It sure feels like it though. At least the longest streak of not making it during those Blabby years after Amare moved on until we finally struck pay dirt with Jones and Williams.

Yeah we had that horrible stretch where we competed for the worst record in the league under Sarver and along the way we missed the postseason 10 straight years (11 out of 12). We broke that 10 year streak when we lost in the finals.

 

[Superbone]

Yeah we had that horrible stretch where we competed for the worst record in the league under Sarver and along the way we missed the postseason 10 straight years (11 out of 12). We broke that 10 year streak when we lost in the finals.

I just looked it up. It's pretty incredible how often we consistently made the playoffs after our first seven seasons in the league. Also wild was the fact that we went to the Finals in only our 2nd postseason run (year 8; first was in year 2). Interesting that we went to the Finals after both of our longest playoff futility streaks in our history. (5 and 10 years) We even got to the Conference Finals after our third longest streak of missing the playoffs (3).

 

[Phrazbit]

I'm too lazy to do the work but I suspect this tells us very little. I believe that we've been the higher seeded team in most of our playoff matchups so no chance to win as the lower seed in those situations. Additionally, the higher seeded team is usually the better team so there shouldn't be too many wins as a lower seed in the first place. And we missed the postseason in 13 of our past 30 seasons.

I might be a bit off here, I did the math in my head real quick...

10 times we've been eliminated as the lower seed.

17-7 in series with home court advantage, 1-10 in series without it. Probably 0-11 if Tim Duncan didn't get hurt right before the playoffs that year.

Home court, I think, is obvious a huge advantage. Especially in the playoffs where I think refs really go along with momentum in games.

The opportunities for a road series win were not lacking. Furthermore, there are examples of us winning a series against a team we only edged out for seeding. In 2006 do we beat the Clippers if we were the 3 seed instead of the 2 seed?

 

[AzStevenCal]

I might be a bit off here, I did the math in my head real quick...

10 times we've been eliminated as the lower seed.

17-7 in series with home court advantage, 1-10 in series without it. Probably 0-11 if Tim Duncan didn't get hurt right before the playoffs that year.

Home court, I think, is obvious a huge advantage. Especially in the playoffs where I think refs really go along with momentum in games.

The opportunities for a road series win were not lacking. Furthermore, there are examples of us winning a series against a team we only edged out for seeding. In 2006 do we beat the Clippers if we were the 3 seed instead of the 2 seed?

I think the noticably better team wins almost every time whether or not they have the best record or home court advantage. But put two roughly equal teams against each other and, yeah, I'd give a solid edge to the team with home court. So I don't think you can make anything out of stats that show the team loses when facing a higher seeded team or wins when facing a lower seeded team - more often than not they are simply playing to form.

This doesn't mean I don't want HCA, it's just not as big of a deal as it used to be in the 70's, 80's and 90's IMO.

 

[Phrazbit]

I think the noticably better team wins almost every time whether or not they have the best record or home court advantage. But put two roughly equal teams against each other and, yeah, I'd give a solid edge to the team with home court. So I don't think you can make anything out of stats that show the team loses when facing a higher seeded team or wins when facing a lower seeded team - more often than not they are simply playing to form.

This doesn't mean I don't want HCA, it's just not as big of a deal as it used to be in the 70's, 80's and 90's IMO.

Sure, a lot of it is simply a higher seed smoking a lower one, but that margin... 17 wins vs 1 win is way to wide for home court not to be a major factor in my opinion.

Furthermore, if we play like we're content with getting the 5th seed, that could potentially leave us March sprained ankle away from ending up in the play-in game.

 

[Proteus]

50 to 55 wins!

 

[95pro]

55 wins

 

[gimpy]

55 wins

One down, 54 to go.