Win total expectations for bottom 8 teams

[HermanG]

I'm looking at the remaining schedules for all bottom 8 teams to try and estimate their records. I trust the people in here saying Mavs will be part of the tankers, even if I'm not 100% sure if/when that may happen. Also we dont know what will happen with Giannis and Bucks may enter the race even though they likely wont touch the bottom 7.

So I'm using a very simple logic to calculate estimated win totals for each teams. I put teams in 3 buckets and count how many games they play and what the expected win% of those games could be.

Bottom 8: Pels, Pacers, Wizards, Kings, Nets, Jazz, Hornets, Mavs
Mid teams: Bucks, Hawks, Bulls, Heat, Grizzlies, Blazers, Clippers
Good teams: Rest of the league

Bottom 8 teams WILL for a fact win 50% of their games against each other. That wont necessarily be true for one single team, but in the bigger picture that is simply a fact. Im gonna assume that bottom 8 wins around 20% of their games against mid teams, and 10% of their games against the rest of the league.

Pels:
Current 10 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 9 x 0.5 = 4.5 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 9 x 0.2 = 1.8 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 19 x 0.1 = 1.9 wins
Result: 18.3 wins

Pacers:
Current 10 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 9 x 0.5 = 4.5 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 12 x 0.2 = 2.4 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 17 x 0.1 = 1.7 wins
Result: 18.6 wins

Wizards:
Current 10 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 10 x 0.5 = 5 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 11 x 0.2 = 2.2 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 19 x 0.1 = 1.9 wins
Result: 19.1 wins

Kings:
Current 12 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 12 x 0.5 = 6 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 8 x 0.2 = 1.6 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 19 x 0.1 = 1.9 wins
Result: 21.5 wins

Nets:
Current 12 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 9 x 0.5 = 4.5 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 11 x 0.2 = 2.2 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 21 x 0.1 = 2.1 wins
Result: 20.8 wins

Jazz:
Current 14 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 9 x 0.5 = 4.5 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 10 x 0.2 = 2 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 20 x 0.1 = 2 wins
Result: 22.5 wins

Hornets:
Current 16 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 10 x 0.5 = 5 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 9 x 0.2 = 1.8 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 20 x 0.1 = 2 wins
Result: 24.8 wins

Mavs:
Current 18 wins
Expected wins against bottom 8: 6 x 0.5 = 3 wins
Expected wins against mid teams: 9 x 0.2 = 1.8 wins
Expected wins against good teams: 23 x 0.1 = 2.3 wins
Result: 25.1 wins

My thoughts on this:

• Pels have no incentive to tank so I would guess they win higher % of their games against tanking teams. That serves the Jazz well as we will play them 3 times. Another team who plays them 3 times is the Kings, but no one else on the bottom 8 plays them more than 1 times.
• Kings have a cupcake schedule and even as it stands they project to win just 1 game less than we do in this silly model. We play them 2 times in the remaining games.
• Hornets and Mavs wont threaten our position, unless we turn into a "frisky team" at some point

 

[HermanG]

The percentages should not be flat... but to be able to correctly set them for each team you would have to "know their intentions" (e.g. how dirty are they gonna get) and then also do an assessment of actual roster strength. That would complicate this too much and I'm not qualified to even do such calculations.