We’re about ten games into the NBA season so far. It’s late enough to start perceiving some trends, and still early enough to make predictions.
If you haven’t been paying attention, here’s what’s been hoopening: Miami, after all the hype, is 6-4. The Hornets, who had no hype, are 8-1. The Lakers, who still aren’t fully healthy, are 8-2. The Clippers, who are mostly healthy, are, well, the Clippers. The Knicks have shown signs of life, but then allowed Kevin Love to put up a 30-30 game. No joke. At least 30 points and at least 30 boards. (A question for the NBA’s official statistician: does it only count as a 20-20 game, because it happened against the Knicks?) And, after improving to 2-0 against the Heat this year, Paul Pierce tweeted an absolutely classic tweet.
We’re now deep enough into the season that it’s an appropriate time to start talking about predictions. I begin my analysis by looking at individual players; specifically, stars. For a team to make the playoffs, it obviously must have balance, depth, and role players. No question. But, in general, it also must have at least 1 star.
I don’t see more than 1 or 2 NBA teams making the playoffs that do not have an All-Star on their roster. The only team to do it last year was Milwaukee, and they had a few guys who were borderline All-Stars. This is no coincidence; when attempting to pick the playoff teams, I start by trying to pick the All-Stars. Then I add 4 borderline All-Stars per conference, and that tells me which of the teams are worthy of going through the hoopservations state-of-the-art (ahem) data analyzer to predict playoff teams.
As a starting point, here were last year’s All-Star rosters:
EAST:
LeBron James
Kevin Garnett
Dwyane Wade
Allen Iverson (injured)
David Lee
Dwight Howard
Al Horford
Chris Bosh
Paul Pierce
Gerald Wallace
Joe Johnson
Rajon Rondo
Derrick Rose
WEST
Carmelo Anthony
Tim Duncan
Kobe Bryant (injured)
Jason Kidd
Steve Nash
Amar’e Stoudemire
Pau Gasol
Kevin Durant
Dirk Nowitzki
Zach Randolph
Chris Paul (injured)
Chauncey Billups
Brandon Roy (injured)
Chris Kaman
Deron Williams
Right off the bat, we know there will be a few changes, because Iverson isn’t in the league anymore (he was barely in the league when he made the team last year, but his name won’t be on the ballot this year so the chances of a repeat are low), David Lee went to the Western Conference, and Amar’e went to the East.
Here’s what I see for the East:
1. LeBron James
2. Dwyane Wade
3. Amar’e Stoudemire
4. Dwight Howard
5. Danny Granger
6. Paul Pierce
7. Gerald Wallace
8. Joe Johnson
9. Rajon Rondo
10. Derrick Rose
11. Joakim Noah
12. Andrew Bogut
Borderline:
Brook Lopez
Al Horford
Andre Iguodala
Anderson Varejao
And here’s what I see for the West:
1. Carmelo Anthony
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Steve Nash
4. Blake Griffin
5. Pau Gasol
6. Kevin Durant
7. Dirk Nowitzki
8. Manu Ginobili
9. Chris Paul
10. Brandon Roy
11. Deron Williams
12. Russell Westbrook
Borderline
Stephen Curry
Zach Randolph
Tony Parker
David West
So, the teams we can eliminate from playoff consideration because they simply don’t have enough talent are: Detroit, Toronto, Washington, Sacramento, Minnesota, and Houston. That probably doesn’t count as going out on a limb, so let me push the envelope a bit… at least 4 of those teams will win fewer than 30 games.
Soon, I’ll analyze each of the other teams and generate playoff predictions.