Barring injury I seriously doubt it'll be a lottery pick, but in the stacked West early struggles could bump it up 3-5 spots for us, which would be nice.  Every notch higher than 25 will be a bonus in my book.

love it-- and agree with OP that this could likely happen, top 6 spots are all but locked up and then you've got OKC who will certainly bounce back.

They are already battling for 8th, and have inexplicably lost all their poise.  Expect CP3 to choke it away, think he has some version of bball ptsd from the playoffs last year...

Quote from: footey on November 19, 2014, 02:47:48 PM

Clippers have dropped to the 8th seed in the competitive Western Conference. How sweet it would be, and not out of the realm of possibility, for them to fall into the lottery.  Imagine what kind of talent we could scoop up in the forthcoming draft, which is very deep with centers?

Thank you, Doc!!

Barring a major injury I wouldn't get too worked up on this possibility. Especially with OKC looking like they could miss the playoffs due to their own injury woes.

I haven't watched any clippers games yet this year but some basketball people on twitter were saying it looks like Blake is playing with an injury. If he was out, do you think they are a lottery team?

No team's played more than 12 games thus far.  That's 14.6% of the season, or the rough equivalent of two NFL games out of the 16-game season.

Suffice it to say, their early start means ultimately nothing.

Quote from: Fafnir on November 19, 2014, 02:51:34 PM

Quote from: footey on November 19, 2014, 02:47:48 PM

Clippers have dropped to the 8th seed in the competitive Western Conference. How sweet it would be, and not out of the realm of possibility, for them to fall into the lottery.  Imagine what kind of talent we could scoop up in the forthcoming draft, which is very deep with centers?

Thank you, Doc!!

Barring a major injury I wouldn't get too worked up on this possibility. Especially with OKC looking like they could miss the playoffs due to their own injury woes.

I haven't watched any clippers games yet this year but some basketball people on twitter were saying it looks like Blake is playing with an injury. If he was out, do you think they are a lottery team?

If Blake is out entirely?

Yeah I think they'd be out of the playoffs. They really need both CP3 and Blake playing at a high level to function. They lack another big man option to fill blake's role and their weakness at the wing is still a huge problem even with Blake/CP3 playing well.

It would be sweet indeed...But so would a random man coming up to me and handing me 2 million dollars.

Quote from: Endless Paradise on November 19, 2014, 03:21:29 PM

No team's played more than 12 games thus far.  That's 14.6% of the season, or the rough equivalent of two NFL games out of the 16-game season.

Suffice it to say, their early start means ultimately nothing.

From cbssports.com....

"What does 0-2 mean? Since 1990 only 23 of the 198 teams that started 0-2 made the playoffs, giving a 12 percent chance of recovering from that poor of a start. On the other hand, a 2-0 start raises the possibility of making the playoffs to 63 percent."

Mike

NFL playoffs is a harder barrier to crack than the NBA Playoffs. Only 37.5% of the league makes it compared to 53% in the NBA. Changes things but I actually agree with you about 12 games being meaningful.

I'm not a huge fan of their site and methods but the boxscore geeks have a confidence interval post that's relevant to this discussion:

http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/articles/confidence-intervals-and-you

We're approaching the point where the sample size is meaningful, though in specific cases injuries loom large. The Thunder and Clippers are two of those, Blake is playing at a career worst level so far 9 games into the season.