(Please note: I have no idea where I'm going with this post. It was just something I was thinking about earlier today)
The worst of the West versus the worst of the West:
One of the things that I think we have going for us with this Nets pick is that all the teams that are anywhere close to them in the standings are all in the West, meaning that they play each other a lot. In a best case scenario, they'll all finish .500 against each other. These teams, the Worst of the Worst in the West (WWW), are, I believe, Denver (15 wins), New Orleans, Minny, Phoenix (all 13 wins) and LAL (9 wins). Naturally, Denver and NO are better than the rest, but they're all in the same "any given Sunday" category (i.e., any game between any two of these teams will be close). Thus, the more games within this group, the better. Here's how it breaks out:
Denver: 42 remaining, 4 WWW
Plays LAL twice
Plays PHX once
Plays NO once
(Plays BKN twice)
Minny: 40 remaining, 8 WWW
Plays NO four times
Plays LAL twice
Plays PHX twice
(Plays BKN once)
New Orleans: 43 remaining, 8 WWW
Plays Minny four times
Plays Denver once
Plays Phoenix once
Plays LAL twice
(Plays BKN twice)
LAL: 40 remaining, 8 WWW
Plays NO twice
Plays Denver twice
Plays Minny twice
Plays PHX twice
(Plays BKN once)
Phoenix: 40 remaining 6 WWW
Plays LAL twice
Plays Minny twice
Plays NO once
Plays Denver once
(Plays BKN once)
The Philly factor: Philly is worse than all of them.
LAL and Denver play PHL once (LAL and Denver win once)
NO plays PHL twice (NO wins one)
BKN plays PHL 3 times (BKN wins two)
Brooklyn has 41 games left. Of those, seven are against WWW and three are against Philly. Given that BKN has lost a couple of starters (or at least a starter and their 6th man), their record likely slightly overstates their actual ability. With NO and Philly getting better as injured players return, and LAL, Denver and Minny relatively unchanged, Brooklyn's relative position (i.e., how their record compares to what remains of their team now) is likely only better than Phoenix's, with Bledsoe now gone. Phoenix has won exactly once since Bledsoe's Christmas injury.
In a perfect .500 world, just within WWW teams, Denver picks up two wins, Phoenix three and all the others four. In and of itself, that's not horrible, although it would obviously require some upsets.
But strength of schedule based strictly on these results has me a bit nervous. If we include the five WWW teams plus Brooklyn and Philly, of those seven teams, Brooklyn has the most games against the other six. So that's not in our favor. At least the East is tight and, if it remains so, two of the three last Philly games are against Indy and Toronto, so they might not be able to sit players.
Based only on the info above, which covers ~20-25% of the remaining games, I'm that much more nervous about Phoenix, less so Minny. Hoping that the Lakers can win a few.
Mike
Topic: Official 2015-16 Brooklyn Nets Season Watch Thread (21-59, 3rd slot as of 4/12) (Read 703717 times)