Nylon Calculus Projected Wins-Sweet!!

[PhoSita]

Well besides maybe Horford, no one on that team was really looked at as better than anyone on their current Celtics team until they had their great season last year.

You criminally underrate Paul Millsap, sir.

[Celtics18]

Well besides maybe Horford, no one on that team was really looked at as better than anyone on their current Celtics team until they had their great season last year.

You criminally underrate Paul Millsap, sir.

Millsap and Horford were both considered very solid pros going into last season.  Millsap was coming off his first All Star game at twenty-eight years old, and Horford has been considered a top notch player (but not a super star) for a while.

Teague, Carroll, and Korver all had their stock as NBA players rise significantly last season due, in very large part, to the team's success. 

[fairweatherfan]

Based on that, I don't expect the Celts to perform up to what so many of these models say they will do.  But I could be missing something the models are recognizing.

Heart.  You're missing the heart factor.  We thought that statistics can't measure heart, but it turns out the eye test can't, because the heart is actually on the inside of the body and not visible to an outside observer.  Really makes u think.

[MBunge]

Well besides maybe Horford, no one on that team was really looked at as better than anyone on their current Celtics team until they had their great season last year.

You criminally underrate Paul Millsap, sir.

Paul Millsap wasn't a world-beater at 22 or 23, however.  Maybe a bit better than either Sully or KO but if they each turn out to be 80% of Millsap, who is going to be disappointed in that?

Mike

[tarheelsxxiii]

Based on that, I don't expect the Celts to perform up to what so many of these models say they will do.  But I could be missing something the models are recognizing.

Heart.  You're missing the heart factor.  We thought that statistics can't measure heart, but it turns out the eye test can't, because the heart is actually on the inside of the body and not visible to an outside observer.  Really makes u think.

Link? Or is this pure speculation again, buddy?

[alldaboston]

Now, I'm a huge homer, I mean like it's almost sad but #2 in the east? I hope so, but I can't even wrap my head around that LOL.

I'm actually sad that so many people are on the Celts train, I haven't really heard anyone say we won't make the playoffs and I haven't seen them say we are going to back our way in either. A lot of people say we will win around 45.

PLEASE OUTSIDERS START DOUBTING AND HATING ON US!!

I don't like the attention and projected wins we have been getting. Make no mistake, I'd love to win 52 games, but I feel if we don't do as well, we're gonna get blasted for underperforming and having a halt in the rebuild. Just my opinion though.

[littleteapot]

Well besides maybe Horford, no one on that team was really looked at as better than anyone on their current Celtics team until they had their great season last year.

You criminally underrate Paul Millsap, sir.

Paul Millsap wasn't a world-beater at 22 or 23, however.  Maybe a bit better than either Sully or KO but if they each turn out to be 80% of Millsap, who is going to be disappointed in that?

Mike

Well if you view them as at Paul Millsap's level, then yes you should be disappointed. I would be thrilled if they developed into 80% of Paul Millsap, and that's part of the reason I would say that Atlanta has more top-end talent than we do.

[slamtheking]

wouldn't mind if this was true but the fact they post Portland with a winning record pretty much calls their predictions into serious question. 

[BornReady]

Celtics over grizzlies + bulls + hawks

No way

[MBunge]

Well besides maybe Horford, no one on that team was really looked at as better than anyone on their current Celtics team until they had their great season last year.

You criminally underrate Paul Millsap, sir.

Paul Millsap wasn't a world-beater at 22 or 23, however.  Maybe a bit better than either Sully or KO but if they each turn out to be 80% of Millsap, who is going to be disappointed in that?

Mike

Well if you view them as at Paul Millsap's level, then yes you should be disappointed. I would be thrilled if they developed into 80% of Paul Millsap, and that's part of the reason I would say that Atlanta has more top-end talent than we do.

Not really.  Millsap and Horford were maybe a little better than KO and Sully, but not that much, and most of their other "stars" last season looked like anything but in years 1-3 of their career.  You'd be hard pressed to argue that Jeff Teague was a more impressive rookie than Smart.

Mike

[trickybilly]

Based on that, I don't expect the Celts to perform up to what so many of these models say they will do.  But I could be missing something the models are recognizing.

Heart.  You're missing the heart factor.  We thought that statistics can't measure heart, but it turns out the eye test can't, because the heart is actually on the inside of the body and not visible to an outside observer.  Really makes u think.

Link? Or is this pure speculation again, buddy?

No no, s/he's right..

http://blog.zef.fi/en/how-to-measure-your-employees-enthusiasm-and-why

[tarheelsxxiii]

Based on that, I don't expect the Celts to perform up to what so many of these models say they will do.  But I could be missing something the models are recognizing.

Heart.  You're missing the heart factor.  We thought that statistics can't measure heart, but it turns out the eye test can't, because the heart is actually on the inside of the body and not visible to an outside observer.  Really makes u think.

Link? Or is this pure speculation again, buddy?

No no, s/he's right..

http://blog.zef.fi/en/how-to-measure-your-employees-enthusiasm-and-why

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2714075/Heart-box-Pioneering-device-keeps-donor-organs-alive-OUTSIDE-body.html

The heart can survive 4-6 hours outside of the human body. Therefore, we can measure heart ... and maybe it's frieken anti-correlated with effort.

Boom. Allow that to blow your mind, trickybilly.

This begs the question -- although PEDs are illegal, should heart transplants be forbidden too? What if we had been able to stuff a mature, heavy-handed, assertive heart into Jeff Green? Or Olynyk, Sully, or Young?

[LooseCannon]

Well besides maybe Horford, no one on that team was really looked at as better than anyone on their current Celtics team until they had their great season last year.

You criminally underrate Paul Millsap, sir.

Paul Millsap wasn't a world-beater at 22 or 23, however.  Maybe a bit better than either Sully or KO but if they each turn out to be 80% of Millsap, who is going to be disappointed in that?

Mike

Well if you view them as at Paul Millsap's level, then yes you should be disappointed. I would be thrilled if they developed into 80% of Paul Millsap, and that's part of the reason I would say that Atlanta has more top-end talent than we do.

Not really.  Millsap and Horford were maybe a little better than KO and Sully, but not that much, and most of their other "stars" last season looked like anything but in years 1-3 of their career.  You'd be hard pressed to argue that Jeff Teague was a more impressive rookie than Smart.

Mike

Advanced metrics suggest Millsap/Horford were significantly better than Olynyk/Sullinger at the same age. 

Millsap is an interesting guy, statistically.  His advanced metrics have been relatively flat over his entire career.  He was basically about as valuable a player on a per minute basis coming off the bench in Utah as he has been as a starter in Atlanta, but the shape of his contributions have changed, with more scoring and less rebounding now.  Millsap has been undervalued by people who focus on fantasy sports stats and mistakenly believed that Al Jefferson was the superior Jazz big man when I don't think that Millsap was better when they were teammates and it wasn't even close.

[TheFlex]

One thing I've noticed about our current team is that we have maybe the biggest positive discrepancy between how good we look on paper and how good we look in statistical models. 

I think that's partly by design - Danny seems to prioritize underrated talent with good advanced stats profiles, and partly a testament to how Stevens' system works with the guys that are here.

Great news anyway, let's see how it shakes out.

I'm also curious how these statistical models work.

When I see the Celts rated so highly, I can only imagine that depth is given a lot of weight, while the lack of stand-out individual production is discounted. 

While the team got a bit better this summer from a talent perspective, and will be even deeper than last year, I think the team's biggest issues from last season are still there.

On paper at least, the Celts still lack an inside presence on defense, and they still figure to rely a great deal on outside shooting despite a lack of quality outside shooters.

Based on that, I don't expect the Celts to perform up to what so many of these models say they will do.  But I could be missing something the models are recognizing.

A lot of these models depend heavily on plus-minus stats. And the Celts are loaded with rock-solid plus-minus guys.  And they replaced their worst plus-minus offender Bass with a comparative stud in Amir Johnson.

It's the same reason why the models hate the Nets. Chock full of massive negatives in leading roles. For instance, most people would agree that Jack and Larkin are below-average starters, but RPM has them as below-average 3rd-stringers.

What nutjobs have been telling you that Shane Larkin is a below-average starter?

[LHR]

I feel like these computer algorithms have done more to fuel our excitement than anything we've seen on the court.  Well, the 6-1 pre-season did its part but all these stories really escalated things.  Heck, I was going into this season hoping for the team to go .500, but now it feels like getting to 45 is set in stone with exceeding that being no surprise at all.