posted by Jason
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Last October, Jeff from CelticsBlog coordinated a team-by-team look at the 2006-07 season that featured dozens of NBA bloggers. Naturally, there was more than enough optimism to go around in the preseason. And inevitably, the ensuing season brought disappointment for many fans.
On Jeff's suggestion, I put together a table that compares the preview predictions to the each teams actual win total on the year. It's sortable—you can toggle the sort and direction by clicking the column headings.
| Team | Preview | Predicted Wins | Actual Wins | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 76ers | Passon & Pride | 47 | 35 | -12 |
| Blazers | TrueHoop | - | 32 | - |
| Bobcats | Bobcat Bonfire | 42 | 33 | -9 |
| Bucks | 5-Point Bucks | 44 | 28 | -16 |
| Bulls | Blog-a-Bull | 55 | 49 | -6 |
| Cavaliers | YAYsports! NBA | 58 | 50 | -8 |
| Celtics | LOY's PLACE | 40 | 24 | -16 |
| Celtics | CelticsBlog.com | 42 | 24 | -18 |
| Celtics | Celticsstuff Live | 48 | 24 | -24 |
| Clippers | ClipsNation | 52 | 40 | -12 |
| Grizzlies | Beale Street Beat | 45 | 22 | -23 |
| Hawks | Impending Firestorm | 37 | 30 | -7 |
| Heat | Crazy From the Heat | 54 | 44 | -10 |
| Hornets | Hornets 24/7 | 48 | 39 | -9 |
| Jazz | lowpost.net/blog | 43 | 51 | 8 |
| Kings | Sactown Royalty | 50 | 33 | -17 |
| Knicks | Bench Renaldo | 41 | 33 | -8 |
| Lakers | Showtime | 44.5 | 42 | -2.5 |
| Lakers | Jones on the NBA | 48 | 42 | -6 |
| Lakers | Forum Blue & Gold | 49 | 42 | -7 |
| Magic | Believing in Magic | 45 | 40 | -5 |
| Mavericks | Mavs Moneyball | 59 | 67 | 8 |
| Nets | NetsDaily Blog | 51 | 41 | -10 |
| Nuggets | The Nugg Doctor | 51 | 45 | -6 |
| Pacers | Donning Craig Sager's Suit | 43 | 35 | -8 |
| Pistons | Detroit Bad Boys | 55 | 53 | -2 |
| Pistons | Need4Sheed | 57 | 53 | -4 |
| Raptors | HoopsAddict.com | 42 | 47 | 5 |
| Rockets | Rockets Blast | 57 | 52 | -5 |
| Sonics | SonicsCentral.com | 45 | 31 | -14 |
| Spurs | Pounding the Rock | 58 | 58 | 0 |
| Suns | Phoenix Suns Rising, Suns Gossip | 60 | 61 | 1 |
| Timberwolves | I Heart KG | 42 | 32 | -10 |
| Warriors | lowpost.net/blog | 35 | 42 | 7 |
| Warriors | Golden State of Mind | 41 | 42 | 1 |
| Wizards | Bullets Fever | 50 | 41 | -9 |
Highest on the disappointment meter (try sorting by the Difference column) are the teams with the two worst records in the league—Boston and Memphis. The Kings had the next largest negative differential, which helps to explain why Eric Musselman is apparently out after just one season.
Most accurate predictions included:
- Pounding the Rock nailing the Spurs win total of 58.
- Phoenix Suns Rising & Suns Gossip missing the Suns total by 1.
- Golden State of Mind for nearly hitting the Warriors win total as well as predicting (or hoping) that the W's would "[trade] for some shooters and an athletic 4 or 5 near the February trade deadline."
Before the season began, I compared the blogger predictions to Vegas odds at the time, so to finish the story, here are their results:
| Team | Oddsmakers Wins | Actual Wins | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 76ers | 34 | 35 | 1 |
| Blazers | 24.5 | 32 | 7.5 |
| Bobcats | 33 | 33 | 0 |
| Bucks | 38.5 | 28 | -10.5 |
| Bulls | 49.5 | 49 | -0.5 |
| Cavaliers | 49.5 | 50 | 0.5 |
| Celtics | 36.5 | 24 | -12.5 |
| Clippers | 47 | 40 | -7 |
| Grizzlies | 38.5 | 22 | -16.5 |
| Hawks | 28.5 | 30 | 1.5 |
| Heat | 51 | 44 | -7 |
| Hornets | 40 | 39 | -1 |
| Jazz | 41.5 | 51 | 9.5 |
| Kings | 42 | 33 | -9 |
| Knicks | 31 | 33 | 2 |
| Lakers | 42 | 42 | 0 |
| Magic | 39.5 | 40 | 0.5 |
| Mavericks | 56 | 67 | 11 |
| Nets | 46.5 | 41 | -5.5 |
| Nuggets | 42.5 | 45 | 2.5 |
| Pacers | 43.5 | 35 | -8.5 |
| Pistons | 50.5 | 53 | 2.5 |
| Raptors | 34.5 | 47 | 12.5 |
| Rockets | 47 | 52 | 5 |
| Sonics | 34 | 31 | -3 |
| Spurs | 56 | 58 | 2 |
| Suns | 55.5 | 61 | 5.5 |
| Timberwolves | 36 | 32 | -4 |
| Warriors | 37 | 42 | 5 |
| Wizards | 40 | 41 | 1 |
With money on the line and allegiances out the window, the oddsmakers obviously fared much better. They were within 3 wins of the actual total for nearly half the league, and they pretty much nailed the Bulls, Bobcats, Lakers, Cavaliers, and Magic. But was there an East coast bias? After the Raptors, the 6 most underestimated teams all came from the Western Conference.
To see what fans are predicting for the playoffs, don't forget to check out the master bracket from the Ballhype playoffs pick'em contest.
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missgossip This will need to be updated after the playofffs to show how the Suns team was also accurate in the trophy prediction department. Eyes on the Prize!! -
tziller This is great... and I will now disappear in shame for a few months.
I will go on the record, though: I mistyped when I predicted 50 Kings wins... I meant to say '5'. Muss way overachieved!
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TheHype Ryan stuck to his guns pretty well, with a plus 5 for the Raps.
Who wants to do Summer League predictions?? C'mon! It'll be funz!
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tziller I'm in. Almost everyone's moving to Vegas this year, right? ROAD TRIP.
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wescx Nobody underestimated their team more than me.
I don't feel bad though. I would have felt ridiculous predicting 67 wins, and I did predict a Southwest Division title.
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Tbone42 Telling prediction by the Hernia i preseason, ironically it wasn't contact that did him in:
"The sky’s the limit if 103-pound toothpick Shaun Livingston can somehow avoid physical contact for the entire season."
http://www.thesportshernia.com/basketball/preview06pac.html
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tdaloisio Great look back. It would be fun to do this for baseball as well if we could find an aggregation of bloggers estimates. I predicted 96 for the Red Sox for example.
Calling Out The Optimists
CelticsBlog —
... . I thought it might be fun to look back and see how well each team did. I enlisted the very talented Jason Gurney from Ballhype to put the numbers into a sortable table. Here are the results. Winners of the Overoptimistic Drunk On Kool Aid Award is our good friend Justin from
Reviewing our Previewing
Detroit Bad Boys —
... To make the job easier looking at everyone’s predictions, Jason Gurney put together a sortable chart over at Ballhype — I’m proud to say Ian and I were among the better prognosticators: we predicted 55 wins and the Pistons finished with 53.
Scoring the Preseason Predictions of Bloggers and Las Vegas
ESPN.com - TrueHoop —
... Check out Jason's chart breaking down all the different predictions.
Prognostication Gone Awry
Sactown Royalty —
... has reflected on the preseason prognostications of the bloggers who particpated in that
LUNCH BREAK: Playoff Free Edition
Some People's Kids —
... Bloggers love their teams far too much. I probably would have given the wolves 40 wins what with that new point guard and the Celtics settling into their new home.
Greg Oden sluffs sophomore season for NBA
Daily Basketball —
... BallHype has a review of the season previews compiled by bloggers at the beginning of the season. Predictably, most teams fell short of high expectations, and only won team (the San Antonio Spurs) had their record guessed correctly.
Season Review X: The Team
Blog a Bull —
... . (Matt, you can at least claim to have theoretically predicted the Bulls win total among your fellow bloggers.) The Bulls should have finished 1st in the East ahead of 53 win Detroit and 52 win Cleveland. That's the ultimate reason that the Bulls finsihed first in the East in
How Good Are The Experts?
ESPN.com - TrueHoop —
... and predict the number of wins they'd get. As you might expect, bloggers overestimated their teams chances by a pretty good clip. See the analysis here. Of course that's part of the fun and yes, we'll be doing it again this year. Stay tuned. ...
