2025-26 team win projection contest

[nbacouchside]

This seems to assume that the 5-2 Bulls will henceforth turn into their predicted 33-win selves, and the 2-6 Mavs will in fact play like a 42-win team the rest of the way; with minor "luck" adjustments.
The season is already about halfway to that 15-game mark where preseason expectations have overall zero bearing on the 82-game outcome. Around that time, only to-date performance is correlated to final win%.

For the record, the analysis I did suggests that at 13 games, Vegas expectations are still worth about 50% of end of season win projection. It drops below 25% after 31 games. It doesn't drop below 5% until after game 51.

I must be missing something, if I do a simple Excel correlation, I get about 61-62% for FanDuel and SportsOdds for the whole season last year, while our entries were in the 64-66% range.

I think you're not understanding the method I'm using (I probably didn't explain it well enough).

What I'm doing is I ran a version of opponent adjusted MOV with HCA included at intervals of every 5 games and then the end of season (82). I also ran the per game difference between the team and their opponents points per game on 3P shots and FTs from what they would have been if they made league average rates. At each of the 5 game intervals, I ran a regression on the values for opponent and HCA adjusted MOV, the 3 point and FT differentials for the team and their opponent, and the pre-season Vegas Wins total to project both end of season Wins and end of season opponent and HCA adjusted MOV. Then I used linear interpolation on the co-efficients for each of those regressions to figure out what the weights should be for every game not included in the 5 game intervals (i.e. after games 6, 7, 8, and 9, etc.).

At 7 games into the season, about 66% of the end of season Win projection comes from Vegas. By game 13, it drops below 50%. By game 31, it's at roughly 25% and then it really trails off from there.

[Mike G]

Improvements averaged .17 to season low errors

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.   avg err   rmse   r^2      .   avg err   rmse   r^2
EExp   5.88   7.24   .47      dtka   6.36   7.93   .38
DRKO   5.91   7.52   .43     vegas   6.38   7.65   .52
Walr   6.13   7.47   .43      Crow   6.86   8.72   .37
bpmW   6.15   7.50   .44      25pr   6.88   8.40   .33
Mgoo   6.15   7.81   .41      WShr   6.91   8.26   .35
perW   6.17   8.42   .33      KPel   6.96   8.42   .40
avgA   6.18   7.67   .42      medi   6.99   8.40   .45
eWin   6.27   8.25   .34      25re   7.31   9.10   .30
knar   6.29   7.73   .37      DQin   8.68  10.44   .25

https://www.basketball-reference.com/fr ... _prob.html
medi jumped .40, Crow unmoved.

rogue exponential leaders:

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e = .10         e = .30        e = .66        e = 1.86        e = 16 
3.62  eWin     4.42  perW     5.27  DRKO     7.07  EExp     12.2  Walr
3.89  perW     4.51  eWin     5.33  perW     7.32  DRKO     12.9  EExp
4.04  DRKO     4.51  DRKO     5.33  EExp     7.32  Walr     13.1 vegas
4.24  Walr     4.71  EExp     5.50  eWin     7.34  bpmW     13.1  WShr
4.24  dtka     4.74  Walr     5.51  Walr     7.49  vegas    13.8  bpmW

[Crow]

BRef now projecting 6 under 30 wins but only 1 under 20. At the moment, I am leaning toward 3 under 20.

Thunder projected at 54 wins. Uh huh...



BRef projecting 10 teams with a 3+% chance at title. 19 with a non-zero chance. Thunder at under 16%. I'll think about that, though it will change.

Heat with a 10% chance? I don't think so. But more to study and watch. 2W-3L against. 500+ Win teams. 9 of next 10 against .500+ teams.

All trivial projected chances, but Hawks with more chance at title than Warriors and Magic combined? Formula, not enough reason. 22nd rated offense. 1W - 5L against .500 and better teams.

[Mike G]

Thunder projected at 54 wins. Uh huh...

OKC is 9-1 with a single win against a good team (Hou in 2OT on opening night), plus Atl which is 5-4 outside of their OKC game.
In SRS they are a point behind Hou and 2.6 less than Den. This is all without Jalen Williams, and they've adjusted to win more dominantly of late, outside their loss to otherwise 4-4 Por.
Their schedule strength has been -4.2 to date, almost unthinkably weak for 10 games. Next lightest is Cha at -2.95, one of only 4 teams even half as weak.

They are still a very deep team and can weather the occasional and inevitable loss of a key player or 2 or even 3 for a time. So it's likely they will win more than 54, perhaps 60% or so; but there's unlimited ways they could do worse.

[Crow]

By the team results in schedule so far, 54 wins is projected. But that is unlikely to be close to the end result. In my view. I don't know if BRef's formula looks at player strength or last season but both improve the case for a higher number.

[Mike G]

https://www.basketball-reference.com/fr ... _prob.html
This page gives the data used in their projections: Current record and SRS, SOS to date, remaining SOS; and some regression to 41-41. They don't imagine the Celtics still have Tatum, Kornet, Porzingis etc.

Seismic shifts overnight. The avg error rose by .24, but it ranged from +.49 (PER) to -.11 (vegas).
EExp increased their lead over avgA from .30 to .47

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.   avg err   rmse   r^2      .   avg err   rmse   r^2
EExp   5.99   7.51   .46      perW   6.66   8.88   .31
DRKO   6.09   7.75   .43      eWin   6.73   8.61   .33
vegas  6.21   7.77   .52      Crow   6.90   8.87   .37
Walr   6.30   7.68   .44      medi   7.05   8.50   .45
Mgoo   6.44   8.16   .40      25pr   7.15   8.69   .33
avgA   6.52   7.95   .42      WShr   7.19   8.59   .34
bpmW   6.57   7.79   .44      KPel   7.26   8.70   .39
knar   6.62   7.99   .38      25re   7.55   9.38   .30
dtka   6.66   8.11   .39      DQin   8.90  10.69   .25

[dtkavana]

https://craftednba.com/season-projections

Throwing this out as an option to use instead of BBREF's projections if anyone would be interested in that.

[Mike G]

Using numbers at that link:

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.   avg err   rmse   r^2      .   avg err   rmse   r^2
vegas  4.03   4.97   .83      EExp   5.18   5.96   .78
medi   4.84   6.03   .75      dtka   5.23   5.94   .78
bpmW   4.86   5.98   .77      25pr   5.44   6.90   .68
avgA   4.87   5.92   .78      25re   5.45   6.98   .66
DRKO   4.89   5.76   .80      KPel   5.51   7.10   .66
Walr   4.90   5.88   .79      knar   5.66   6.66   .73
Crow   4.93   6.14   .74      DQin   5.94   7.66   .62
Mgoo   5.07   6.55   .71      eWin   6.05   7.54   .61
WShr   5.16   6.69   .70      perW   6.64   8.15   .54

Errors relative to these projections or predictions as of this day, Nov. 10, 2025:

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west   W      east   W
OKC   66      Cle   56
Hou   59      NYK   54
Den   54      Det   48
Min   51      Mil   46
GSW   46      Bos   45
LAC   46      Mia   42
LAL   45      Orl   42
SAS   44      Atl   41
Por   41      Chi   40
Phx   34      Tor   39
Mem   33      Phl   37
Dal   31      Ind   31
Sac   27      Cha   25
NOP   23      Brk   19
Uta   22      Was   17

[Crow]

Seems reasonable and looks good to me.