A win, but is it real?

 I hate being a downer here, winning is great, it's fun but some winning is sustainable and some winning is not.  For forward projection purposes this win doesn’t count.  No, it’s not because Ricky drilled 8 threes, even if he missed 3 of those the Cavs are still in the game.  I’ll explain.


  1.  The Cavs are 7-4, if we use that to project forward we have a 52 win team on our hands.

  2. The Cavs have a +1.1 net rating, if we project that forward we have a 44 win team on our hands.

  3. The Cavs have played 8 road games to 3 home games if we grant a 3 point swing for home vs away that adds ~0.8 pp100 to their net rating, that pushes their expected wins to the 48-49 win range.  


Do you really think this team is a 48 win squad?


Or break it down by defense.


  1.  The Cavs are the 13th ranked defense in the league.  That isn’t particularly good, certainly not good enough to drive a near 50 win team in the NBA but it is nice and solid.  However the Cavs have just been a mirage the last 9 games, if we take the first two games they had a DRTG of 125!  Since then it's been 103 which would be 5th in the league.  Which feels more real?

  2. Their offensive opponents have been suspect.  To date they haven’t played any of the top 3 offenses, they have only played #4, #6, #7 (twice), #s 10, 11 and 12, #16, #19, #21 and #24.  Those teams average an ortg of 1.3 pp100 better than the average offense in the league… opps, sorry that makes their defensive mark significantly stronger.


Ok, that one didn’t work either.  How about injuries?  Teams that get off to hot starts often have better health.  Lets see the Cavs have missed 5 games from starters and 11 games from top bench players, that doesn’t seem like it’s heavily in their favor.


How about three point variance?  No, that looks smack dab middle of the pack.


Look, I am at a loss, which gives me something in common with the last 3 Cavaliers opponents.  

Comments

  1. AJLIENNovember 8, 2021 at 6:05 AM

    You got me there... apparently we're a 4 seed this year

    ReplyDelete

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