NBA over/under

DJnVa

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Betonline's O/U:

ATL - 32.5
BOS - 48.5
BKN - 45.5
CHA - 23.5
CHI - 30.5
CLE - 25.5
DAL - 41.5
DEN - 50.5
DET - 35.5
GSW - 47.5
HOU - 51.5
IND - 48.5
LAC - 55.5
LAL - 51.5
MEM - 27.5
MIA - 42.5
MIL - 54.5
MIN - 35.5
NOP - 36.5
NYK - 27.5
OKC - 32.5
ORL - 41.5
PHI - 53.5
PHX - 26.5
POR - 44.5
SAC - 35.5
SAS - 43.5
TOR - 45.5
UTA - 52.5
WAS - 28.5

Memphis 3rd from bottom, tied with NYK
 

bowiac

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Without having run numbers yet (later this week I hope??), my first thought is the Pelicans and Thunder over and the Knicks and Nets unders.
 

lovegtm

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Without having run numbers yet (later this week I hope??), my first thought is the Pelicans and Thunder over and the Knicks and Nets unders.
Wouldn’t you worry about OKC selling off Paul (and anyone else)?
 

Tony C

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Right. Over/way over on OKC. Gallo and CP3 are really good players in place of PG and Westbrook. Gallo's obviously not as good as Paul, but healthy he's very productive. And CP3 is considerably more efficient than RW.

Key with both those guys is health, of course (and, as lovegtm points out, CP3 being traded).
 

Kliq

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Give me the Portland over; the last two seasons they have won 53 and 49 games respectively, and will bring largely the same core back + hopefully a healthy Nurkic. I also like their odds at +3,000 to win the title as a dark horse pick.
 

bowiac

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Wouldn’t you worry about OKC selling off Paul (and anyone else)?
I'm skeptical that they'll be able to sell quickly enough. There's a reason they got picks in the Westbrook deal, and I don't think it was because there was a big market for Westbrook.
 

DJnVa

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Over on the West teams seems tough when there's so many good teams out there. They are going to beat each other up.
 

luckiestman

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Without having run numbers yet (later this week I hope??), my first thought is the Pelicans and Thunder over and the Knicks and Nets unders.

how did you do last year? I normally track it. 2 yeras ago, you were an animal.
 

bowiac

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how did you do last year? I normally track it. 2 yeras ago, you were an animal.
I went 16-14 last year. My weakest year doing this. Hopefully variance, but it's possible the lines are getting sharper faster than I can improve my own projections.
 

DannyDarwinism

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I'll probably end up splitting the difference between Bowiac's and Jacob Goldstein's projections and going from there for my actual bets, but on first impressions, I'd be laying down cash on:

Over
Orlando (won 42 last year; progress by young guys + weakened East)
Dallas
NOP
Bulls (Thad + Satoransky + OPJ, healthy Lauri and Carter Jr.)
Griz (Mostly a hedge against my rooting for them to suck, but lots of interesting young talent. I want to see lineups of JJJ, Clarke, Iggy, Melton & Jevon Carter or Tre Jones, just for the potential for hammering the under)

Under
Portland (Nurk isn't expected back til February, and I think Harkless & Aminu are bigger losses than might be appreciated)
Utah (they're good and deep, but the west is brutal and 52's a big number)
 

djbayko

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Best team is the Clips at 55.5 wins, that seems low for the best in the league. Better parity?
Isn’t this how it works with any projection system for anything? You know it’s likely that there will be underperformers and over performers but it’s difficult to know exactly who and by how much. For example, projected season home run totals are always lower than actual. But even though the highest pre-season projection might be 36, everyone expects someone to easily exceed that number.

Edit: In other words, each team’s projection represents the average in an expected range of possibilities.
 
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DJnVa

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If Oladipo is out until at least December, the under on Indiana seems like a decent bet.
 

cheech13

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Wouldn’t you worry about OKC selling off Paul (and anyone else)?
OKC has too many good players to sell off to truly be bad. A core of Paul, SGA, Gallo and Adams is good enough to flirt with .500. You'd need to move off more than one of those guys if you're goal is truly tank. They don't need more picks so what are the theoretical trades that turn that roster into a bottom feeder?
 

benhogan

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Over on the West teams seems tough when there's so many good teams out there. They are going to beat each other up.
Agreed, the West is a beast. GSW looks better than that but hard to take "the over" in the WC. EC looks worse.

Danny will have more flexibility from Dec.15 - trade deadline, to upgrade the roster, as opposed to last season. This season should be interesting and really like the Celtics Championship chances 20 months from now
 

benhogan

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I'll probably end up splitting the difference between Bowiac's and Jacob Goldstein's projections and going from there for my actual bets, but on first impressions, I'd be laying down cash on:

Over
Orlando (won 42 last year; progress by young guys + weakened East)
Dallas
NOP
Bulls (Thad + Satoransky + OPJ, healthy Lauri and Carter Jr.)
Griz (Mostly a hedge against my rooting for them to suck, but lots of interesting young talent. I want to see lineups of JJJ, Clarke, Iggy, Melton & Jevon Carter or Tre Jones, just for the potential for hammering the under)

Under
Portland (Nurk isn't expected back til February, and I think Harkless & Aminu are bigger losses than might be appreciated)
Utah (they're good and deep, but the west is brutal and 52's a big number)
Jevon Carter was dealt to the Suns. Maybe Josh Johnson starts playing defense up to his reputation :eyeroll:

Agree on Harkless/Aminu being big losses and Whiteside not much of a help when he doesn't get his touches/shots
 

lovegtm

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OKC has too many good players to sell off to truly be bad. A core of Paul, SGA, Gallo and Adams is good enough to flirt with .500. You'd need to move off more than one of those guys if you're goal is truly tank. They don't need more picks so what are the theoretical trades that turn that roster into a bottom feeder?
I mean, just having those guys means you get a shit pick this year, so theoretically trading them for nothing is better than keeping them to flirt with 500. Anything else in terms of picks is found money. Adams, Gallo, and Paul are all slightly above or slightly underwater contracts, so you wouldn’t be getting tons of awesome picks back.

In addition, OKC’s ownership almost certainly wants to find a way under the luxury tax, and the best way to do that is to move those guys, taking back slightly less money in some of the deals. They already started this process with Grant—probably have to wait until after Dec 15 for the others.

I’m well aware of how good all those players are, I just don’t see Presti or ownership messing around with this rebuild. They’ll want to save money and start developing SGA asap.
 

Big John

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Over on the Magic and Kings. Improving young teams.
Under on the Pelicans. I'm not on the Zion train quite yet.
Under on the Sixers- poorly constructed roster. Too much size, not enough shooting and quickness
Under on the Lakers. Load management will cost them games in the regular season.
 

GreenMonster49

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Those numbers are low on the whole by 14 wins (total to 1216, versus 1230 games to be won over the course of the season).
 

bowiac

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Under
Portland (Nurk isn't expected back til February, and I think Harkless & Aminu are bigger losses than might be appreciated)
Utah (they're good and deep, but the west is brutal and 52's a big number)
Agree on Portland. I don't like any of their moves really.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I know others have noted that Oladipo is out until December but I may actually lean over on them. They made some very good upgrades. I would take the over as well for Sacramento and Dallas. The 76ers O/U seems high but not super-axed on that.

However I am taking the under on the Celtics all day. I think 48 wins is their absolute ceiling if everything goes right and I would guess their realized win total is something like 43-44 games with a first round departure (don't @ me - I know I am in a tiny minority here and that some people have them going to the ECF). For the record, my big concern with the Celtics is going to be scoring.
 

benhogan

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I know others have noted that Oladipo is out until December but I may actually lean over on them. They made some very good upgrades. I would take the over as well for Sacramento and Dallas. The 76ers O/U seems high but not super-axed on that.

However I am taking the under on the Celtics all day. I think 48 wins is their absolute ceiling if everything goes right and I would guess their realized win total is something like 43-44 games with a first round departure (don't @ me - I know I am in a tiny minority here and that some people have them going to the ECF). For the record, my big concern with the Celtics is going to be scoring.
I fully agree on the Pacers. They are going double BIG in Sabonis/Turner, both are underrated. Thye added scoring/shooting in Brogdon, Lamb and TJ Warren (to make up for Bog/Collison/Young/Evans loss). Indy should do OK in a weak EC and be really good if Oladipo comes back 100%
 

Jimbodandy

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I mean, just having those guys means you get a shit pick this year, so theoretically trading them for nothing is better than keeping them to flirt with 500. Anything else in terms of picks is found money. Adams, Gallo, and Paul are all slightly above or slightly underwater contracts, so you wouldn’t be getting tons of awesome picks back.

In addition, OKC’s ownership almost certainly wants to find a way under the luxury tax, and the best way to do that is to move those guys, taking back slightly less money in some of the deals. They already started this process with Grant—probably have to wait until after Dec 15 for the others.

I’m well aware of how good all those players are, I just don’t see Presti or ownership messing around with this rebuild. They’ll want to save money and start developing SGA asap.
I agree. There are paths to more shedding. And some of those guys, while not great value, might plug a need for someone else.
 

Big John

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However I am taking the under on the Celtics all day. I think 48 wins is their absolute ceiling if everything goes right and I would guess their realized win total is something like 43-44 games with a first round departure (don't @ me - I know I am in a tiny minority here and that some people have them going to the ECF). For the record, my big concern with the Celtics is going to be scoring.
I would not bet on the 2019-20 Celtics one way or the other. Too many unknowns at the moment.
 

lovegtm

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I know others have noted that Oladipo is out until December but I may actually lean over on them. They made some very good upgrades. I would take the over as well for Sacramento and Dallas. The 76ers O/U seems high but not super-axed on that.

However I am taking the under on the Celtics all day. I think 48 wins is their absolute ceiling if everything goes right and I would guess their realized win total is something like 43-44 games with a first round departure (don't @ me - I know I am in a tiny minority here and that some people have them going to the ECF). For the record, my big concern with the Celtics is going to be scoring.
Regarding scoring: what do you make of the fact that Charlotte’s offense (11th) was almost as good as Boston’s last year? If Kanter is able to be decent offensively, Kemba will now be playing with better offensive players at basically every position.

I agree the Celtics are a tier below Philly/Milwaukee, but mostly because of defense.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Right. Over/way over on OKC. Gallo and CP3 are really good players in place of PG and Westbrook. Gallo's obviously not as good as Paul, but healthy he's very productive. And CP3 is considerably more efficient than RW.

Key with both those guys is health, of course (and, as lovegtm points out, CP3 being traded).
I’m staying away from OKC as they could try to unload every veteran by the deadline if not sooner.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Without having run numbers yet (later this week I hope??), my first thought is the Pelicans and Thunder over and the Knicks and Nets unders.
Waiting on your projections has been a favorite of mine for years. Looking forward to them as always.
 

bowiac

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Here is a very early 0.1 version of my projections. I don't have many "special" sauce elements in here yet, and all the rotation projections were done via algorithm, so they'll need to be fixed by hand. The minutes projections will have a pretty massive impact on things.

25251

FWIW, I don't do my own projections for rookies, so I've just used Jacob Goldstein's for those. That's causing the big Pelicans number - he has Zion as an immediate impact player.

These will change substantially between now and the end of the season, so use at your own risk. I don't incorporate tanking, which may cause teams at the bottom end to likely underperform (although lotto reform may mitigate this).
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Regarding scoring: what do you make of the fact that Charlotte’s offense (11th) was almost as good as Boston’s last year? If Kanter is able to be decent offensively, Kemba will now be playing with better offensive players at basically every position.

I agree the Celtics are a tier below Philly/Milwaukee, but mostly because of defense.
Let's say that the Celtics have replaced most of Kyrie Irving's production with Kemba Walker. I would argue that is a bit of a stretch given how efficient Irving is versus Walker - especially from deep which many NBA pundits will tell you creates gravity that helps teammates get better looks. However let's call that a wash.

The team still has to replace scoring by Horford, Morris and Rozier. While Morris tailed off horribly toward the end of the season and Rozier was inefficient, at best, both guys scored a bunch of buckets for the Celtics and were each able to, at times, create their own shots.

Its entirely possible that Hayward, Tatum and Brown each improve enough to up their output while Kanter largely replaces Horford's buckets and some of the kids step up too. I suspect we will see some of these outcomes too - it just seems overly optimistic to use when trying to make a reasonable prediction. I would also point out that while Kanter might be able to equal Horford's scoring, his lack of a three point shot and his inferior passing skills will make it tougher on his teammates for obvious reasons.

That said, if I am wrong and things work out better than expected with Arson Edwards winning ROY while TimeLord becomes the next great two way big en route to a 50+ win season, there will be no tears here.
 

Just a bit outside

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I like Denver and Detroit over. Denver is extremely deep and still tries hard during the regular season. Detroit had 41 wins last year and the east is worse. I think they beat 35.5.

I would take the unde on Manny. They didn’t improve and the west did.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Let's say that the Celtics have replaced most of Kyrie Irving's production with Kemba Walker. I would argue that is a bit of a stretch given how efficient Irving is versus Walker - especially from deep which many NBA pundits will tell you creates gravity that helps teammates get better looks. However let's call that a wash.

The team still has to replace scoring by Horford, Morris and Rozier. While Morris tailed off horribly toward the end of the season and Rozier was inefficient, at best, both guys scored a bunch of buckets for the Celtics and were each able to, at times, create their own shots.

Its entirely possible that Hayward, Tatum and Brown each improve enough to up their output while Kanter largely replaces Horford's buckets and some of the kids step up too. I suspect we will see some of these outcomes too - it just seems overly optimistic to use when trying to make a reasonable prediction. I would also point out that while Kanter might be able to equal Horford's scoring, his lack of a three point shot and his inferior passing skills will make it tougher on his teammates for obvious reasons.

That said, if I am wrong and things work out better than expected with Arson Edwards winning ROY while TimeLord becomes the next great two way big en route to a 50+ win season, there will be no tears here.
The issue is not whether one of the Cs bench players kills it. The issue is what JT, JB, and, to a lesser extent, GH and MS do with additional touches\shots.

And that is the great unknown at this point.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Let's say that the Celtics have replaced most of Kyrie Irving's production with Kemba Walker. I would argue that is a bit of a stretch given how efficient Irving is versus Walker - especially from deep which many NBA pundits will tell you creates gravity that helps teammates get better looks. However let's call that a wash.
I think Walker is close enough to Irving in value that 'fit" will make a difference, as will the fact that Kyrie missed 37 games in his 2 years here, 15 last year, which Kemba may be able to improve upon. Kemba came from a team where he had to be a one-man show, but he does certain things that Kyrie doesn't (working off-ball, drawing fouls) that were weaknesses for the Celtics last year. If he can adjust his game to playing with a better supporting cast, I think this could be a wash.
The team still has to replace scoring by Horford, Morris and Rozier. While Morris tailed off horribly toward the end of the season and Rozier was inefficient, at best, both guys scored a bunch of buckets for the Celtics and were each able to, at times, create their own shots.
I think losing Rozier will be addition by subtraction. Morris and Horford will be a much bigger problem. But I wouldn't think of it as strictly a scoring points type of problem - viewed that way, Kanter scores the same number of points as Horford. I think this season will turn on what Brown, Tatum, and Hayward can do and on whether the Celtics can stop anyone from scoring.
 

lovegtm

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Let's say that the Celtics have replaced most of Kyrie Irving's production with Kemba Walker. I would argue that is a bit of a stretch given how efficient Irving is versus Walker - especially from deep which many NBA pundits will tell you creates gravity that helps teammates get better looks. However let's call that a wash.

The team still has to replace scoring by Horford, Morris and Rozier. While Morris tailed off horribly toward the end of the season and Rozier was inefficient, at best, both guys scored a bunch of buckets for the Celtics and were each able to, at times, create their own shots.

Its entirely possible that Hayward, Tatum and Brown each improve enough to up their output while Kanter largely replaces Horford's buckets and some of the kids step up too. I suspect we will see some of these outcomes too - it just seems overly optimistic to use when trying to make a reasonable prediction. I would also point out that while Kanter might be able to equal Horford's scoring, his lack of a three point shot and his inferior passing skills will make it tougher on his teammates for obvious reasons.

That said, if I am wrong and things work out better than expected with Arson Edwards winning ROY while TimeLord becomes the next great two way big en route to a 50+ win season, there will be no tears here.
This is a good discussion, so let me make it clear where I'm coming from: I do not expect the Celtics to be better with the losses they've had--I think the 44-46 win type predictions are about right. My main difference of opinion is that I think the slide will happen more on defense than offense.

The reason I mentioned Charlotte's offensive results with Kemba is that they're a good example of how NBA offenses don't really consist of discrete components: they're ecosystems. Kemba for whatever reason was able to take a team with far less talent than Boston and get it to play almost as well offensively.

Relative to Kyrie, a lot of the things he does well are helpful for teams where the other guys aren't primary scorers: he keeps the ball middle more than Kyrie, he's more active/dangerous offball, and (probably most importantly) he spends more time than Kyrie in threatening positions behind the arc, which effectively makes the floor bigger. Kemba's lower 3PT% mostly comes from taking a lot more of them, and having those attempts be tougher. As we've seen with Harden and Lillard, it's absolutely worth making that tradeoff, because it makes the defense's life so much harder in terms of the ground it has to cover.

I predict that we'll see both Brown and Tatum play better with Kemba, even if just because they'll find themselves in advantageous positions more often (in addition to age-related improvement).

Now, on the defensive end, they are going to give a lot of those points back, and miss Horford (and Baynes) a ton. We all know how good he is there, and how bad Kanter is. Teams with dangerous shooters off the dribble are going to make a mockery of the Celtics. Against teams without that, like Philly, the Celtics might be surprisingly competitive on the defensive end--Kanter was less of a liability against OKC, for obvious reasons.

TLDR of my view: "replacing shots" isn't the way to look at things. Kemba can replace a ton of shots just on his own, and he's done that before to make a bad teams efficient offensively. The Celtics have a lot of plausible paths to a good offense, but way fewer to a good defense (barring a trade at the 5).
 

pjheff

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This is a good discussion, so let me make it clear where I'm coming from: I do not expect the Celtics to be better with the losses they've had--I think the 44-46 win type predictions are about right. My main difference of opinion is that I think the slide will happen more on defense than offense.
I agree that defense, and in particular interior defense, will be this team’s biggest challenge. It’s not the departure of Kyrie that is going to sting, especially with the arrival of Kemba; it’s the loss of Horford (and to some extent Baynes) on the defensive end. That said, I don’t think that using last year’s win total of 49 as the baseline to start subtracting is particularly valid. Last year’s squad should have won more than 49 games based on true talent level. Hell, less talented rosters had won 53 and 55 games in the two previous seasons. A prediction of 44-46 wins expects this team to be worse than the 2015-2016 Celtics who won 48 games with a big rotation of Jared Sullinger, Amir Johnson, Kelly Olynyk, Jonas Jerebko, and Tyler Zeller patrolling the paint. I’d like to think that Stevens can do better with Kanter, Theis, RWilliams, and Poirier, especially when the rest of the rotation (Walker, Brown, Hayward, and Tatum) is more talented than their 2015-2016 equivalents (Thomas, Bradley, Crowder, and Turner).
 

bowiac

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Sullinger, Amir Johnson, Jerebko, and Zeller are a markedly better group than Kanter, Theis, TL, and Poirier, probably on both sides of the ball. Your mileage may vary.
 

Big John

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I can't see how anyone can project the Celtics at this point. The biggest uncertainty is chemistry. The team's chemistry sucked last year. We assume that it will improve with Kemba replacing Kyrie, but will it? I'm not sure how anyone can quantify this. Is there a statistic that measures team cohesion? Is there a stat for coachability?

Some of the other unknowns related to individual performance can be pluggeed into an algorithm, I suppose, if you make accurate assumptions. Will we see "Utah Hayward" or something less than that? What's the trajectory for Tatum and Brown? Who is going to play power forward? How will the center by committee approach pan out? Will the youngsters (G. Williams, TL, Edwards, Langford, Waters) contribute anything? Who will occupy that 15th roster spot? Are there any trades brewing?
 
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the moops

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I can't see how anyone can project the Celtics at this point. The biggest uncertainty is chemistry.
The same can be said of a dozen teams in the league though. There was so much turnover in the league this offseason, that questions of fit and chemistry are going to dominate the first 20 games of the year
 

Ale Xander

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If I was a bettor, Celtics and Kings overs.

Bucks would be shoo-in, if Giannis is healthy for all 82, but too much of a risk on a single player.
 

DJnVa

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If I was a bettor, Celtics and Kings overs.

Bucks would be shoo-in, if Giannis is healthy for all 82, but too much of a risk on a single player.
I would bet he get some load management games as well, especially if the East is rather top-heavy, depending on how they're doing relative to Sixers.
 

lovegtm

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I would bet he get some load management games as well, especially if the East is rather top-heavy, depending on how they're doing relative to Sixers.
This logic is also relevant to the (basically unprotected) pick the Celtics own from them.
 

pjheff

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Sullinger, Amir Johnson, Jerebko, and Zeller are a markedly better group than Kanter, Theis, TL, and Poirier, probably on both sides of the ball.
Can I ask two questions?

1) Why? And I’m sincerely curious. I know that you play with advanced metrics more than I do. What is the case that the 2015-2016 versions of Sullinger/Johnson/Jerebko/Zeller are “markedly” better?

2) Does including 32 minutes of Tatum as a de facto member of the group in a smallball / singlebig deployment change the calculus?