FanPost

Will the Spurs Make the Playoffs?

On January 14, 2019am, SAS was in 7th place in the West at 25-19. Here is the rankings of Western teams on that date’s morning per NBA.com.

TEAM

W

L

WIN%

GB

1. Denver Nuggets

29

13

.690

-

2. Golden State Warriors

29

14

.674

0.5

3. Oklahoma City Thunder

26

16

.619

3

4. Portland Trail Blazers

26

18

.591

4

5. LA Clippers

24

18

.571

5

6. Houston Rockets

24

18

.571

5

7. San Antonio Spurs

25

19

.568

5

8. Los Angeles Lakers

23

21

.523

7

9. Utah Jazz

23

21

.523

7

10. Sacramento Kings

22

21

.512

7.5

11. Minnesota Timberwolves

21

22

.488

8.5

12. New Orleans Pelicans

20

23

.465

9.5

13. Dallas Mavericks

20

23

.465

9.5

14. Memphis Grizzlies

19

23

.452

10

15. Phoenix Suns

11

33

.250

19

While an argument can be made that 12 or 13 of the teams are of what one would usually think of as Playoff quality, probably only one or two of the teams not shown in the top 8 will rise to be in the Playoffs. As we will see, the most widely projected team to rise is UTA principally because of its hard first-half schedule and weak second half. Regardless of what team or teams rise, an equal number must drop out of the top 8 and miss the Playoffs. If SAS is not to drop below 8th place, then what team is? LAL has LeBron James returning. HOU is now playing at a high level with its losses concentrated early in the season. I see LAC as the best candidate to drop out of the top 8 even though LAC is shown above as 5th. The next best candidates to miss the Playoffs are probably POR and LAL.

Will SAS make the Playoffs, and if so, what will be SAS’s seeding? I have my opinion/guess as do most Pounders. However, I wanted more than merely my guess, so looked at four statically based projections available on the web. Here are the ones that I collected. In addition to the usual data including end-of-season rank in the West the table shows the teams projected to fall from the top 8 of January 14 am and those that are projected to rise into the top 8.

Source

Rank

Wins

Losses

% in Playoff

Dropped

Added

ESPN BPI Playoffs Odds

6

48

34

91.5

LAL

UTA

FiveThirtyEight

11

44

38

59

SAS, LAL, POR

UTA, NOP, MIN

Basketball Reference Playoff%

5

47.4

34.6

89.5

LAL

UTA

TeamRanking

6

47.4

34.1

86.8

LAC, LAL

NOP, UTA

Average

7

46.7

35.18

81.7

All have LAL

All have UTA

While all four entries in the table give SAS more than an even chance of making the playoffs, three projections show a better than 86% chance and only one, FiveThirtyEight has a lower value at 59%. FiveThirtyEight’s calculations include projections regarding individual players, and probably SAS has players playing above their projected performance including Forbes and White. The tables most common projection is 6th with 47 tor 48 wins. Averages are given in the last row.

As far as what teams will drop out of the January 14am top 8 and what team will rise, all projections include LAL dropping from top 8 and UTA rising into the Playoffs.

For those of you who do not like the inclusion of differentials or other factors but want a projection based solely on wins, losses, and strength of opponents; here is one on ESPN site. Its results are similar to the average of more sophisticated results shown above.

Source

Rank

Dropped

Added

RPI (ESPN)

7

LAL

UTA

What about my personal projection that LAC is the most likely team to drop out of the January 14am top 8? The following table shows projections for LAC. Two have them missing the Playoffs and two have LAC in 8th. Most interesting, all rate LAC below SAS implying LAC has a higher probability of missing the Playoffs than does SAS.

Source

LAC Rank

Wins

Losses

% in Playoff

ESPN BPI Playoffs Odds

8

45

37

68

FiveThirtyEight

12

43

39

52

Basketball Reference Playoff%

8

45.9

36.1

76.8

TeamRanking

9

45

37

66.7

CONCLUSION

Projections show UTA rising to be in the Playoffs, to which I personally agree. While projections show LAL dropping lower and out of the Playoffs, this is more uncertain when the return of LeBron is included as in my personal projection. However, the four projections show LAC is more likely to drop out of the Playoffs than SAS, so I still project SAS to be a Playoff team as do three of the four projections I reviewed.



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