Predicting Which NBA Teams Will Have Biggest Win Increases in 2015-16
Improvement remains everything in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately NBA, and the best way to measure team growth on a year-to-year basis is through win totals.
Per-game stats are good. Advanced stats are even better. But every metric, individual and collective, goes into determining how many victories a team secures throughout the regular season. And the ones that improve the most are the ones with the most impressive win spikes.
This is a simplified way of looking at things, to be sure. Unsightly squads have inherent advantages over title contenders because there's more room for them to improve.
The Milwaukee Bucks led the win-increase charge last season, winning 26 more games (41) than they did through 2013-14 (15). The Cleveland Cavaliers posted the third-biggest jump, rattling off 20 more victories (53) than the year before (33).
Keep that caveat in mind as we peer into our trusty crystal ball. The reigning champion Golden State Warriors will not be making a cameo because they're already on cloud nine after winning 67 games last season. The San Antonio Spurs will not go from winning 55 tilts to gunning for 75, mostly because Gregg Popovich will bench everyone and their third cousin once they clinch a playoff berth.
Consider this, then, a look at the most opportunistic situations. The question throughout: Which teams are in the best position to take the greatest win-column leaps?
Roster additions, player turnover, trades, internal growth, in-house declines, big-picture statistics and the way each team closed out 2014-15 will factor into our sentient look at a season still months away from inception.
The Improvement Benchmark
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To add some frame of reference to this largely subjective exercise, we've implemented the win-increase minimum of nine.
Coming up with this wasn't especially difficult. We simply took the average number of extra wins that each improving team over the last five years accumulated.
For example, 16 teams finished with better records in 2014-15 than 2013-14. Together, they totaled an additional 142 wins.
Fifteen teams won more games in 2013-14 than 2012-13, racking up a combined 161 extra victories.
This process was repeated three more times, dating back to the gap between 2009-10 and 2010-11. All five subsets were then added together, giving us 646 additional wins over the last five seasons.
We then divided this total by the number of teams that contributed to the victory pool (80), giving us an average of just under 8.1. Ergo, we're trying to predict which outfits will improve by more than eight games next season—or at an above-average rate relative to the last half-decade.
By no means is this a perfect utility or formulaic genius. It just helps whittle down possible candidates while providing some fixed structure to what now requires justifiable subjectivity.
Minnesota Timberwolves
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2014-15 Win Total: 16
Minimum Win Total in 2015-16: 25
Nine victories is certainly a quantum jump for a Minnesota Timberwolves squadron that wrapped up 2014-15 with the league's worst record while finishing in the bottom five of offensive and defensive efficiency.
But Minnesota isn't the average cellar-dweller. There is so much talent on the roster—too much in some spots.
Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns, Zach LaVine, Ricky Rubio, Shabazz Muhammad and Gorgui Dieng make up the undisputed core. And then there's Nemanja Bjelica, Adreian Payne and Anthony Bennett, prospects on the fringes. And then there's Kevin Martin, Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Garnett, veterans who, when healthy, are rotation players on a team looking to win now.
The Timberwolves, of course, aren't looking to win now. But additional wins will be the symptom of their talent infusion.
Health will be the key. Martin, Muhammad, Pekovic and Rubio each missed at least 40 games last season. If they can last for, say, 65 contests in 2015-16, the Timberwolves' immediate ceiling elevates exponentially.
Wiggins, meanwhile, is working off a historically significant Rookie of the Year campaign. Only one other NBA player age 19 or younger has ever cleared 1,200 points, 350 rebounds, 75 steals and 45 blocks in a single season: LeBron James. Rumor has it he turned out OK.
Steep learning curve in mind, Towns already ranks as one of just three NBA big men who offers serious floor-spacing and shot-blocking upside. The other two: an equally unproven Kristaps Porzingis and none other than Anthony "I'm not the byproduct of a lab experiment, I swear" Davis.
Throwing Towns into the fire, at the very least, gives the Timberwolves a premier rim protector they didn't deploy last season. He blocked 11.5 percent of every shot he faced at Kentucky, which ranked second in the country among all freshman who played a minimum of 500 minutes.
Shot-swatting is a wholly translatable skill. After posting a 13.7 percent block rate at Kentucky, Davis registered a 5.1 during his rookie crusade. Even if Towns experiences an identical dip when first making the switch, he'll still send back 4.3 percent of the shots he contests.
That, relative to last season, would still be among the 20 best marks in the league.
All this talent, unpolished though much of it remains, makes it likely the Timberwolves surpass last year's win total by a comfortable margin.
They could unload their small stable of veterans in favor of clearing the way for youngsters, and they would still be virtual locks to record at least 25 victories.
New York Knicks
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2014-15 Win Total: 17
Minimum Win Total in 2015-16: 26
Putting your faith in New York Knicks team president Phil Jackson has never been so easy. He has started taking the long view on the team's future, and the Knicks are way better off for it.
"We're going after solid players that step into vacuums and play ball," Jackson said of New York's offseason, per ESPN.com's Tim MacMahon. "If we have a system that we play basketball together with, that'll all work itself out."
Robin Lopez is not Marc Gasol. Kyle O'Quinn is not Kevin Love. Arron Afflalo is not Jimmy Butler; he's not even Danny Green. But all of the Knicks' offseason additions—right down to rookies Jerian Grant and Kristaps Porzingis—are legitimate pieces to a whole puzzle.
And for those worried about where the 31-year-old Carmelo Anthony fits, don't be.
Even if he's willing to waive his no-trade clause, it's unlikely he's moved next season. He's coming off knee surgery, and most of the teams he would approve a trade to don't have the assets to acquire him anyway. If they do, they're still unlikely to strike a deal until after the salary cap explodes next summer and they have a better lay of the free-agency land.
Some other things to consider about next year's roster:
- The Knicks ran the equivalent of a top-10 offense when Anthony was on the floor last season.
- Lopez ranked as a better rim protector than both Gasol and DeAndre Jordan in 2014-15.
- O'Quinn is one of just two players to average at least 18.5 points, 15.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 3.0 blocks per 100 possessions since 2012-13. The other: Tim Duncan.
- Porzingis is holding his own at the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League, to the point where it's possible he could make invaluable contributions next season.
Competing for a playoff berth remains an aggressive goal. The Knicks are straying from the triangle and running more pick-and-rolls during summer-league play, creating an offensive environment in which players can thrive immediately. That'll pay off in the regular season as they try to incorporate a rotation's worth of new faces.
But that's still a lot of new faces, and the race for one of the East's final three postseason slots figures to be brutal. It's entirely possible, if not inevitable, the Knicks aren't up to that task this soon.
Nevertheless, they've stacked the deck enough to, on paper, come within striking distance of at least 30 victories.
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Detroit Pistons
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2014-15 Win Total: 32
Minimum Win Total in 2015-16: 41
Honestly, it's hard to argue against this pick. The Detroit Pistons are nearly a spitting image of everything coach and president Stan Van Gundy values, and they have enough talent to compete in the contender-starved East.
Andre Drummond is another year more monstrous, and he'll no longer need to battle for position with Greg Monroe. Ersan Ilyasova and Marcus Morris, as stretch 4s, will complement Drummond better than the perimeter-challenged Monroe ever could.
Down the road, rookie Stanley Johnson has a Jimmy Butler-esque ceiling. In the meantime, he's pure defensive energy the Pistons can throw at opposing shooting guards, small forwards and even power forwards when the situation calls for it.
Investing $80 million in Reggie Jackson remains a tough sell. He's never shot 34 percent from beyond the arc, and his 34.7 percent clip outside 10 feet last season is concerning for an offense that will rely heavily on perimeter marksmanship.
Jackson did, however, put in 36.4 percent of his deep balls between March and season's end. He also found nylon on 45.2 percent of his spot-up treys through 27 appearances in Detroit.
If he can build off that improvement, the Pistons offense will be on easy street. If not, he's still a dangerous drive-and-kick weapon, and there's enough shooting behind him in Steve Blake and Brandon Jennings to offset the difference.
Van Gundy should also be able to coax plenty of shooting from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Jodie Meeks, Reggie Bullock and the ghost of Danny Granger. So even if Jackson's jumper stays erratic, the Pistons have the supplemental talent to fire away with confidence and successfully install an offense similar to the one Van Gundy assembled around Dwight Howard in Orlando.
Really, though, this pick can be boiled down to two words: Josh Smith.
Detroit played .500 basketball (27-27) and maintained the net rating (plus-1.5) of a playoff team after waiving him via the stretch provision in December. And now, at least on paper, they're better.
Reaching 41 wins should be no problem.
Miami Heat
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2014-15 Win Total: 37
Minimum 2015-16 Win Total: 46
Batten down the hatches. The Miami Heat are coming.
Team president Pat Riley didn't make a ton of needle-nudging additions, per se. But he did enough to ensure that, barring an infestation of mutant injury bugs, the Heat won't miss consecutive postseason crusades for the first time since 2002 and 2003.
Goran Dragic is locked up for the next five years on a sub-max deal, because Riley is a charismatic magician. Luol Deng exercised his player option and is still gritty and versatile enough to have the advantage on most small forwards.
Hassan Whiteside is still paid by the block. Chris Bosh, per the Palm Beach Post's Jason Lieser, is at "90 percent" after missing the tail end of last season with blood clots in his lungs. He should be at full capacity to start 2015-16.
Say what you will about Dwyane Wade, and how he's missed at least 13 games in each of the last four seasons. But the dude is still a star.
Only four other qualified players besides Wade averaged at least 21.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists and one steal per game in 2014-15: Stephen Curry, James Harden, LeBron James and Russell Westbrook.
In Bosh, Deng, Dragic, Wade and Whiteside, the Heat have one of the most formidable starting fives possible. Despite this group not logging a single minute of action together last season, Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal has them inside the top 10, at No. 8, in his starting-five rankings.
Like always, it's the bench that's a concern.
Except it's never been a smaller one.
Gerald Green and Amar'e Stoudemire will be offensive boons for Miami's second unit. Chris Andersen and Mario Chalmers can still have their moments, even more so now with two more NBA-caliber players coming off the bench with them.
Shabazz Napier should be able to contribute more as a sophomore. And summer-league shooting struggles aside, Justise Winslow's defensive tenacity should make him a rotational fixture.
Injuries admittedly still threaten to derail the Heat's potential. Deng, Stoudemire and Wade aren't the poster boys for durability, and Bosh's end-of-season health problems will be concerning until it's clear he's fine.
Beyond that, though, there isn't much not to like. The Heat have the offensive firepower and bench depth to flirt with 50 victories.
Tacking on at least nine wins to last year's finish feels like a given.
Utah Jazz
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2014-15 Win Total: 38
Minimum 2015-16 Win Total: 47
With the exception of selecting Trey Lyles at No. 12 in this year's draft, the Utah Jazz haven't done much to tweak their roster.
Which is perfect.
Parting ways with Enes Kanter ahead of last February's trade deadline is really the only thing these Jazz needed to do. And they did it.
And they remain much better off for it.
Through the 29 games following Kanter's departure, the Jazz went 19-10 while maintaining the league's best defense. They also outscored their opponents by 6.9 points per 100 possessions, the fourth-highest net rating of any team during that time. Only the Los Angeles Clippers, Spurs and Warriors fared better.
| 102.9 | 15 | 106.1 | 27 | -3.1 | 21 | |
| 101.8 | 19 | 94.8 | 1 | 6.9 | 4 |
Ramping up the offense will be the focus next season, but the Jazz, even after making no substantial additions, have the personnel to improve. Gordon Hayward remains one of the most polished forwards in the game, and the return of Alec Burks gives the team another primary option.
Derrick Favors is still criminally underrated on both ends of the floor as well. Only one other player cleared 27 points, 14 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per 100 possessions last season: Anthony Davis. Seriously.
Rodney Hood is another name to watch. The going wasn't always easy during his rookie campaign, but he really came on to end the season, averaging 16.7 points and 3.4 assists on 45.2 percent shooting through seven games in April. He also drained 38.5 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes overall, so he can function as the off-action scorer while Burks, Hayward, Dante Exum and Trey Burke dominate the rock.
Oh, and then there's Rudy Gobert. Though the Jazz need more from him on the offensive end, he has perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate written all over him.
Opponents shot just 40.4 percent at the rim against Gobert last season. Among more than 200 players to contest at least two attempts around the iron per game, no one did a better job at protecting the hoop.
Consider too that Gobert averaged 0.206 win shares per 48 minutes. Just five other 22-year-olds have cleared 0.2 win shares per 48 minutes over the last decade: Harden, James, Kevin Love, Chris Paul and Derrick Rose.
To answer your question, yes, you may go ahead and pencil the 2015-16 Jazz in for at least 47 wins now.
Oklahoma City Thunder
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2014-15 Win Total: 45
Minimum 2015-16 Win Total: 54
Let's not make this complicated: The Oklahoma City Thunder are good. So good that, as long as Lady Luck doesn't decide to play the part of an injury-inflicting bully, they're locks to win at least nine more games than they did last season.
As Fromal wrote:
"When [Kevin] Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka are all healthy, the Thunder are sometimes unstoppable. They boast two of the 10 best basketball players in the world, as well as a power forward who can knock down threes and compete for the block title.
And as if that trio wasn't already an embarrassment of riches, OKC also gets to throw out Enes Kanter (an offensively potent center who can't play defense to save his life) and Dion Waiters (a mercurial 2-guard with plenty of scoring talent).
"
It's an imperfect core, make no mistake. Kanter is a defensive sieve, and the ball-dominant Waiters makes for an iffy complement alongside the equally ball-dominant Durant and Westbrook. But even the most uneven foundation looks good when headlined by an able-bodied Durant, Ibaka and Westbrook.
The Thunder outscored opponents by 11.4 points per 100 possessions through the 616 minutes those three shared the floor last season. For context: The 67-win Warriors outscored their opponents by 11.4 points per 100 possessions overall.
Prior to 2014-15, the Thunder won at least 67.1 percent of their games in four consecutive seasons. Their average winning percentage during that time was 70.8 percent, or around 58 games per (full) season. That's the on-court clout Durant, Ibaka and Westbrook carry.
Adjusting to new head coach Billy Donovan and incorporating the skill sets of Kanter and Waiters into a fully stocked rotation will undoubtedly be a challenge, one the Thunder could even spend the better part of 2015-16 trying to overcome.
But if you believe Durant, Ibaka and Westbrook will be healthy, together, then you also believe Oklahoma City is destined to pad its win column with a minimum of 54 victories.
Cleveland Cavaliers
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2014-15 Win Total: 53
Minimum 2015-16 Win Total: 62
Feel like joining me out on this limb? It's fairly sturdy. Promise.
Sixty-two wins is ambitious. It demands the Cavaliers win 75.6 percent of their games, something fewer than 50 teams have done throughout NBA history.
Shoot, the title-toting Warriors were historically good in 2014-15, and they collected only 67 victories.
Here's the thing: LeBron James.
Here's the other thing: LeBron James.
Here's the third and final thing: The Cavaliers play in an unimpressive Eastern Conference that is no closer to posing any legitimate threats. Cleveland is basically bringing back last season's band for 2015-16, and that alone should be enough to comfortably amble into 60-win territory.
Remember too the Cavaliers won't be enduring another learning curve. Kyrie Irving, James and the newly signed Love have a full year's worth of experience alongside one another and, when healthy, project as the NBA's scariest Big Three. Their supporting cast assuming Tristan Thompson's return, can't get much deeper after adding Mo Williams and re-signing Iman Shumpert.
More pointedly, after beginning last season 19-20, the Cavaliers closed out the calendar 34-9. That's the equivalent of winning around 65 contests over the course of an 82-game slate.
Irving, James and Love appeared in 32 games together following that 19-20 start. The Cavaliers were a plus-17.3 per 100 possessions when they were on the floor, posting a staggering 29-3 record.
That's the equivalent of winning about 74 games over the course of an entire season.
Head coach David Blatt could curtail Cleveland's winning potential by handing out intermittent rest to his big guns. Irving and Love are working off major injuries, and James isn't 25 years old anymore.
Then again, the East is still the East, and the Cavaliers will trot out three top-15 superstars on at least a semi-regular basis. Sixty-two wins might be ambitious, but it's possible—if not inevitable.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com, Sports-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited. Draft-pick commitments from RealGM.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
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