FiveThirtyEight.com recently posted NBA player projections for the next season and the Orlando Magic did not grade well thanks to youth and few team wins.
The Orlando Magic are a tricky team to figure out. They have a lot of young players who have not reached their peak yet. They have toiled through three years of losing and have not picked up many wins.
No matter how you try to compare these guys by one-stop numbers, they ultimately go to player success and team success. Players on better teams will grade out and compare better than players on worse teams.
How do you measure how this team will turn out? How can you accurately predict this group that is just a bundle of potential with little results?
The answer is apparently that this group does not have as bright a future as the team anticipates, perhaps. Not using statistical models or projections at least.
Nate Silver and Alison McCann of FiveThirtyEight unveiled their CARMELO projection system. The nuts and bolts, as the two explain on the site, is that it weighs statistical factors such as a players vitals (height, weight, draft position), true shooting percentage, usage rate, rebound percentage among plenty others. It then found players at a similar age and production level to compare that player to. It then makes a projection for wins above replacement player based on those comparisons.
It is a pretty intensive and interesting projection system. And though it does not guarantee accuracy, it provides a window into where players are and how long they will be good.
The Magic’s young players have a lot of promise. It seems they will continue to grow. The expectation is they will grow as a unit and begin putting victories together.
How to model that statistically is still something of a struggle.
Take a look at Tobias Harris‘ projections:
Harris is described as an average starter. There are really no good player comparables to him either. He compares best to Wilson Chandler, Al Harrington and Tim Thomas. Those comparisons would seem to be on the low end of where the Magic imagine Harris.
Him being an average starter certainly does not bode well either for the Magic. They just invested a four-year deal at about $16 million per season on him. It would seem Orlando would want a little bit more than a guy who tops off at 2.2 wins above replacement player.
Why does Harris struggle so much in these projections?
It really seems to start with the fact in the metrics the model weights, Harris is average in every area except for turnover rate, where he rates favorably.
This is not a model built for Harris and his skills in other words. However, it does play into the storyline for Harris in general — that he is good at many things, but not elite at any one thing and does not contribute consistently toward winning. That will be something the Magic hope to change.
The Magic’s other key players seem to model the same way:
grades a little better and, according to the projections, tops off at 3.6 wins above replacement players this season and for the next three years. He is rated as an “up-and-comer” which suggests his projection is not complete at all.
Oladipo is expected to take a pretty significant leap as a player this year. Everyone seemed to think so after his play toward the end of last season. Everyone seems to think Oladipo will be the one to take that leap into stardom. These projections seem to think so too. But he obviously has some numbers he needs to pull up too.
His comparisons are all over the place too — Quinton Dailey, Ray Allen and Ben Gordon are the top three — and none are particularly very strong. Like Harris, Oladipo is still defining himself as a player.
Vucevic too has the same problem as many of the other Magic’s young players. The projection system does not see him making a huge bump up in production. Interestingly, the CARMELO system categorizes Vucevic as an average starter. His raw numbers do not suggest that at all, but he is obviously not adding a lot of wins on top of those numbers.
Vucevic did not have any strong comparisons — Al Jefferson, Clifford Robinson and Drew Gooden were the strongest — either. Again, this suggests his career is pretty irregular at the moment and still has plenty of room to grow.
These three key players for the Magic are still writing their books for their careers. And so it is still pretty clear that statistical projections do not have a handle on them.
It should be important to remember that this is also a system based on wins over replacement player. The fact the Magic have not accumulated a lot of wins limits how those players can be evaluated in the end. Certain players may contribute more to the wins the Magic have had, but there are ultimately fewer of those wins to go around.
It seems Oladipo, Harris and Vucevic particularly are somewhat capped.
The only player the system graded well was Elfrid Payton — labeled a future All Star. But even his projections are highly variable and he benefits from playing so well his rookie year. A second season without improvement could make his projection look poorer next season.
And that is with several poor marks, as the page denotes.
Again, all these projections show how hard it is to predict the future for this young Magic squad. They have the talent and they have the ability, they just have to go out and show it.
If they plateau or make marginal improvements without team gains, these projections will come true. And they are very underwhelming.
That appears to be the story for the Magic this year. Getting that bump up to help everyone become the players everyone thinks they should be.
Next: Orlando Magic's familiarity easing transition to new coach