Every year, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton crunches the numbers and comes up with a win projection for every NBA team. He uses a ton of statistical data from previous seasons, plugs it into a very complicated formula, and gets a projected win total. Let’s talk about how many wins Pelton and his machine predict for the Dallas Mavericks.
Keep in mind, Pelton admits upfront this is a difficult exercise. From the piece:
“One of the biggest challenges for statistical projections is how disconnected the NBA’s 82-game schedule has been from the playoffs. Add injuries to star players becoming more common, and team performance from year to year hasn’t been this inconsistent in decades.