Before the 2015-16 NBA season tips off on Tuesday night, ESPN Insider Kevin Pelton gives his most overrated and underrated teams, MVP candidates and more.
Overrated: Miami Heat
After Goran Dragic was re-signed this summer, the Heat's roster looks strong on paper. Miami has five players in the top 100 of ESPN's #NBArank, making the Heat one of six teams that can put out a full lineup of top-100 players. (The Cleveland Cavaliers, New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs also have five; the Chicago Bulls and Golden State Warriors have six apiece.)
ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM) tells a different story. In terms of 2015-16 projected RPM, Miami's best-rated player is forward Luol Deng (plus-2.0), who ranks 69th. Chris Bosh saw his RPM slip dramatically last season, and Dwyane Wade has rated as a below-average player each of the last two seasons.
Dragic and center Hassan Whiteside look better in terms of box-score stats. In fact, Whiteside's strong performance last season has him projected 10th in my wins above replacement player (WARP) statistic. But that only compensates for Deng and Bosh looking weaker by box-score stats than RPM.
Besides their stars being past their productive primes, the Heat's depth might also be overrated. While the return of a healthy Josh McRoberts bolsters Miami's second unit, newcomers Gerald Green and Amar'e Stoudemire are defensive sieves. And though Justise Winslow figures to ultimately be a steal, he's unlikely to be much better than replacement level as a rookie.
As a result, projections based on box-score stats and RPM (including FiveThirtyEight's CARMELO projections, which incorporates both) have Miami finishing below .500 rather than emerging as a contender in the Eastern Conference.
Underrated: Portland Trail Blazers
No team has a better discrepancy between its RPM projection and its over-under line at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook than the Blazers, who are projected to win approximately 13 more games than the 27.5 Vegas foresees (complete RPM projections are at the bottom of this article). Again, there's remarkable consistency in the Portland forecast across a variety of projections.
According to RPM, the difference between the key players the Blazers lost and their replacements isn't nearly as large as dire forecasts would make it out to be. Portland smartly targeted free agents Al-Farouq Aminu and Ed Davis, whose past production on a per-minute basis outstrips their modest salaries. RPM is also high on third-year shooting guard C.J. McCollum, who moves from a reserve role into the starting lineup.
Additionally, compared with most of the teams expected to post a win total in the 20s, the Blazers have a far better anchor in All-Star point guard Damian Lillard. Lillard finished 15th in #NBArank; the only other top-50 player on a team with a Westgate line below 30 wins is Andrew Wiggins of the Minnesota Timberwolves , who is 44th in #NBArank.
Overrated awards candidate: Anthony Davis, MVP
It makes me feel queasy to take the side of a wager opposite from smart colleagues like fellow Insider Tom Haberstroh and Grantland's Zach Lowe.
Still, I can't help but feel the Davis MVP talk is a tad bit premature. That's mostly because Davis' New Orleans Pelicans were a long shot to win the 55-plus games historically required for an MVP even before being decimated by injuries during training camp.
Perhaps awards voters have gotten sophisticated enough to recognize the value of a superstar with a limited supporting cast, particularly if Davis drags a weakened New Orleans team back to the playoffs.
I suspect that kind of precedent-transforming vote, however, will only happen if the player is far and away the best in the league, and I'm skeptical Davis will truly qualify this season. Remember, he has to improve just to achieve parity with last year's MVP contenders, Stephen Curry and James Harden, along with perennial favorites such as LeBron James and a healthy Kevin Durant.
Expecting Davis to surpass all of those players is probably a year premature.
Underrated awards candidate: Karl-Anthony Towns, Rookie of the Year
It's weird to say people are sleeping on the No. 1 overall pick, but in terms of the Rookie of the Year race I think that's the case. Emmanuel Mudiay of the Denver Nuggets generally has the best odds to win the award, followed by Jahlil Okafor of the Philadelphia 76ers, with Towns not far ahead of L.A. Lakers guard D'Angelo Russell.
There should be little doubt that Towns will be the best of these players as a rookie. I projected him as the most effective rookie after the draft, and only Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets, a 2014 second-round pick, posted a better WARP during the preseason.
Of course, the best rookie doesn't always win Rookie of the Year, and I found in the past that the award typically goes to the player with the best combination of points, rebounds and assists per game. Hence the support for Okafor, who is likely to be featured more in the Sixers' offense than Towns is in Minnesota's.
But Towns actually averaged more points per 36 minutes (18.3) than the struggling Okafor (17.9) in the preseason and dramatically outrebounded him, and his combination of points, rebounds and assists per 36 minutes (31.0) was also better than Mudiay's (28.9).
So long as Towns gets sufficient playing time, I think he'll also be the most productive rookie. And despite the Timberwolves' frontcourt depth, Towns will be hard to keep off the court if he plays like this.
Overrated: Race for 8th in the West
Not counting the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, 2006-07 was the last time a Western Conference team made the playoffs with fewer than 45 wins. Over that span, accounting for the lockout, the West's eighth seeds have averaged 47 wins. I think this is the year that trend changes. The conference's top six teams are as strong as ever, but in part because of New Orleans' injuries there appears to be a big drop-off after that.
Simulations of the season using RPM's projections show the eighth seed in the West winning an average of 42 games. More stunningly, the typical ninth seed wins just 40 games, meaning a .500 playoff team is possible. Those figures don't account for the possibility of teams upgrading their rosters during the season in pursuit of a playoff spot, and perhaps one or two of the teams projected to win in the high 30s, such as Dallas, Phoenix and Portland, will jump up to challenge the Utah Jazz.
For now, however, making the West playoffs doesn't look as tough as in years past.
Overrated defense: Utah | Underrated offense: Utah
Speaking of the Jazz, I don't think they're going to be quite as imbalanced as their reputation would suggest. Yes, Utah had the NBA's best defensive rating after the All-Star break, a period that not coincidentally followed the team trading Enes Kanter, a poor defender, and replacing him with the intimidating Rudy Gobert.
When I studied past teams that made a similar (though smaller) defensive jump in the second half, I found it rarely translated the following season. On top of the historical tendency, we have other reasons to doubt the Jazz will be quite that good on defense.
They've lost starting point guard Dante Exum, who excelled defensively down the stretch, to a torn ACL. And the scouting report is getting out on Gobert. Teams are ready for the French Rejection and are increasingly using pump fakes to negate his historic length.
At the same time, the defensive improvement, and the league's slowest pace, overshadowed Utah's league-average offense last season. The return of guard Alec Burks and more use of smallball should allow the Jazz to maintain or even improve slightly on that mark.
So Utah is probably accurately rated by accident, as Chuck Klosterman once observed of Scottie Pippen's career.
RPM projections
Note: Projections are based on estimated playing time and the multi-year version of ESPN's RPM, adjusted for age, along with my projections for rookies and other players without RPM projections. Simulation results reflect 1,000 simulations of the regular season, factoring in schedule and randomness.