With the deadline to withdraw from the NBA draft just two days away (and with the status of only two would-be returnees, Sean Singletary and Thaddeus Young still uncertain) it's time to start thinking about the 2008 season. I'll be running a detailed post on each of the 12 teams over the next few weeks, but today I thought I'd roll out the individual projections I've been playing with.This spreadsheet contains a per-game prediction for every returning player who saw at least 5% of his team's floor time in 2007. Predictions were generating by comparing Player X's season to every other player-season in the database (which includes every ACC player back to the 1980 season) across 15 statistical categories. I then looked at how those 40-80 past players who were most similar to Player X had fared the following season, relative to the season of comparison. The rate of improvement (or decline) in each category was then applied to the numbers posted by Player X to arrive at the numbers you see on the spreadsheet.
I should note that these numbers are all very preliminary. They haven't yet been placed into team context. As the incoming freshmen and transfers are built into the system (which will come with the team previews), playing times will change. Since all of the other numbers in the spreadsheet are playing-time dependent, there'll be some significant changes to the final predictions.
2 comments:
This seems to indicate a Clemson/UNC ACC championship, assuming that no other team will have amazing freshmen step up for 10+ PPG. Is that right?
Clemson and UNC definitely have the most returning production, which should make them frontrunners. Incoming frosh and team defense (which can't really be accounted for here) are the X-factors.
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