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The NBA season has officially kicked off, with the Houston Rockets making their season debut this coming Thursday, and we’ve spent the week so far making predictions here at TDS on how our home team is going to do this year.
Well, the data-driven analytics site FiveThirtyEight also released their predictions for the upcoming year yesterday, and they have the Rockets leading the way as the league’s top team.
OK folks! Although I suppose we'll make updates if there's big injury news before the opening tip, here are our just-about-final RAPTOR NBA projections for your record-keeping purposes. https://t.co/7raSl8B95n pic.twitter.com/fOBPCa7vn4
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 22, 2019
The 57 wins Houston is projected for matches a lot of what we have been looking at in the TDS prediction thread, and as you notice, Silver also gives the Rockets a 38-percent chance of making the Finals, good for the second best mark in the league, and a 28-percent chance of actually winning the Finals, which is the highest of any team.
The Rockets seem to be a relatively polarizing team (big surprise) with the national predictions. I’ve seen them as low as 50-52 wins and the 6th seed in places, with this projection as the league’s best team the obvious high water mark.
FiveThirtyEight keeps a living document of their projections that gets updated every day after each game and roster move, so that’s something cool to follow along with during the year as the season unfolds.
Just in case you’re wondering, the Rockets still have the highest projection even after the Los Angeles Clippers knocked off the Lakers last night.