Analysis ESPN's o/u - 44.5 wins

Over or under?

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Neuromancer

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www.espn.com

Win projections for all 30 NBA teams: How we see the East, West playing out

ESPN NBA analyst Kevin Pelton unveils his annual win projections for all 30 teams. Where does your team land?
www.espn.com www.espn.com

Projections for all 30 teams, they have our o/u at 44.5 wins and Pelton is projecting under at 40:

11. San Antonio Spurs
Projected wins: 40.1
ESPN BET over/under total: 44.5

Why they project to be worse than their total: I understand the bet on Victor Wembanyama emerging as a top-five player this season despite a projection that's not quite so aggressive. We've seen similar breakthroughs for other transcendent prospects in Year 3. The rest of the roster, however, leaves much to be desired. No. 2 draft pick Dylan Harper is unlikely to help the Spurs win as a rookie, and Stephon Castle's advanced stats in Year 1 didn't match his Rookie of the Year reputation.
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Does this guy know we traded for Fox? Does he realize we added some solid big man depth? Doesn't seem like it tbh

It's actually a solid line, kinda hard to decide but I'll take the over and predict a 46-36 record, health permitting
 
this team can win 50 games if wemby improves his his BBIQ and make a huge leap(superstar leap).
 
On paper, 44.5 wins is a pretty ambitious total. it expects more than a 10 game improvement from last year. while its easy to jump from 15 wins to 25 wins, its harder to jump from 25 to 35, and 35 to 45, etc

on the other hand, wemby played in barely over half of our games last year (46/82), Fox was brought in midseason and was, not ideally, starting alongside CP3, was hurt, and only played 17 games for us while being integrated on the fly.

While we no longer have CP3 or Tre Jones, Fox running the show (and he is historically a high minutes player) will be an upgrade, and then there is Harper off the bench, who is an A-tier prospect, even better than Castle was. We upgraded from Bassey to Kornet. We swapped out Mamu for Olynyk.

there isn't a single downgrade from last year. and many of our rotation guys (Wemby, Castle, Sochan, Champagnie) are under 25 and can still expect some degree of internal improvement. there is definitely a bull case for the team.

but you'd think just from having ~20 more games of wemby and ~50 more games of Fox... you can find ~10 more wins there alone
 
I agree 40 is low, but there’s going to be so much variance in the west because 3 top 8 team (LAL, LAC, GSW) are old as hell and could fall off at any minute. There’s also the LAspiration issue. Injuries are already hitting us, HOU, MEM, and LAL. It’s not unreasonable to assume us being 40-42 just as it’s not unreasonable thinking we could be the 4 seed. It’s really foolish, albeit fun, to make a prediction in this conference.
 
If Wemby plays 75+ games and everyone else is healthy, I think we can get 45+ wins.
 
Wemby healthy and playing much of the season, I agree with LeBowen.
 
IMO this comes down to 2 things:
1) Health. Especially Wemby, then Fox.
2) Spurs willingness to make a move to speed up the timeline. They need at least one experienced 3&D forward and a wing.

If they do both, 45+ wins is very much a possibility, even 50 wins wouldn't shock me at all. But it could just as easily be 40 wins if neither of those happen.
 
I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that they might not reach the projected 44/45 wins. Lots of unknowns and variables on this team, both playerwise/fitwise and coachingwise. On the other hand, an improvement of 10 wins compared to last season should definitely be doable in a realistic case scenario.
 
I take the under. these players just don't stay healthy. team still lacks shooting
 
Over. We’re hitting the over. I can’t believe how Harper looked.
 
Shmurs said:
Over. We’re hitting the over. I can’t believe how Harper looked.
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Especially after summer league.

Even more exciting to me is how good Kornet and Vic looked together. That lineup with JC and any two guards could be really good.
 
Hard to say. It all depends on how the coaches run the sets and utilizes the players. Last two years was a lot of messing around unnecessarily so hopefully this year we have legit workable lineups.
 
O_V said:
Especially after summer league.

Even more exciting to me is how good Kornet and Vic looked together. That lineup with JC and any two guards could be really good.
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Can't wait to see a Harper/Castle/Bryant/Wemby/Kornet lineup, absolutely massive
 
It's about health. If you get Fox and the two young guards going off Wembanyama it's going to be super hard to stop this team. I don't think we've seen yet how much space they'll get to the rim with Victor on the court. Then the Kornet/Olynyk additions are low-key superb to maintain bigs throughout the lineup and the depth across the squad is solid.
 
Over. Hinges on improvement in shooting, particularly 3 pt shooting, but substantially improved defense I think is a given.
 
I am going to a Maryland Sportsbar today that has legal betting office will see their line. Anything less than 46 wins will bet it this week.
 
It’s still a rough bet. Last year’s O/U was an easy slam dunk. But any injury to Wemby makes it marginal and a serious injury is a guaranteed loser.
 
Checked at my sportsbar that has Spurs 45 win or more at 110 only will about double a $20 bet. Pass
 
I have a very strong feeling they will hit 50 this year. This is looking very much like the Okc team of two years ago.
 
sfernald said:
I have a very strong feeling they will hit 50 this year. This is looking very much like the Okc team of two years ago.
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This is what i feel too. Unless injury happens on wemby or other key player like fox this team could win 50games.
 
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