Why Warriors are so low in ESPN stat projections
Being skeptical of the Cavs this season is fair given the leap forward they took, but it’s largely inexplicable with the Golden State Warriors. They just won 53 games despite injury absences from all of their “Big 3” and then stormed through the postseason to an NBA title. They lost their seventh and eighth men from that title group, but replaced them with reasonable replacements. How could the model project them for just 42 wins?
Again, we have to factor in the three-year component of this projection. Three seasons ago the Warriors had the league’s worst record during the pandemic-shortened season, with Klay Thompson missing the entire year, Stephen Curry playing only a handful of games, Draymond Green loafing through the year and Jordan Poole one of the league’s worst rookies. The following year they took a big step forward with a healthy Curry, but lost in the Play-In Tournament.
It wasn’t until last season that they reasserted themselves as contenders, but even then they had a lot of injury absences. Given the ages of their core and their recent injury history, it makes sense for the model to be tricked into thinking this was a lucky, fragile team. It’s wrong, but it makes sense. Pelton acknowledges in his write-up that the Warriors should outperform this projection.
It should be noted that the “stats” models last season were similarly down on the Warriors, with some outlets predicting they would miss the playoffs entirely, and the Warriors shattered those low expectations. They will likely do so again this year.