2024-25 NBA Over/Under: who do you like?

benhogan

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With regard to the starting 4, yes they will be fine. The Thinking Basketball guy did a two-part series on the Top Teams from the "Pace and Space Era" (I've not gotten to their rankings yet; the two shows are almost 3 hours long) but they mentioned that the 3 Js and White were 56-15 when they played together, or a 61-win pace. Assuming decent health from those 4, they will be way over Pelton's 52 wins.
Agreed. I'll go a step further, if we get a fully healthy Tatum/White + a partially healthy Brown & Jrue season + '24 Horford/KP they will hit the Pelton OVER. Basically, the combo of Tatum and White are the key to winning many games.

This isn't to say White is better than Brown or Holiday but his style of play is more conducive to winning regular season games. Under the intensity of the playoffs, Brown's D & his brute strength are more important. The same probably applies to Jrue in the playoffs.

Last season's Celtics bludgeoned the NBA, we don't need that level of performance to win a LOB (but it would be nice)
 

benhogan

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With regard to the starting 4, yes they will be fine. The Thinking Basketball guy did a two-part series on the Top Teams from the "Pace and Space Era"
They haven't added much pre-season commentary. Cody (a Bucks fan) and especially Ben are the gold standard. They are head & shoulders over the rest of NBA pundits.

"The Luka Mystery" video blows away the entire NBA commentary world
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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They haven't added much pre-season commentary. Cody (a Bucks fan) and especially Ben are the gold standard. They are head & shoulders over the rest of NBA pundits.

"The Luka Mystery" video blows away the entire NBA commentary world
I was actually pretty interested in their series on the "pace and space" era and not just regurgitating the off-season stuff that everyone else (including us!) are doing. I liked the best "3&Ds" of that era (just because I'm a sucker for 3&D players). It was interesting hearing them put teams / players / coaches in context during this era.

To your point, more interesting than hearing Zach Lowe insist for the 292nd time that he picked the Cs to win it all last year.
 

TomRicardo

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Pelton was 9-21 last year. Over/Unders were pretty darn easy last season.

His system is a head-scratcher. Everything about the Nets is screaming tank process in place, not a play-in contender
They would be picking 10 Day contracts and starting them if they pass 20 wins.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Agreed. I'll go a step further, if we get a fully healthy Tatum/White + a partially healthy Brown & Jrue season + '24 Horford/KP they will hit the Pelton OVER. Basically, the combo of Tatum and White are the key to winning many games.

This isn't to say White is better than Brown or Holiday but his style of play is more conducive to winning regular season games. Under the intensity of the playoffs, Brown's D & his brute strength are more important. The same probably applies to Jrue in the playoffs.

Last season's Celtics bludgeoned the NBA, we don't need that level of performance to win a LOB (but it would be nice)
Yeah Pelton’s total is Low but to expect that level of durability in consecutive years from that entire core is pretty optimistic. I think we’ve been spoiled by good health these past couple of years especially last season. Now IF everyone repeats last years durability yeah we probably get to 60. The NBA gods don’t usually allow us to strike gold like that.
 

lovegtm

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Yeah Pelton’s total is Low but to expect that level of durability in consecutive years from that entire core is pretty optimistic. I think we’ve been spoiled by good health these past couple of years especially last season. Now IF everyone repeats last years durability yeah we probably get to 60. The NBA gods don’t usually allow us to strike gold like that.
Agree, although one thing the Cs have going for them is that Tatum, White and Brown all seem pretty inherently durable. They play all the time, with the exception of Jaylen's 2021 wrist thing and occasional hamstring issues (that seem to have diminished as he's slowed his game down with time).
 

Euclis20

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Agree, although one thing the Cs have going for them is that Tatum, White and Brown all seem pretty inherently durable. They play all the time, with the exception of Jaylen's 2021 wrist thing and occasional hamstring issues (that seem to have diminished as he's slowed his game down with time).
As are Pritchard, Hauser and Horford (age aside, he's consistently played 60+ games and his last real injury was in 2014). Jrue played 67 games in both 2022 and 2023, 69 games in 2024 (with a lighter workload) was hardly unexpected or lucky. KP is the only one with any sort of injury history in the rotation, and he missed 25 games, basically right on schedule.

It's very fair to say that even though no individual player was particularly lucky with health, the team as a whole definitely avoided bad injury luck. Even historically healthy players like Jrue and Horford are really starting to get up there in age, it wouldn't be too big of a surprise if they missed a couple months at some point.

And despite all that, I think our injury chances are better (i.e. fewer major injuries) than just about any other contender, especially in the east. The Bucks were definitely lucky with Giannis/Dame last year (each played more games than any season in their previous 4), plus Middleton is trying to get surgeries on literally every part of each leg. The Sixers need tremendous injury luck for both Embiid and George to get deep into the playoffs unscathed. The Knicks completely fell apart last year, and 3 of their top 6 (OG, Robinson, KAT) are bigger injury risks than anyone on the Celtics other than maybe KP. Out west, Denver is hoping Murray is healthy for the playoffs, something he hasn't been 3 times in the last 4 years. Dallas would be lucky to get Kyrie at the same level in the playoffs next year, and who knows with OKC (they're pretty young and healthy, but have won exactly one playoff series so who knows how they hold up over time).
 

lovegtm

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As are Pritchard, Hauser and Horford (age aside, he's consistently played 60+ games and his last real injury was in 2014). Jrue played 67 games in both 2022 and 2023, 69 games in 2024 (with a lighter workload) was hardly unexpected or lucky. KP is the only one with any sort of injury history in the rotation, and he missed 25 games, basically right on schedule.

It's very fair to say that even though no individual player was particularly lucky with health, the team as a whole definitely avoided bad injury luck. Even historically healthy players like Jrue and Horford are really starting to get up there in age, it wouldn't be too big of a surprise if they missed a couple months at some point.

And despite all that, I think our injury chances are better (i.e. fewer major injuries) than just about any other contender, especially in the east. The Bucks were definitely lucky with Giannis/Dame last year (each played more games than any season in their previous 4), plus Middleton is trying to get surgeries on literally every part of each leg. The Sixers need tremendous injury luck for both Embiid and George to get deep into the playoffs unscathed. The Knicks completely fell apart last year, and 3 of their top 6 (OG, Robinson, KAT) are bigger injury risks than anyone on the Celtics other than maybe KP. Out west, Denver is hoping Murray is healthy for the playoffs, something he hasn't been 3 times in the last 4 years. Dallas would be lucky to get Kyrie at the same level in the playoffs next year, and who knows with OKC (they're pretty young and healthy, but have won exactly one playoff series so who knows how they hold up over time).
Yeah, I sign off on all this. The Celtics advantage is that, even with worse injury luck, you expect them to have 2-3 really high-quality top-end players out there most of the time (between Jays, DWhite, and Jrue), and then good role players who know the system.

I'm not a huge Celtics homer wrt regular season win total, and I expect them to regress there due to injuries and pacing themselves (as the Durant Warriors did), but the rest of the East has very series injury question marks that are definitely worse.
 

Tony C

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One over and one under pick.
Over/Charlotte. Both Ball and Richards are injury prone (Richards already has something else this season), but a team starting Ball, Miller (give the Hornets some props for goign against consensus and picking him over Scoot), Richards, Josh Green, and Bridges is decent/competitive. Not that they'll be some sort of great team..but maybe 35 wins? That's discounting the FO maybe trying to get the team to lose, though.

Under/Denver. The way Murray played in the playoffs and Olympics is scary. I don't know...maybe it was some sort of nagging injury (but then why play for Canada?), but worry more that it's accumulated wear/tear from the surgeries. Beyond that, KCP is one of my favorite players (Orland is another team I'd go "over" on) and the Nuggets just seem soooo thin without him. Hell, they were already thin, now they're one rotation player injury away from not just underachieving the projected win total, but really becoming mediocre, particularly given that in the Western Conference they're going to be facing a lot of competitive teams.
 

benhogan

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One over and one under pick.
Over/Charlotte. Both Ball and Richards are injury prone (Richards already has something else this season), but a team starting Ball, Miller (give the Hornets some props for goign against consensus and picking him over Scoot), Richards, Josh Green, and Bridges is decent/competitive. Not that they'll be some sort of great team..but maybe 35 wins? That's discounting the FO maybe trying to get the team to lose, though.

Under/Denver. The way Murray played in the playoffs and Olympics is scary. I don't know...maybe it was some sort of nagging injury (but then why play for Canada?), but worry more that it's accumulated wear/tear from the surgeries. Beyond that, KCP is one of my favorite players (Orland is another team I'd go "over" on) and the Nuggets just seem soooo thin without him. Hell, they were already thin, now they're one rotation player injury away from not just underachieving the projected win total, but really becoming mediocre, particularly given that in the Western Conference they're going to be facing a lot of competitive teams.
I like your Denver/Under pick.

They are incredibly geared towards perfect Joker health. Nikola has been piling up games/minutes for 9 straight seasons, topping out at 2737 minutes last year. Carrying Serbia during the Olympics has me thinking he could use a breather. Denver has been losing key players for 2 straight seasons. Malone has no other option but to play Joker more which could run him right into the ground.
 

benhogan

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Just noticed this article today on Malone's concern with running Joker/Nuggets into the ground during the regular season last year. He may be a little less concerned with regular season wins this year, so Nuggets/Under has some merit.

When Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone took the podium immediately following his team’s Game 7 exit from the Western Conference semifinals, he sighted fatigue and high usage of his star players as factors for his team making an early exit from the playoffs.

“Our guys looked dead tired,” Malone said. “They did. Did I run our players into the ground? I’m sure that’s definitely part of it. That’s the decision we made and we’ll live with it.” For an NBA team, with the league’s MVP three out of the last four seasons, success and winning are not a given.

Statistically speaking, Denver’s output didn’t drop off too much between 2022-23 and last season. In fact, they improved to 57 wins in a tough Western Conference last season compared to a 53-win season en route to the title. In terms of league-wide net rankings, Denver also improved in points, assists, FG% and 3P%. However, the usage and miles on the body of superstars Nikola Jokic increased to a career-high 34.6 mpg up from the prior seasons’ 33.7 mpg.


https://www.celticsblog.com/2024/10/4/24253916/what-boston-celtics-can-learn-denver-nuggets-jaylen-brown-jayson-tatum-nikola-jokic-jamal-murray