Updating the Raptors’ Win Total Projections with 20 Games Left

This is a quick update to the attempt at a Raptors’ season win total projection outlined here. The most recent update is here. We’ll have a similar update every ten games from here to the end of the season.

Ten games ago (again, apologies for the late arrival of this one, we’ll cover the Bucks game next time), the projection had the Raptors pegged for a 5.9-4.1 record in this recent stretch. In reality, the team went 6-4, in spite of Lowry missing half of those games. Here are the full performances for each game (see linked original article above for explanations if needed).

Those performances bring the season averages to the following.

Offensive performance: +4.6
Defensive performance: +0.0
Overall performance: +4.7
Adjusted ORTG: 110.7
Adjusted DRTG: 106.0
Projected Pythagorean record: 53-29
Projected current record based on model: 36-26 (actual record 37-25)
Projected final record based on model: 48-34

With those average performances in mind, here is a look ahead to the next ten games.

That projects to a 5.8-4.2 record over the next ten games.

Is that projection optimistic? Pessimistic? What about the season projections above?

For those curious, we can also look at just the sample since the all star break, to gauge how the team has performed without Lowry. The team’s average performance in those six games (I’ll include the Bucks game here) is +4.1, not far below their +4.7 mark for the season. The recent stretch would actually prorate to 52 wins, so not far off the 53 wins for the full season data. The team is doing well to weather the storm so far.

As ever, any questions or critiques are more than welcome.

All team ratings per NBA.com. Schedule information taken from basketball-reference.com.