Brooklyn Nets: Why the team outperforms expectations

Earlier this month ESPN projected the NBA standings in multiple ways. These projections do not have the Brooklyn Nets doing as well as fans expect.

ESPN’s NBA Summer Forecast ‘forecasted’ a number of topics from conference standings to champions earlier this month. The Forecast is different than the RPM’s that ESPN also released earlier this month. This was pure predictions and opinions on all 30 teams.

Looking at both though, neither have the Nets winning more than 30 games. The Nets are projected to win 29.5 games, according to the RPM. This is from the math of all the players on the Nets’ roster’s real plus-minus combined. Real plus-minus shows how effective a player is while on the floor. It subtracts the negative things a player does from the positives and gives you a number to compare to other players.

The Nets  RPM ranks 13th in the Eastern Conference and 27th in the league. The only three teams worse than the Nets are the Bulls, Hawks and Kings. I can understand why RPM has the Nets winning 29.5 games as Jeremy Lin was hurt for most of the season. I cannot understand however, how ESPN’s forecast ranked the Nets.

In their summer forecast, ESPN projected Brooklyn to only win 26 games. This is only a six win improvement over last year’s record. While the forecast is based off of last season, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Last year’s squad suffered from many injuries.

So with that said, the Nets should outperform the 26 and 29(.5) wins they are projected to get this season. There’s also a few more reasons why the Nets will prove ESPN wrong this season. Here’s just a few: