Thanks for the appreciation!

It’s kinda wild that most post-game threads against the thunder were “Well, we were injured”.

Bruh.

Plus it says that without injuries, okc would have 81 wins. Realistic?

The Thunder were also very cautious with injuries because they could afford to be. I believe Hartenstein, Caruso, and possibly J-Dub could have played more if the team was struggling further down in the standings.

That’s why I’m a little worried OKC might just blow the doors off everyone in the playoffs if their health comes together. You could argue the regular season has been a bottom quartile outcome healthwise and they’re still the best team in the league. How good are they if everyone is healthy?

If you factor in that Chet and J-Dub are still on their rookie deals but just signed maxes, OKC would be #1 in salary lost too.

Even Ajay Mitchell is still on his rookie deal but is easily a 20M player impact at worst.

I’m a big fan of Jokic and Wemby, but this is a good argument for SGA as MVP.

Brown’s 11 game absence also contributed a decent amount, but yes, quite wild.

I don’t think people underrate him per se more so they pick and choose when stats matter. Brown has been great this season no doubt… but with Tatum he gives you so much more than just shooting, so when the teams best rebounder/passer/team defender/offensive engine goes down I think this is how it shows up. I always say the day he becomes more efficient there will be nothing to deny how great he is.

Their injury status all year was both really good and really bad.

Topic is only accounted for 55 games worth of injury. Not being played doesn’t mean you’re out.

Another caveat to mention: that WAR is treating players missing games as independent events and thus doesn’t account for multiple players missing the same game. Still, pretty cool.

When the Warriors won 73 in 2016, Steph Klay and Draymond played 79, 80 and 81 games and their top 7 scorers all played 65+. Their playoff starting five played a combined 11,767 minutes, or 59.2% of their team’s total.

Only 1 of the Thunder’s top 8 guys played 70 games (Cason Wallace). Their starting five played a combined 9288 minutes, or 46.7% of their team’s total.

I really think OKC had a shot at challenging the record this year, if they had better health. Jalen Williams was All-NBA last year and missed 49 games, the Thunder went 39-10 (65 win pace) without him.

64 games

Everyone knows their roster is deep as hell, but this puts into perspective what that means. Their guard rotation in particular is nuts. Ajay Mitchell and Cason Wallace could start for other teams. Wallace will join Chet in making an All-Defense team. And they have other All-Defense type talents in Caruso and Dort.

We always win this shit and I’m sick of it

Not really, because it looks at each player’s games missed individually, and not as a unit. So there’s overlap unaccounted for. Also, it doesn’t consider games won despite their absence, or the level of their replacement on the team. But it’s safe to say EPM is quite high on their players.

I often forget Beal is a Clipper and will still be a Clipper next season.  I think he’ll replace Bogi next year and only see the floor when we’re missing multiple guys due to injuries.  Absolutely no reason to feature him in the main rotation.

We definitely would have been better lol

During our terrible start to this season we legitimately had 2 players who could shoot the ball and create for themselves. Collins eventually got his 3 to drop which helped, and sanders slowly progressed as a spot up off the bench.

But Beal was sorely missed.

I didn’t know EPM had a WAR stat. Are you referring to their Estimated Wins metric?
There are a few reasons. I did a lot of searching, but couldn’t find anything concrete on what the thing actually measures. Or rather, how it goes about measuring it.

Another reason is relevant to your other question. I used this season’s stats if a player had played at least half the season. So actual EPM, LEBRON and possessions per game. If they played less than that, I used their estimated EPM, since it accounts for a broader lens of who the player really is, and last season’s WAR and possessions.

So with EW, I didn’t have access to previous data, so that ruled it out entirely, if it’s mysterious nature hadn’t already.

Thank you! A little unfortunate to missed the threshold, but if you check the graphs, you can see Golden State were 7th in games missed, 3rd in impact missed and 7th in wins missed. I don’t think they’re being underrepresented.

The sources are listed in the post but games missed are from Spotrac
Sorber (82), Topic (55), J. Williams (49), Hartenstein (34), Caruso (25), Mitchell (22), K. Williams (18), J. Williams (18), Wiggins (15), Dort (13), Gilgeous-Alexander (13), Dieng (12), Holmgren (12), Joe (11), Carlsen (10), Wallace (5)

I don’t think you can determine who would or would not have seen the court. Sorber would have definitely seen minutes if he was healthy, especially while the other big men were out. Games missed literally counts the games that were unavailable to them. If you’re looking for player importance or impact, that’s what the other measures are for.

For OKC, Thomas Sorber missed all 82 games and Nikola Topic missed 72. Neither are guys that particularly stick out, but that is 154 games missed.

Extending to 10 is stretching it for us, only 2 of our top 5 played 65 (highest was 57). That doesn’t include Caruso at 56 games.

The big gap taking us from 200 to 400 is Topic and Sorber. They are a big chunk of the total games, but the salary and value missed metrics account more for that

You’re welcome!

I agree honestly. But hey, no metric is perfect. EPM has Hali as a (marginally) more impactful player than Kyrie too, so I’m not sure how that came out in the wash. I guess Kyrie just has a lot more possessions per game, but I guess that doesn’t account for Haliburton being the engine even if he doesn’t finish it.

Outside of Sabonis, EPM just kind of views all your players as negatives, even if marginally. Pretty much tanked your whole standing.

It would be Bradley Beal

Not sure why you guys think you’re low. Did you think you should be top 3 or something?

The answer is fewer games. Which will never happen.

That would.just leave less mins for the bench players, and guys like Maxey will play 37 mins

Everyone knows that. That’s why there are multiple stats to compare. Weird take, it sounds like you’re the one with the narrative.

I get your sentiment, but the Spurs went 12-6 without Wemby this season so him missing 18 games didn’t have as huge of an impact as it may seem.

(he played 83 games that count toward the 65, which is how he missed 18, not 17)