Full chart:

Team	Forecasted Wins	Actual Wins	Difference
San Antonio Spurs	44	62	+18
Charlotte Hornets	26	44	+18
Phoenix Suns	30	45	+15
Boston Celtics	43	56	+13
Detroit Pistons	47	60	+13
Toronto Raptors	33	46	+13
Philadelphia 76ers	40	45	+5
Miami Heat	39	43	+4
Portland Trail Blazers	39	42	+3
Los Angeles Lakers	50	53	+3
Utah Jazz	19	22	+3
Denver Nuggets	53	54	+1
Oklahoma City Thunder	64	64	0
New Orleans Pelicans	26	26	0
Atlanta Hawks	47	46	-1
New York Knicks	54	53	-1
Houston Rockets	54	52	-2
Minnesota Timberwolves	51	49	-2
Brooklyn Nets	23	20	-3
Washington Wizards	20	17	-3
Chicago Bulls	36	31	-5
Orlando Magic	50	45	-5
Cleveland Cavaliers	59	52	-7
LA Clippers	50	42	-8
Golden State Warriors	48	37	-11
Milwaukee Bucks	46	32	-14
Sacramento Kings	37	22	-15
Memphis Grizzlies	42	25	-17
Dallas Mavericks	44	26	-18
Indiana Pacers	39	19	-20

just_pick_something_

177 | 2 hours ago

OKC and New Orleans - they are who we thought they were.

808Kuro | Nuggets

26 | 2 hours ago

I remember at the beginning of the season some pundits were saying this OKC team could go 77-5. They did start off hot tho

vindictivejazz | Thunder

23 | an hour ago

I don’t think they’d have gotten 77 wins, but if they had better health they would’ve had a good shot at winning 70+ games.

Missed a ton of JDub, a good bit of iHart, Caruso, Ajay, and then SGA missed some time too

PressureMiserable | Spurs

11 | an hour ago

Its possible, in a world where they do start off healthy, they likely end up being banged up during the season its hard to stay fully healthy all season long

topofthecc | Thunder

2 | 37 minutes ago

Yeah, a similar thing happened to us last year, too. The team was healthier in the playoffs than during the regular season.

Jacer4 | Thunder

1 | 4 minutes ago

Absolutely, that’s why even as lauded as it is people still underrated the Warriors record. That consistent all season long is just so unbelievable

ianbits | Cavaliers

5 | an hour ago

I mean part of why winning 70 games is hard is staying healthy enough to win 70 games is hard

vindictivejazz | Thunder

4 | 41 minutes ago

Oh 100%, I was just saying that the argument wasn’t entirely unfounded.

KeyChallenge4562

1 | an hour ago

Not just some pundits, literally was the headline until the spurs put BTA three times back to back and they started to fall apart for a month

btun88 | Thunder

2 | an hour ago

FADE ‘em!

Ok-Mathematician5948 | 76ers

103 | 2 hours ago

Pacers line was too high, but they definitly understood the tank assignment.

JoeBiden2020FTW | Lakers

33 | 2 hours ago

Haliburton remains criminally underrated

Articulat3

7 | 2 hours ago

Im actually shocked at how bad the team dipped without Hali. I mean damn, Hali was definitely him last year.

SkyCrossSteel

19 | 2 hours ago

To be fair you also had major injuries for most of your guard depth.

CazOnReddit | Raptors

2 | an hour ago

And they started the year banged the fuck up

MusicListener3 | Celtics

5 | 2 hours ago

I mean, they traded Myles Turner for a bag of chips and actively tanked, which contributes

-xXxMangoxXx- | Raptors

15 | an hour ago

How did they trade turner when turner was a free agent that signed with the bucks?

spiderboy640 | Nets

10 | an hour ago

Myles Turner wasn’t traded

01001010_01000010

5 | an hour ago

Exactly we didn’t even get a bag of chips

MusicListener3 | Celtics

4 | an hour ago

Yeah that’s an L from me, they just didn’t resign him

Throwaway-4593

1 | 5 minutes ago

Doesn’t make sense to pay for an entire year of Turner without Haliburton healthy

DowntownManny7818 | Knicks

3 | an hour ago

PS missed a good amount of games too

Ok-Mathematician5948 | 76ers

1 | 2 hours ago

Absolutely he was so important as a facilitator and of course his playoff run was out of this world

huss_femme

-3 | 2 hours ago

They losing intentionally, this team is easily a play in team regardless of Hali’s playmaking

wpmason

9 | an hour ago

Not with the injuries at the beginning of the year. They started 6-31 when they were trying.

Had a fun 9-9 run when guys got healthy, then embraced the tank when there was nothing left to play for.

wpmason

23 | an hour ago

Pacers were second to the Grizzlies in man-games missed due to injuries, most of them pretty legit early in the year.

The tank became the prudent course of action when they were 6-31 despite actually trying.

They also fielded like 46 different starting lineups, so even the G-leaguers didn’t get to enjoy any consistency.

pitifullittleman | Warriors

87 | 2 hours ago

The Jazz over performing with 19 wins is hilarious.

beastfromthefarweast | Jazz

28 | an hour ago

And getting fined for it

musicnothing | Jazz

8 | an hour ago

That’s what cracked me up. We’re in the news for allegedly tanking harder than anyone has ever tanked and we still overperformed

Sad_Bumblebee_6896 | Mavericks

1 | 10 minutes ago

And won the game that they fined you for right?

Rampaging_Ducks | Jazz

1 | 4 minutes ago

YUP. Definitely not contradictory, straight to the gulag.

Tofu4070 | 76ers

3 | an hour ago

They’re going to be very very good next season.

Victor_Korchnoi

2 | an hour ago

They had 22 wins, but yeah

CazOnReddit | Raptors

39 | 2 hours ago

It’s nice to be back in the “Media completely misses the radar with us” norm I’ve been so accustomed to

PsychoM | Raptors

15 | 2 hours ago

The Raptors hit the over on projected win totals every single season between 2011-2020. That’s 9 seasons straight of the odds underestimating the Raptors according to BBRef. If the odds of beating the projection is 50%, beating the projections 9 times in a row has a 0.195% chance of happening.

Something about Toronto and Vegas expectations is broken

Individual_Attempt50 | Nets

9 | an hour ago

Canada

shingofan | Raptors

1 | 14 minutes ago

Hello, “we’re back” department?

Virtuallyhere56

27 | 2 hours ago

Were the Mavs really forecasted to go over .500? I thought it was clear they’d be a lottery team

Ok-Mathematician5948 | 76ers

45 | 2 hours ago

Healthy AD and the Coop hype played a big part in that projection i guess

Normal-Weakness-364 | Canada

25 | 2 hours ago

also the idea of kyrie being back

hawk8024 | Mavericks

7 | an hour ago

Lively was expected to play more than the handful of games he ended up playing also. Not to mention the nagging injuries PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford both dealt with all season that had them in and out as well.

Feeling_Anteater_389 | Hornets

6 | an hour ago

Healthy AD is an oxymoron

Virtuallyhere56

5 | 2 hours ago

People expected a rookie and “healthy” AD to take this team to 44 wins?

Ok-Thanks-2503

9 | an hour ago

healthy AD is really good, plus Kyrie was supposed to be back

Virtuallyhere56

1 | an hour ago

He was immediately injured after being traded then got injured again in the off-season. He was clearly not going to be healthy this season

AustinInDallasTx | Mavericks

2 | an hour ago

* You’re a wizard, AD! *

JoeBiden2020FTW | Lakers

12 | 2 hours ago

There was this weird narrative after the Luka trade that while the Mavs may have destroyed their long term future, AD is not that massive of a short term downgrade. The Mavs could be scary with AD and the supporting cast was more than just Luka merchants.

HokageEzio | Knicks

9 | 2 hours ago

I don’t think people were expecting they’d pull the plug on the AD thing as soon as they did. And Kyrie skipped the whole season which was another thing people thought might give them a boost.

AnotherStatsGuy | Pelicans

2 | an hour ago

Anybody who spent two seconds looking at Dallas’s pick situation would not have predicted them over .500.

OUEngineer17 | Nuggets

1 | an hour ago

They were projected to have about the same record as the Celtics, which seemed reasonable at the time.

Certain_Difference11 | Pacers

9 | 2 hours ago

Yeah ngl no way we were gonna make 39 wins even without all the injuries we ended up happening.

JoeBiden2020FTW | Lakers

0 | an hour ago

Yeah, Pacers supporting cast is massively overrated, and Haliburton massively underrated.

Certain_Difference11 | Pacers

1 | an hour ago

I think if you plopped this current version of Nembhard with all the improvements he’s had at the beginning of the year, we could maybe end up getting close but in the beginning of the year he was definitely struggling with his play making chops a bit too much

Individual_Attempt50 | Nets

-2 | an hour ago

It’s the East it wasn’t impossible

Certain_Difference11 | Pacers

2 | an hour ago

I wouldn’t say it was impossible but we definitely struggled without our engine, also our center rotation was straight Swiss cheese, and the lack of a real interior presence hurt us a lot.

BananaRepublic_BR | Spurs

2 | 43 minutes ago

Kenny Beecham has talked about how one of the best ways to not so overtly tank is to have a guy who is clearly not a starting center play the 5.

SydneyFall | Nuggets

6 | 2 hours ago

I got the Spurs at 33:1 early in the season to win and tried to get others to do it too. (and got slammed for saying it) So pretty happy about that.

btun88 | Thunder

2 | an hour ago

To win it all, I assume?

That’s an awesome bet! Crazy upside.

CFBModsHateFun | Heat

6 | 2 hours ago

Heat being a +4 from their projected tells me that our whiniest fans need to relax.

Team composition was crazy this year. Terry had to be paid to not play. We broke out a new offense to try to compensate.

And honestly, it could have been a lot worse.

Shout out to Spo and Bam for the work they put in this year.

20BeersDeep | Gran Destino

1 | 29 minutes ago

Bam was near the bottom in offensive efficiency. His offense is still a struggle point

CFBModsHateFun | Heat

1 | 6 minutes ago

And he was still our best player by a massive margin

not-a-potato-head | Hawks

4 | an hour ago

If you told me before the season that Trae and KP would play a combined 27 games I would’ve assumed that we finished in the mid 30s. Almost hitting our preseason projection in spite of that is kinda wild

heat_fan_ | Raptors

3 | an hour ago

Raptors definitely surprised people

onionnurve

3 | an hour ago

33 win was high key disrespectful

comeonmang126 | Pistons

2 | an hour ago

This is for the crowd who said Mazzulla backpacked the Celtics whereas the pistons were expected to be good. We literally have the same difference of project vs reality and they literally added Tatum before he was expected p

BcuzRacecar

2 | an hour ago

I will never get the suns right, before this season I had them as a .500 team and last season I had them as mid 50wins team

I was high on wemby low on the rest of em but I still had them in the 50s so ig espn was really low on wemby

I wasnt sure the mavs were tanking or not but 44 in the west seems insanely high regardless

Boston sometimes I felt crazy here for not thinking they were going to be bad this year, especially considering Im so much lower on JB than most

zebrainatux |

2 | an hour ago

The +1 to -3 are so interesting because it’s either the really good/elite teams matching the expectations, or the absolute dogwater remaining dogwater

Victor_Korchnoi

2 | an hour ago

That’s a standard deviation of 10.5 games.

ESPN’s preseason forecast is cheeks.

BananaRepublic_BR | Spurs

1 | 2 hours ago

The Spurs ARE pretty incredible, aren’t they?

gothxo | Cavaliers

2 | 38 minutes ago

very impressive year. figured they were one more year away and they’d slot in as a play-in team or maybe the 6th seed, but they really shot right past that. Wemby is just so amazing and the rest of the team has looked damn good too

BananaRepublic_BR | Spurs

1 | 31 minutes ago

My pre-season expectations were also the 6 seed. Maybe 5 if they gutted out a few close, tough wins against the better teams. At the time, even that felt super optimistic. I never would have thought that the team would get 60+ wins in year 3 of Wemby where he missed 12 straight games early in the season. That no Wemby stretch really convinced me that this was actually a good team as currently constructed. The multiple Thunder wins and the NBA Cup run convinced me that this was one of the best teams in the West, the Pistons wins convinced me they could make the conference finals, and the comeback win against the Clippers convinced me they could win it all THIS YEAR.

Just an incredible season from start to finish.

KeyChallenge4562

1 | 25 minutes ago

I was crazy high on the Spurs taking a leap this year and did actually predict two seed, but only 51 or so wins. They really did blow out everyone’s expectations

BananaRepublic_BR | Spurs

1 | 22 minutes ago

I actually thought they could win around 50 games, too. I just thought that would only be good enough for the 6th seed. That actually kind of turned out to be the case. The T-Wolves won 49 games.

ASadChongyunMain | Spurs

1 | an hour ago

They are indeed. Proud of our guys subverting all expectations

KeyChallenge4562

1 | an hour ago

Salty Thunder fans downvoting you smh

BananaRepublic_BR | Spurs

1 | an hour ago

Can’t even compliment the Spurs or Wemby for outperforming their wins projection by nearly 20 without getting downvoted. What a world.

chillin_krillin | Hawks

1 | an hour ago

To be fair to the Hawks, preseason forecast was based on a team consisting of Trae and Porzingus. If you told me we’d amount to 47 wins with Jalen Johnson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Dyson Daniels, I’d have taken the under. They’ve wildly outperformed their circumstances.

gigglios

1 | 36 minutes ago

Why the fuck did they have mavs at 44 wins without kyrie and luka lmao

jiggy_42 | Lakers

1 | 21 minutes ago

Only 12 teams within a +-3 threshold lmfao.

Coolquip34 | Celtics

1 | 20 minutes ago

crazy the drop from Toronto to Philly is that steep

basically means only five blew away projections positively and the rest were give or take about what was expected

kyleyle | Raptors

1 | 9 minutes ago

The inverted bell curve

Gristle__McThornbody | Lakers

1 | 4 minutes ago

So basically they don’t know anything.

Western-Election-997 | Lakers

0 | 2 hours ago

So far the Mavs have been a lottery team for the entirety of the time after they traded Luka

Let’s see where they fall next year but I think they are looking at a 5 year rebuild especially in the West

InShambles234 | Hornets

1 | 34 minutes ago

Hornets owning that 2027 pick only top 2 protected sure looking nice.

Teams who most outperformed ESPN’s preseason forecast: Hornets (+18 wins), Spurs (+18 wins), Suns (+15 wins). Worst: Pacers (-20 wins), Mavs (-18 wins), Grizzlies (-17 wins)