Minnesota Sports Forum

Back in the olden days, we used to have a manual klunkometer that could only process enough data to estimate wins in whole numbers. I've dusted off the old klunkometer and upgraded the processing chip to estimate the probability of a win in each game.

I've taken the estimated wins for each of our opponents from fivethirtyeight.com and their CARMELO system. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-nba-predictions/

I've then adjusted our chance of winning each game based on being at home or on the road.

I've programmed in a target of 50 wins for the season, so I may have to change my name to 50WinJim.

With a target of 50 wins, we should be on 23.99 wins so far. So we're ahead of schedule by 0.01 wins.

Clearly, losses to Phoenix at home (we had a 90% chance of victory), Phili (76% chance of victory), Miami (76%) and Indy (77%) have really hurt. But we've managed to win a lot of games where we only an even chance of winning. So far, we're 7-1 where we've had between 45-55% chance of winning. These are really important games because they're the games against teams we're fighting for playoff position with. We've won 8 games where we had less than 50% chance of victory.

We have had an easier part of the schedule so far. Our opponents so far have had a 48% win probability while the teams we still have to play have a 51% win probability.

Our chances in our next ten games are as follows:

Date Opponent Win probability
3/01/2018 BKN Away 0.62
5/01/2018 BOS Away 0.30
6/01/2018 NOR Home 0.76
8/01/2018 CLE Home 0.55
10/01/2018 OKC Home 0.64
12/01/2018 NYK Home 0.80
14/01/2018 POR Home 0.77
16/01/2018 ORL Away 0.71
18/01/2018 HOU Away 0.28
20/01/2018 TOR Home 0.46

I'll keep this updated as we go.

Thanks Shum!

Man, on target for a 50 win season! It's a different experience being a Wolves fan so far this year!

Wow, good stuff Shum. I wish we'd hear from Tim again, as this team might actually be playing close to his level of opTIMism for once!

We have been VERY lucky in that we have played multiple teams missing key players, and often one or two of their top two players (Milsap, Oladipo, etc.)

The injury gods have smiled upon us. This is not a 4th seed team if either a) everyone we played was totally healthy or b) we were hit with the same proportion of injuries as they have been. Sorry, but Bjelly and Teague are not the same as Oladipo, Booker, Milsap, etc.

That being said, hats off to the training staff and the players for staying healthy.

Q12543 wrote:Wow, good stuff Shum. I wish we'd hear from Tim again, as this team might actually be playing close to his level of opTIMism for once!

We have been VERY lucky in that we have played multiple teams missing key players, and often one or two of their top two players (Milsap, Oladipo, etc.)

The injury gods have smiled upon us. This is not a 4th seed team if either a) everyone we played was totally healthy or b) we were hit with the same proportion of injuries as they have been. Sorry, but Bjelly and Teague are not the same as Oladipo, Booker, Milsap, etc.

That being said, hats off to the training staff and the players for staying healthy.

One of the reasons that I did this was that it does feel as though we've just been grinding along, and not really playing as convincingly as we'd expect from a 50 win team. But the record keeps on building really well, so I suspect that a few Klunkers against Phoenix and Detroit (along with perhaps a 15 yr habit of disappointment) had really dampened the overall feel of the team. But every single team has those games. So I wanted a bit more of an objective way of tracking where we're at.

With regards to injuries, I'm not sure that that has actually had too much of a bearing on our actual record. About the only game that we've 'stolen' where the opponent was injured was the win in Denver (only 39% chance of victory). Conversely, our worst loss was against Phoenix without Booker (we had 90% chance of winning). So our luck in timing of facing an injured opponent may make an interesting narrative, but have no effect on our actual record.

If you want to try to compile a list of games that were injury affected or not, I could tell you whether we're outperforming when (because) we play injured opponents. I thought about it, but can't remember all of them and don't have a chance to go through all the box scores to try to compile a list. But I suspect that we're actually on track for a 50 win season even excluding the injury affected games.

And even if that's not the case, there's so much randomness in life that I like to say that "It's better to be lucky than good". We've been on the wrong end of the stick so many times. Remember when we went 40-42 but had the point differential of about a 50 win team? I'm quite happy to accept the other side of that spectrum once in a while.

The next generation Klunk-O-Meter. I love it!

I have not had much free time lately, but I do catch most Wolves games. I was frustrated early on because the team was not much fun to watch. But an identity seems to be forming, it's not all ISO (well, not as much as before), and the defensive effort and cohesiveness has definitely improved. Not mention they are winning a lot of games!

60WinTim wrote:The next generation Klunk-O-Meter. I love it!

I have not had much free time lately, but I do catch most Wolves games. I was frustrated early on because the team was not much fun to watch. But an identity seems to be forming, it's not all ISO (well, not as much as before), and the defensive effort and cohesiveness has definitely improved. Not mention they are winning a lot of games!

Good to hear from you Tim!

Shumway wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Wow, good stuff Shum. I wish we'd hear from Tim again, as this team might actually be playing close to his level of opTIMism for once!

We have been VERY lucky in that we have played multiple teams missing key players, and often one or two of their top two players (Milsap, Oladipo, etc.)

The injury gods have smiled upon us. This is not a 4th seed team if either a) everyone we played was totally healthy or b) we were hit with the same proportion of injuries as they have been. Sorry, but Bjelly and Teague are not the same as Oladipo, Booker, Milsap, etc.

That being said, hats off to the training staff and the players for staying healthy.

One of the reasons that I did this was that it does feel as though we've just been grinding along, and not really playing as convincingly as we'd expect from a 50 win team. But the record keeps on building really well, so I suspect that a few Klunkers against Phoenix and Detroit (along with perhaps a 15 yr habit of disappointment) had really dampened the overall feel of the team. But every single team has those games. So I wanted a bit more of an objective way of tracking where we're at.

With regards to injuries, I'm not sure that that has actually had too much of a bearing on our actual record. About the only game that we've 'stolen' where the opponent was injured was the win in Denver (only 39% chance of victory). Conversely, our worst loss was against Phoenix without Booker (we had 90% chance of winning). So our luck in timing of facing an injured opponent may make an interesting narrative, but have no effect on our actual record.

If you want to try to compile a list of games that were injury affected or not, I could tell you whether we're outperforming when (because) we play injured opponents. I thought about it, but can't remember all of them and don't have a chance to go through all the box scores to try to compile a list. But I suspect that we're actually on track for a 50 win season even excluding the injury affected games.

And even if that's not the case, there's so much randomness in life that I like to say that "It's better to be lucky than good". We've been on the wrong end of the stick so many times. Remember when we went 40-42 but had the point differential of about a 50 win team? I'm quite happy to accept the other side of that spectrum once in a while.

Yeah, Abe knows the stat by heart, but I think we have gone something like 10 straight seasons winning fewer games than we statistically should have (i.e. pythagorean wins). So yes, we are absolutely due for being on the positive side of random variability.

Great stuff. thanks for compiling the data.

Well, I dusted off the Klunk-O-Meter, and we proceeded to lose to Brooklyn and Boston. Fortunately, we've followed it up with a win against the Pelicans and the massive win against the Cavs.

The Brooklyn loss was obviously a bad one and that knocked our pace down a bit, but our ability to win a lot of 50/50 games has kept us on strong pace.

The Klunk-O-Meter has us on pace for 49.78 wins this season.

We need to win 3 of our next 4 to remain on pace for 50 wins, but they are all winnable, so we could edge ahead a little if we do that.

The Klunk-O-Meter tells us what I'm sure we've all observed. Despite dropping an occasional game that we're meant to win (PHO, ORL), we've been great this year at winning games that could go either way. There are so many games that could be seen as 50/50, and we're winning more than our share of those games.

According to the Klunk-O-Meter, there have been 14 games so far this season where we've had between 40-60% chance of winning. So far, we have won 11 of those games. That is an incredible result and probably the difference between being a 45 win team and a 50 win team.

Right now, the Klunk-O-Meter has us on track for 50.63 wins.

We really only needed to pick up 2 out of this tough 5 game stretch that we're in the middle of, and with the win today we've done that. So any win out of the next 2 is a bonus.

The next 10 games stack up as follows:

POR Away 47%
GSW Away 21%
BKN Home 85%
ATL Away 75%
TOR Away 28%
MIL Home 72%
NOR Home 76%
CLE Away 33%
CHI Away 64%
SAC Home 92%