I’m not above stealing a good idea. Matt over at Bulls Blog recently looked at Chicago’s schedule through March using an “expected wins†system he got from his father (which is inheritance in his case, not stealing). The idea is to count wins by assigning a number between 1 (a sure win) and 0 (a sure loss) to each game. In practice, because there are no such things in the NBA as sure wins or sure losses, games are really given a number between .9 and .1.
I decided to try this system out for the remaining 26 games on the now .500 Lakers schedule, and the results depressed me.
Dallas .3
Indiana .6
Clippers .6
@ Dallas .1
@ Charlotte .7
@ Washington .5
@ Philadelphia .3
@ Miami .3
@ Indiana .4
Seattle .3
@ Utah .6
@ Denver .4
Philadelphia .6
New York .6
Minnesota .6
@ San Antonio .1
@ Memphis .3
@ Phoenix .1
Houston .4
@ Seattle .2
@ Sacramento .2
Phoenix .2
Sacramento .4
Dallas .3
@ Golden State .5
@ Portland .7
Add it up and it totals 10.3, so I rounded that off to 10 wins the rest of the way. That ends the Laker season at 38-44, which is certainly out of the playoffs and likely closer to 11th in the West. Just looking at who remains on the schedule for the Lakers, with their slim hold on the eighth spot in the West, is depressing.