Nylon Calculus

After a quarter of regular season play, here are 15 early season predictions for the Western Conference. This is a continuation of the early season predictions series that was published on opening night. 15 predictions for the Eastern Conference can be found here. Denver Nuggets finish in the bottom half of the league defensively Before

Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports With Opening Night hours away, here are 15 NBA season predictions for the Eastern Conference, one for each and every team. In preparation for tonight’s tip, these are 15 predictions on the upcoming season for the 15 teams in the Eastern Conference. The only requirement is that each prediction is measurable

After a thrilling comeback victory over the defending champion Golden State Warriors, the Boston Celtics’ win streak now sits at 14. That’s a Celtics team missing arguably its best player. A Celtics team that has rookies playing over a quarter, 25.8 percent, of its total minutes. Accounting for playing time, the average player on this

The Chris Paul trade raised many questions about its potential impact on the Clippers offense in general and Blake Griffin in particular. Many assumed that the five-time All-Star forward would shoulder a heavier offensive load, perhaps making greater use of his passing skills to help fill the facilitation void from the Point God’s departure. This

A few weeks ago, league officials reportedly informed teams that referees would be paying close attention to traveling violations during the 2017-18 NBA season. Specifically, referees would be focusing on the foot that had been established as the pivot and ensuring that it remains planted before the player’s next move. Teams have only played about

A few months ago, I published penalty time/time spent in the bonus for teams. While I’d discussed and published penalty time multiple times two seasons ago, this summer’s posts were the first time I adjusted for whether or not a team’s defense had fouls to give, too. Now, with only days away from the start

We got a Charles Barkley rant the other week about how the NBA, again, is soft and not like it was in his time. Specifically, he was criticizing the NBA’s push to reduce back-to-back games from the schedule and improve travel fatigue around the league. While one can criticize Barkley for his hypocrisy — he

With the season starting in just under a month, and media day for most teams only a few days from now, it is time to unveil the final version of my 2017-18 projected NBA win totals for each team — unless, of course, a team makes a major move or a coach says “we are

For all the injury and hardship that Tracy McGrady endured throughout his career, nothing will ever take away from his place in NBA history. This weekend he was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and for good reason — his accolades and accomplishments speak for themselves: – 7x All-Star– 2x All-NBA 1st Team– 3x

Synergy Sports Technology, data provider for every NBA team and most NCAA teams, is a unique stats source, offering data categorizing every offensive possession by play types. Those play types are actions such as post-ups or isolation possessions. Here at Nylon Calculus, we’ve used these play types previously to help define offensive roles for NBA

Sometimes, the allure of changing scenery can turn out to be nothing more than a hoax. The newness and unfamiliarity that once seemed so appealing unfolds into the same hidden conflicts and particularly unique challenges of old. However, Kyrie Irving’s new home provides him with a distinctly new world of values and responsibilities, features that could

Right through the end of August, the NBA offseason has been loaded with the movement of All-Stars and top-tier talents. Questions of team fit are all hypothetical until full rosters are actually set and teams take the floor, but I thought it might be fun to look at some of the biggest moves through the

If progress isn’t supposed to be linear, then Giannis Antetokounmpo’s development as a playmaker is a substantial outlier. Antetokounmpo has steadily improved each season and his seemingly effortless jump into the NBA’s elite last year pushed the Bucks into respectable territory on the offensive end of the floor, despite significant injuries to both Khris Middleton and Jabari

Modern basketball offenses are devoted to the pursuit of efficiency; but, frustratingly, it’s not entirely straightforward to identify who are the NBA’s most-efficient scorers. The league’s antiquated measure of scoring efficiency — field goal percentage — has been replaced by its more-sophisticated cousin, true shooting percentage; but the business of efficiency ranking is still a

The Golden State Warriors are an incredible team that also happens to be incredibly unique. One of the ramifications of their uniqueness (and there are many) is it’s hard to evaluate their role players. It’s fairly easy to project how players going into the system will be affected, but for someone like Harrison Barnes coming

After a predictable postseason, the NBA offseason has provided some much-needed entertainment for basketball fans. There has been a slew of reported wheelings and dealings during the first week of free agency with many teams looking to shake things up in pursuit of the Warriors juggernaut. All-Star free agents like Gordon Hayward and Paul Millsap

The free agency frenzy has been an exciting one so far, but there are a couple of trades — Paul George and Jimmy Butler — have really defined the offseason so far. Usually we see similar patterns year-to-year with only a few surprises, but there were two traded fairly close to each and for similarly