FAKE RONJAN!!How high can the Warriors fly?
So it's official. The Golden State Warriors are off to the best start in NBA history, becoming the first team ever to win their first eighteen games of the season. They also have the best point differential through 18 games in the 3-point era. Total dominance.
So the question everyone seems to be asking now is can these Warriors pass the Chicago Bulls from 20 years ago and get to 73 wins? We wanted to take a crack at that question today, since the Warriors begin a 7-game road trip that could make this whole discussion moot.
First off, we wanted to show just how dominant the Warriors have been. We pulled data from basketball-reference.com about the top 100 teams in the 3-pt era based on point differential through 18 games. As you can see, the Warriors stand out from the crowd when you plot wins and point differential in the graph below. Remember, this is compared to the fastest starting teams in NBA history!
But the Warriors are great. We already knew that. What does this mean for the future?
We took those same 100 historical teams and looked at how many wins they put up the rest of the way. Then we built some predictive models to see whether we can use wins and point differential through the first 18 games to project what happens over the final 64 games. In particular, we looked at models based on wins through 18 games, point differential through 18 games, and the combination of both variables (ignoring the rule that predictor variables need to be independent).
At the end of the day, we ended up with several predictions:
I was surprised to see that the average record going forward for the best starting win and point differential teams was actually weaker than any of the regression models. This could be an indicator that none of these regression models really know what to do with the Warriors, since they have performed so far beyond any other team in NBA history.
If I had to put a number on this like I did with the Knicks last year, I'd guess 69 wins. The Warriors would fall short of the 1995-96 Bulls, but they'd tie the title-defense 1996-97 squad for the second-best record in NBA history.
Even as a Spurs fan, I'm wishing this team luck in the regular season. It'd be fun to see them break the record.
-rj