NBA BPI projections: New playoff favorites and title chances
原文链接：
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24491587/nba-bpi-projections-espn-basketball-power-index-lakers-warriors-celtics
The ripple effect of LeBron James' move to Los Angeles ismore like a series of tidal waves.
勒布朗•詹姆斯转会洛杉矶湖人的连锁反应更像是一系列的滔天巨浪，
Sure, the Golden State Warriors remain commanding favoritesover the league, but this season our Basketball Power Index (BPI) preseasonprojections paint a different picture of the NBA -- and many of the changes canbe attributed to James' departure from Cleveland.
当然了，金州勇士仍然是这个联盟中最炽手火热的球队，但是，本赛季的BPI预测将会与以往不同，而很多改变都和詹姆斯离开克利夫兰有关。
The Los Angeles Lakers, with James at the helm, have a 5percent chance of representing the West in the NBA Finals this season. Thatmight not sound like a ton, but it's their best chance to pull off the feataccording to preseason BPI since the 2011-12 season. And James' move has sprungopportunity in the East, while the West has become more crowded.
拥有詹姆斯的洛杉矶湖人队，本赛季有5%的几率冲出西部进入总决赛。这听起来好像不太可能，但是这是他们自从2011-12赛季以来最有希望脱颖而出的一次。而詹姆斯的西迁让西部竞争异常激烈的同时也给了东部球队巨大的机会，
But before we dive any deeper, let's step back for a minute.You can read more about how BPI is calculated here,
(http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24491587/nba-bpi-projections-espn-basketball-power-index-lakers-warriors-celtics）
But do know this: This is our predictive metric that ratesevery team by how many points per game better or worse it is than the averageNBA team. Those ratings (below) allow us to simulate the season and postseason10,000 times, which results in our projections.
在我们更深入了解之前，先回溯一下。你也可以先了解一下有关BPI的相关内容((http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24491587/nba-bpi-projections-espn-basketball-power-index-lakers-warriors-celtics)。但是记住这个：这是一个基于一支球队每场比赛的平均得分比NBA球队平均水平高多少低多少的一个预测性计算。以下的这些评估，帮助我们模拟了上万次这个赛季常规赛和季后赛，从而得出了这些结果。
The top teams in this year's preseason projections arepretty similar to last year's. ESPN
So back to Los Angeles, where the King has made the Lakersrelevant again. In the early days following James' signing, the cast ofcharacters that will surround him in purple and gold was considered weak andunorthodox enough that folks wondered: Are the Lakers even going to make theplayoffs? To that, BPI has weighed in fairly convincingly and given L.A. an 88percent chance to reach the playoffs. However, no James team in the past decadehas had worse than a 99.8 percent preseason shot to make the playoffs. TheLakers' 40 percent chance to reach the conference semifinals is also a low forJames in the past 10 seasons.
说回到洛杉矶湖人，小皇帝让湖人再次回到了人们的讨论范围之内。在詹姆斯签约的前几天。围绕在他身边的紫金军团被看做是羸弱而不正规的，甚至让人怀疑：湖人还想进季后赛吗？出于这个原因，BPI就很有说服力，他证明洛杉矶有88%的几率重返季后赛。然而，在过去十年里，没有任何一支拥有过詹姆斯的球队进入季后赛的几率小于过99.8%。湖人40%到达分区决赛的概率也是詹姆斯的球队在过去十年里的低谷。
________________________________________
Championship favorites
冠军收藏夹
Yes, Golden State is the most likely team to win the titleagain this season. And also again, it's a runaway.
是的是的，本赛季金州勇士仍然是最可能再次获得总冠军的球队。是的是的，可能又是很轻松的一次。
But then there's this: The Warriors' shot at winning the NBAFinals is 40 percent. That's the third-highest chance among preseason teams towin the title over the last 10 years ... but it's an 18-percentage-pointdecrease from a season ago.
但是有件事：勇士最终获得总冠军的概率是40%，是过去十年里获得赛季前预测中第三高的获得总冠军的几率…但是比一个赛季之前低了18%。
The Warriors' preseason title chances, per ESPN BPI, aredown 18 percent from last season. ESPN
So what's going on?
For starters, one input into BPI is Vegas win totals, so toa degree, we're relying on the market. But some more potential answers: GoldenState fell short of our expectation of 63 wins last regular season. And once inthe playoffs, though the Warriors won the title again, they came dangerouslyclose to losing to Houston. All of that suggests that Golden State is excellentbut mortal.
ESPN：勇士的赛季夺冠前预测比上赛季下降了18%，究竟发生了什么？
首先，BPI的一个输入项目是赌城的赢利总额，所以，一定程度上来说，我们是依据市场来判断的。但是更多潜在的答案是：金州勇士没有达到我们上赛季预期的常规赛63胜。而且到了季后赛，尽管勇士队再次获得了总冠军，他们差点就输给休斯顿火箭了。所有这些都显示，勇士很优秀，但不是无敌的。
To be clear, the Warriors are a superb basketball team. In fact,in the 11 years of preseason BPI ratings, Golden State has the fifth-highestrating going into the season, behind only the 2017-18 Warriors, 2011-12 Heat,2011-12 Thunder and 2010-11 Heat. We just think a tad less of the Warriorsrelative to 12 months ago.
需要清楚的是，勇士是一支超级球队。事实上，在11年来的BPI赛季前预测中，这个金州勇士的评分排在2107-18赛季勇士，2011-12赛季热火，2011-12赛季雷霆，和2010-11赛季热火之后，是第五高的，我们就姑且认为勇士比12个月前稍稍削弱了那么一点点吧。
Just like last season, the team with the second-best chanceto win the title is the Boston Celtics. And, despite no major upgrades toBoston's roster (Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving were healthy at this time lastyear), the Celtics' chance to win has leaped up from 12 percent last year to 18percent now.
就像上赛季一样，第二好的机会赢得总冠军的球队还是波士顿凯尔特人。尽管他们看起来没有实质上的阵容实力提升。（戈登·海沃德和凯里·欧文在去年的这个时候还是健康的）凯尔特人获得总冠军的概率从去年的12%跃升至18%，
Why the increase?
Two reasons. First, the aforementioned departure of James,which helps free up the East and removes a major obstacle in Boston's path.Second, rising expectations for the Celtics, given how well the team played inthe face of major injuries and the breakout of Jayson Tatum. Boston's defensiveBPI rating (3.7) has more than doubled from this time last year (1.5).
为什么会有所提升呢？
有两个原因：首先，先前提到的詹姆斯的离开，解放了东部的同时也清除了波士顿冲击总决赛的障碍。其次就是波士顿在缺少了两名核心球员的情况下打出的表现已经杰森·塔图姆的爆发提升了大家对凯尔特人的期待值。波士顿的防守BPI数值是3.7，比去年同期（1.5）增长了一倍还多。
The Raptors have continually fallen short of expectations inthe playoffs, but BPI still thinks they are legitimate contenders -- especiallynow with Kawhi Leonard on the roster. Toronto's 10 percent chance just edgesout the Rockets for the third-best shot at the title.
And even though the Rockets came oh-so-close to getting pastGolden State last season, 10 percent isn't a bad projection considering thein-conference foes Houston faces. This is the Rockets' best preseason chance towin the title as far back as BPI goes -- the 2008-09 season.
猛龙在季后赛的表现依然不如预期，但是BPI值始终相信他们是总冠军的有力竞争者，尤其是现在卡哇伊·伦纳德的加入。多伦多10%的夺冠几率稍稍落后火箭排在了第四名。
尽管火箭差那么一点点就迈过了勇士，考虑到火箭在西部将要碰到的敌人们，10%的夺冠概率并不是一个很糟糕的预期，这是火箭队自从2008-09赛季以来最好的赛季前BPI指数预测了。
________________________________________
East vs. West
东部VS西部
Just as James left the East, the conference is finally onthe upswing. Last year in the preseason, the Western Conference had a 77percent chance to win the NBA title, according to BPI, which was the greatestchance either conference has had in the past decade. This year the WesternConference has only a 60 percent chance to win the title.
Also a season ago, the two best teams in the East (Celticsand Cavaliers) ranked fourth and sixth in BPI, while this season the two bestteams (Celtics and Raptors) rank second and fourth. On top of that, the Raptorsthis year (a 4.3 BPI rating) are almost as good as the Celtics were last year(a 4.8 BPI rating).
BPI actually didn't think a ton of the Cavs a year ago, andin the plot here we can see how last year's and this year's top teams in eachconference stack up against each other.
正是由于詹姆斯离开东部，东部分区的夺冠可能终于上升了。根据BPI的数据显示，去年的赛季前预测中，西部有77%的可能获得总冠军，是过去十年里最高的概率。今年西部只有60%的可能夺冠。
也是在上赛季，东部的两支最好的球队（凯尔特人和骑士）BPI值排在了第四和第六位，而这个赛季最好的两支东部球队（凯尔特人和猛龙），排在了第二和第四位。根据上述这些，猛龙今年4.3的BPI数值几乎和凯尔特人去年（4.8）一样好，
BPI数值其实并不看好去年的骑士，而在这个情景中，我们可以看到去年的顶级球队在各自的分区中是如何对抗彼此的。
________________________________________
The effect of the new lottery
新选秀权的影响
In the old NBA draft lottery system, the three teams withthe worst regular-season records were given lottery odds of 25 percent, 19.9percent and 15.6 percent, respectively, to receive the No. 1 overall pick.Going forward, the three teams with the worst regular-season records will allreceive a 14 percent chance.
The team that ends the regular season with the worst recordthis season will receive only 56 percent, about half, of the pingpong balls theworst team in the league last season received. That is a significant drop-off.The bottom three teams in this upcoming draft lottery will all have worse oddsof getting the No. 1 pick than the third-worst team last season (15.6 percentchance).
For example, this year the Atlanta Hawks have the bestpreseason odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick in the draft lottery at 13percent. Last year, they had the second-best preseason odds of landing the No.1 overall pick at 15 percent.
Given the new distribution of lottery odds, the race to thevery bottom has become the race to be somewhere at the bottom. What's the pointof a shameless tank job that starts in October if your reward is only a 14percent chance of getting the No. 1 overall pick?
For more from ESPN Analytics, visit the ESPN AnalyticsIndex.
在过去的NBA选秀系统中，常规赛战绩最差的三支球队有25%，19.9%，15.6%的几率获得状元签。而如今，三支常规赛战绩最差的球队将获得同样的14%的几率。
以本赛季最差成绩结束常规赛的球队将获得上赛季最差球队56%的乒乓球数量，差不多一半。这是一个显著的下调。垫底的三支球队在即将到来的新赛季将获得比上赛季的垫底球队（15.6%）更小的获得状元签的机会。比如说，本赛季最有可能获得状元签的老鹰，概率是13%，去年，他们有赛季前预测的获得状元签的概率是15%。
由于新的选秀抽签制度，争取摆烂变成了争取摆烂在某个特定的位置。如果你最终只能获得14%的几率获得状元签，那么你从十月就开始的摆烂行为又有什么意义呢？
閱讀更多 老王談球 的文章
