Here’s how I did it, in some level of detail — I like projecting the NBA. I’m not the best at it and I mostly build on the work of others who are more sophisticated than me, but I enjoy the exercise and it’s fun to do for me,as a big nerd. One frustration I have often had with projections is…

Despite their crummy on-court results, the Nets are rebuilding the right way — [Ed. note — this was my March 14, 2017 Newsletter. With Brooklyn’s amazing on-going offseason, I decided to share this with everyone.] Let’s get this out of the way: the Brooklyn Nets are screwed. They mortgaged their future years ago to trade for the over-the-hill versions of Paul Pierce and…

Chicago needs to give up the ghost on its playoff chase and preserve Butler’s health — The Chicago Bulls need to shut down Jimmy Butler for the rest of this season. There are a number of reasons why shutting Butler down makes the most sense. Butler isn’t healthy and it has shown recently. The Bulls are also bad with very little chance of improving their roster…

Thomas is having an incredible offensive season but being an MVP requires more — Isaiah Thomas is having an incredible season. He’s scoring 29.7 points per game on a startling 62.6% true shooting percentage. That’s absurd enough. Thomas is also adding an additional 15.5 points per game through his assists. In all, he’s responsible for 45.2 of the Celtics points per game in just…

Chicago needs to finally invest in the future while building around Jimmy Butler — The Chicago Bulls have no long-term plan. They have, for the most part, not had much of a plan for years. This is pretty obvious if you have watched them closely in the years in which John Paxson and now Gar Forman have been running things. …

The statistic is great but imperfect. — This piece originally ran on the now defunct precursor to the Nylon Calculus, Hickory High (RIP). Thanks to the Internet Archive I was able to rescue it. This week ESPN rolled out a “new” statistic in its NBA toolkit. They call it Real Plus-Minus, or RPM. RPM is, essentially, the…

This article was one of my newsletters, which you can sign up for here. It was originally published to my subscribers on December 26, 2016. Giannis Antetokounmpo has always had “tremendous upside potential,” to borrow a phrase from the legendary Hubie Brown. As an incredibly long wing player with solid…

Ideas for team-building around Chicago’s newest superstar — In my last post, I outlined the ways in which the Chicago Bulls front office has failed to surround their best player, Jimmy Butler, with complimentary talents. In this post, I’ll toss off some ideas, most of which seem at least theoretically plausible, for the Chicago front office moving forward. Trades …

Part 1 of a 2 part look at how the Bulls should build around their star Almost two years ago, I wrote a piece requesting that the Bulls put the ball in Jimmy Butler’s hands, ala James Harden in Houston. #LetJimmyBeHarden. The context was a specific one: Derrick Rose had…