“MVP! MVP! MVP!” A shower of cheers rained down on Luka Dončić as he walked off the court after a Dallas Mavericks victory last fall, four days before Thanksgiving. He high-fived a few fans — towel around his neck — then clapped his hands above his head and entered the tunnel as the MVP chants […]
We start with the return of the NBA, which also means the return of our NBA prediction model, powered by our RAPTOR player ratings. We’ve gotten rid of some things — most notably the more predictive version of RAPTOR, which threw off our playoff predictions last year — and have also changed some things around […]
We know which athletes are great, but we know less about what makes them great. To help, FiveThirtyEight is compiling The Greatness Files, a compendium of, well, what makes great athletes great. First up, a rising star named LeBron James. This is not another LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan article. Whenever LeBron reaches another NBA […]
How this works: These forecasts are based on 100,000 simulations of the rest of the season. Elo ratings — which power the pure Elo forecast — are a measure of team strength based on head-to-head results, margin of victory and quality of opponent. Our CARMELO forecast doesn’t account for wins and losses; it is based […]
Our projection system identifies similar players throughout NBA history and uses them to develop a probabilistic forecast of what a current NBA player’s future might look like.