Random Observation (UPDATE): The Celts' Division Is Worse This Year Than Last

Starting caveat: The Celtics were not going to be seriously challenged by anyone for a division title this year. Worst case scenario was somehow finishing behind the Cavs/Pistons/Magic for a fourth seed. After finally overcoming their early issues with starters coming out flat and waiting for the bench to inspire them, the Celtics are rounding into form and looking like the team I saw get out to a 29-3 start last year (and not the team I saw get blown out in person at the start of a slump).

With all that said, the rest of our division is looking more and more like a cadre of incompetent poseurs. It's not like the teams have all gotten worse; in fact, the Nets and Knicks appear to have improved somewhat to this point. However, they were the two worst teams in a terrible group of Atlantic foes last year, and the only two who were competent* have apparently gotten appreciably worse this year.

*- Competent = Made the playoffs and got trounced

Background: Remember, the Celtics won the division by 25 games last year. This happens when you have the best team in the NBA and no one else in your division can manage a winning record. Let's look at the teams, one by one.

The Toronto Raptors: My initial catalyst for this idea, considering their 39 point loss to the Nuggets tonight. This team has gone from solid offensive operators who could outshoot you on any given night (see their 2 point defeat of the Celtics last year with a 71.4% shooting percentage from 3) to a team that scores less efficiently than last year (welcome, Jermaine O'Neal) and is among the bottom seven defensive teams in the entire league. The team is still under .500 and projects (by my best mathemagical estimations) as a 30 win team, the lowest projection of all our pathetic division foes. Can they contend for a playoff spot? Only if they turn around a lot of disconcerting trends, and soon.


The Philadelphia 76ers: At the time of this post, they sit in last place in the division, 8.5 games back of the C's. Clearly the Elton Brand addition was highly overrated by the people who were personally smitten with the idea of Elton Brand. They are thus far the only other solid defensive team in the Atlantic Division, but their offense (bottom 7) doesn't sufficiently compensate for that. Despite being in last place at the moment, they still project for a 40 win season and a playoff berth. They've got talent, according to the "expert" cockbags, but they're not looking like a statistically relevant bunch.

The New Jersey Nets: Currently running in the distant second place position for the division, with an intimidating 9-8 record. Much like the other divisional fraud, the Knicks, they are a strong offensive team (ranked 6th) that has shown little evidence of giving a shit on the defensive end of the court (ranked 27th). Their Mathemagical prediction at the moment is for 33 wins, which would place them slightly below last year's effort. Devin Harris is doing a solid job of replacing an over-the-hill Jason Kidd and a perpetually-overrated Richard Jefferson, but one never knows when the Vince Carter enigma will pull an about-face due to a perpetually sand-ridden vagina. Thankfully Joumanna Kidd won't be around for the playoff series that might ensue in April.

The New York Knicks: A team that was an epic failure for many recent years under Isiah Thomas has been reborn, to a degree, under Mike D'Antoni. They have evolved from a team that sucks at offense (last year: 21st) and defense (last year: 22nd) to a team that plays well on offense (2nd best) and sucks even more on defense (2nd worst). Their Mathemagical prediction is currently good for about 34 wins in total, which is not likely to be enough to reach a playoff spot. Then again, the proposed Stephon Marbury addition-by-subtraction could have unforeseen implications going forward.

With all the above said, we're still looking at about an average win total of 34.25 for the non-Celtics teams in the Atlantic this year, compared to the 34.5 end-of-season average last year. Furthermore, the standard deviation of wins last year between the four also-rans was 8.3 last year, versus my current projections of a 4.2 standard deviation. So to this point, the teams the Celtics are competing with for a division title may not be worse, but they appear to be more consistently mediocre than last year's crew of also-rans.

UPDATE: Apparently I was not the only one inspired to action by last night's Raptors loss...The Raptors GM was impressed enough to fire head coach Sam Mitchell. Yes, Scott, his eyes could not handle suck of that magnitude!