team     wins  pt.diff

spurs     58     8.4
suns      61     7.3
mavs      67     7.2
bulls     49     5.0
rockets   52     4.9
pistons   53     4.2
cavs      50     3.9
jazz      51     2.9
nuggets   45     1.7
raptors   47     1.0
magic     40     0.8
lakers    42    -0.1
warriors  42    -0.3
clippers  40    -0.4
wizards   41    -0.6
nets      41    -0.7
heat      44    -0.9
hornets   39    -1.6 
kings     33    -1.8
pacers    35    -2.5
sonics    31    -2.8
knicks    33    -2.8
76'ers    35    -3.1
celtics   24    -3.4
wolves    32    -3.6
bobcats   33    -3.7
blazers   32    -4.3
bucks     28    -4.3
hawks     30    -4.7
grizz     22    -5.1

it seems point differential is a better indicator of team success. now, if we look at the teams in the +/- 1.0 differential:

raptors   47     1.0
magic     40     0.8
lakers    42    -0.1
warriors  42    -0.3
clippers  40    -0.4
wizards   41    -0.6
nets      41    -0.7
heat      44    -0.9

these teams seem to be really close to either taking a step forward (45+ wins) or taking a step back (<40 wins). and that difference can be either adding/subtracting a player, or incremental development of the players already on the team.

looking at all the other teams, it looks like it would require a significant change in personnel or a big time leap in current player development for those teams to make a big jump.

Win-loss differential is another good indicator of success. Ours has been pretty low.

Posted by RemBee76:

Sorry, but isn't it fairly straight forward to say "If you score more points than your opponent you win"?

In that sense, basically, point differential is a statistic that is a measure of a team's over-all effectiveness (not unlike the Win-Loss record) and is not a causal stat (like rebounds, turnovers or blocked shots).

So yeah, teams that won 40 games are on the cusp of either getting 45 or 35 wins, and teams that won 33 (as an example) may need to take a greater leap to get to 45. So...that means what, exactly?

I guess that means our team is going to have a very difficult time leap frogging.

great analysis! Next year's knicks match up closely to those teams.