Gaddabout said:
Here are but a few adjustments I would make:
Starters -
Player PPG APG BLK RBS STLS
Nash 14.5 9.5 .10 1.5 .75
JJ 14.5 6.5 .38 4.5 1.7
Marion 17.5 4.0 1.4 10 1.7
Amare 22 .5 1.5 12 1.7
Jake 5.5 1.5 .5 5.5 .5
Player PPG APG BLK RBS STLS
Q 10.0 2.0 .28 5.5 .75
CJ 5.5 1.0 .17 2.0 .25
Hunter 2.5 .25 1.5 4.0 .18
Leo 4.0 4.0 .13 1.8 1.0
Z 1.7 .25 .37 3.4 .32
Maciej 1.5 1.5 .27 2.7 .21
Vroman 2.0 1.0 .21 3.5 .17
Howard IL
Leo? I had to go through the list twice to figure out that Leo is Leandro.
I'm not sure what kind of model I would use for projecting stats. Last season the Mavericks had five players average in double figures:
Dirk Nowitzki 21.8 ppg - 37.9 minutes
Michael Finley 18.6 ppg - 38.6 minutes
Antawn Jamison 14.8 ppg - 29.0 minutes
Steve Nash 14.5 ppg - 33.5 minutes
Antoine Walker 14.0 ppg - 34.6 minutes
This was a total of 83.7 ppg or 79.6% of their total 105.2 points scored. It is signficiant that Jamison was not a starter but played 29 minutes a game.
Josh Howard 8.6 ppg - 23.7 minutes
Marquis Daniels 8.5 ppg - 18.6 minutes
Tony Delk played 15.4 minutes in the 33 games he was in, but everyone else played spot minutes.
What is the point? The Suns should have more depth than last year's Mavs and are likely to spread the minutes around differently. 105 is not an unreasonable target, but only if the Suns rebound well. It is very hard to run if the opponent gets a lot of offensive rebounds.
If I was going to develop a model for the Suns stats, I would start with an anticipated per minute stats and then recalculate based on projected minutes. Fewer minutes means lower numbers, but the contribution to victory would be the same.