Expectations! Everybody has them and everybody hands them out, whether they’re asked to or not.



When it comes to the NBA, almost everything is judged based on an arbitrary expectation given out by several groups of fans, media and people within the game of basketball itself. Then we use those expectations to judge whether a team is successful. Sometimes, the expectations are accurate and warranted. Other times, those expectations end up being horrible guesses at what was supposed to be. And when proven wrong, I’m not sure how much we learn from the poor assumption. A lot of people tend to find excuses in those moments, instead of trying to find reasoning for the miscalculation.



We’re in the final stretch of the season, which seems like a good time to try to assess how teams have performed relative to their preseason expectations. Which teams were overvalued? Which teams were undervalued? How much of this is relative to their preseason over/under win...