Lakers twittersphere experienced a minor tizzy last Friday upon the release of a projected win totals piece from ESPN’s Kevin Pelton. (ESPN Insider access is required to read it because, as we know, all worthy content can’t be consumed for free.)



One of basketball media’s best eggheads, Pelton employs a combination of “ESPN’s real plus-minus (RPM) along with a projection of games played and [a] best guess at playing time” to forecast seasons. But to improve accuracy, he made a few new adjustments, including the variable of declined RPM for players changing teams.



Using the new math, Pelton’s prediction left many Laker fans unhappy: 41.2 wins and a nine seed. Wrote Pelton:



When the Lakers first signed LeBron, I put together a preliminary RPM projection that pegged them for 50 wins. So why the drop to 41 in the full version? No team was hit harder by the adjustment for players changing teams than the Lakers, who project...