ESPN's FiveThirtyEight predicts 48-win Celtics team, players w/ potential of Harden, Rodman & Parish

FiveThirtyEight.com, an analytics website that's part of ESPN, created a projection system to predict how good each NBA player will be by comparing them to the career arcs of other similar players (pictured above for Kelly Olynyk).

The FiveThirtyEight metric is quite high on the 2015-16 Celtics, picking them to win 48 games.  The website's founder, Nate Silver, claims the C's may even compete for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Below is a list of the notable player comparisons FiveThirtyEight made for every Celtic, as well as link to the analysis of each.  Considering Boston could run out a lineup reminiscent of Sam Cassell, James Harden, Rick Fox, Dennis Rodman and Robert Parish, 48 wins may be a bit low...

James Harden (Marcus Smart)
Sam Cassell (Isaiah Thomas)
Dennis Rodman (Amir Johnson)
Robert Parish (Kelly Olynyk)
Jim Jackson (Evan Turner)
Earl Tatum (Avery Bradley)
Carlos Boozer (Jared Sullinger)
David West (David Lee)
Matt Bonner (Jonas Jerebko)
Rick Fox (Jae Crowder)
Mike Gminski (Tyler Zeller)
J.R. Smith (James Young)
Kevin Martin (RJ Hunter)
B.J. Armstrong (Terry Rozier)
Brandon Bass (Jordan Mickey)
Chris Jefferies (Perry Jones)

Obviously this can't be taken too seriously.  According the FiveThirtyEight, Marcus, Isaiah, Amir, Kelly and Jae could just as easily become Vladimir Radmanovic, Mo Williams, Cliff Levingston, Rick Robey and Jud Buechler.



Follow Mark Vandeusen on Twitter @LucidSportsFan