No team has started a season better than the 2015-16 Warriors
When Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry said his team is better than they were last year, many people dismissed the comment as hyperbole.
How could the Warriors be better than last year? They won 67 games in the regular season and steamrolled through the playoffs. By any measure, they were one of the best teams of the modern era. Better? How is that possible?
Actually, strike that — over the past three weeks, they’ve somehow played even better than the lofty standard they set for themselves last season. According to our Elo ratings — which have always loved this Warriors squad— no team in NBA history has looked so good 10 games into a season:
It might not hold up over an entire season, but the Warriors have improved at both ends of the floor in the early going. The offense is moving the ball more, simultaneously drawing more fouls and shooting more 3-pointers (which means fewer of those dreaded midrange jumpers), and on defense, they’re doing just about everything a teensy bit better. Plus, five of their top six minute-earners have a higher Box Plus/Minus (BPM) than they did a season ago, headlined by Stephen Curry’s outrageously high +15.4 mark.
Well, it looks like the Warriors might not just be better than last year -- they could be the best team ever. Or at least that's how they're starting this season.
According to Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight, no team has ever started a season as dominant as this season's Warriors. Not the '80s Lakers and Celtics. Not the Jordan Bulls. Not the Kobe-Shaq Lakers. Nobody:
As Paine points out, the Dubs aren't likely to keep up this level of dominance -- they're not going to keep winning games by 17 points per game. But if they can maintain even 80 percent of their current level of play, they'll be better than they were last season and, again, one of the greatest teams ever.
