Nate Silver, prognosticator par excellence, says Nets title chances low, but better than Knicks

Nate Silver, who has a way with numbers and has expressed some love for a Brooklyn team, is out today with a statistical analysis of which teams he thinks have the best chance of winning a title in the next five years.  A lot of it is about the Knicks chances because Knick fans are looking for a silver lining in what passes for a season.

Silver thinks the Knicks don't have a much better chance than the 76ers of winning a title before 2019, based on his formula, which he laid out...

The idea is to project the number of NBA championships a franchise might expect to win over the next five seasons based on three easily quantifiable factors:

• How good is the team now?
• How old the team?
• How good is its best player?

To be clear, we are not claiming these are the only things that matter. You’d probably want to give a team some extra credit if it’s run by a genius like Gregg Popovich. You’d probably want to dock it if it has traded away some of its future draft picks (as the Knicks have) or if its salary cap situation is poor.

The Knicks, he thinks, have a three percent chance of dousing themselves with champagne before 2019, barely above the 76ers and Timberwolves. (He says tanking doesn't work.).  The Nets he says have only a four percent chance.  But still better than the Knicks!  So despite what you hear from Knick fans who think their roster is more "overhaul friendly" or some such nonsense.  Who has the best chance?  The Warriors who Silver projects have near 100 percent chance, far better than the next most likely.

There's a lot more there. it is a bit nerdy, even more than the ESPN Future Power Rankings (which had the Nets last)  But remember, Silver before he went out on his own with his fivethirtyeight.com, correctly called every single state in the Presidential election two yeas ago.  He's smarter than you.

• Every NBA Team’s Chance Of Winning A Title By 2019 - Nate Silver - 538