I'm fine with 50 wins in the regular season Ime and coaching staff need everyone to be healthy and prepared for a deep playoff run
This question "how many wins?" is akin to "who's the GOAT, Kobe or Jordan or LeBron"? Meant to provoke dude discourse (dude-scourse?) (the men in my Brazilian family seemed intent on this GOAT thing when I visited there recently). So I'll play. Obviously: (a) Injuries. (b) Chemistry. (c) Keeping KD to 60-ish games (hopefully injury doesn't dictate this for us). 57 wins, if our core stays reasonably healthy. KD will be rested against the Wizards, the Jazz, those sorts of teams, and we tend to lose more to them than to the solid opponents, otherwise I'd say 62 wins.
I worry about KD maintaining his health and being able to play in the playoffs. I don't think giving up JG or DB will negatively impact the team so KD is certainly a positive thing provided he can play most of the games and be available for the playoffs.
Can they still win 53 games and atleast get the 5th seed? Wow i don't really like the looks of the last 16 games, after Pelicans. We could literally if things don't go great, spire out to the 7th seed and take on the Spurs on the road.
10-7 for final record including Pels victory last game. Would leave us at 50-32. Who knows about seed, too many variables to predict.
We have 16 games left, not 17. 10-6 will give us 51-31, which is about right. I think we will split the 6 road games and go 7-3 at home.