Some interesting stuff at NBA.com's +/- page. For example: Best Rocket total +/-: Shane Battier (22 in 152 mins) Best Rocket %: Mutombo (.405 in 19 mins) Best Rocket % who's played a lot: Yao (.15 in 139 mins) Worst Rocket total: Von Wafer (-13 in 76 mins) Worst Rocket %: Brent Barry (-.47 in 4.15 mins) Best Blazer total +/-: RUUUUDY (6 in 98 mins) Best Blazer %: RUUUUffin (.37 in 5.27 mins) Best Blazer % who's played a lot: Sergio [don't tell MARIS] (.135 in 22 mins) Best Blazer % who's actually played a lot: RUUUUDY (.06) Worst Blazer total: Batum (-18 in 50 mins) [ouch! maybe we really do miss Martell] Worst Blazer %: Channing (-.65 in 4.15 mins) [SHOCKER!] And just for KingSpeed: Steve Blake has a -16 (second worst) and a rate of -.106 (worst of those playing top minutes) in 150 minutes (3rd most) MORE RODRIGUEZ! MORE RUDY! MORE BRENT BARRY!
Most meaningless post ever? Any post with an extravagant unargued claim. You would need to say meaningless as a measure of something. Presumably +/- is the most "meaningful" possible statistical measure of how many points were scored while the player was on the floor. I'm guessing you think that that's not that important, or not a good indicator of how important the player is to the team. That can certainly be argued, but there are a hell of a lot more stupid stats out there, and probably most of the stats in most boxscores.
The 30 point blowout blows up these stats anyway. That first game told me nothing about this series except: 1. We lost. 2. Next year we probably shouldn't do a rally before the playoffs.
Portland had no idea what they were in for and brought a nerf bat to a gun fight. I don't think the rally is what did them in. The Rally this year was more a thanks for returning the Blazers to the playoffs. That won't be the case next year. The fans will expect Portland to be better next year. I don't know how much growth they can do, though. I mean, if they have another 13 game improvement they would win 67 games. Which would be awesome, but pretty unlikely.
No way they improve 13 games again unless Oden transforms in one off-season into a Dwight Howard level player and Batum and Bayless become dangerous offensive weapons. But I could see them making a 5-6 game improvement, due to internal improvement from player development and perhaps an off-season trade or signing of someone fairly good (like an Andre Miller or Ramon Sessions), and end up pushing against the 60 win threshold.
