What a long strange trip its been, the 2015-16 Preseaon & onward Power Rankings

October 26, 2015

#28

The gaudy production we saw from C.J. McCollum during exhibition play means Portland actually has two players to tempt any fantasy owner. Don't want to trivialize the jobs Damian Lillard and McCollum have these days but the West, strange as it sounds, can be a cold, cold place for basketball franchises trying to reboot.



http://espn.go.com/nba/powerrankings/_/year/2016/week/0​

 

Week 1

1-2

#27

Still focused on C.J. McCollum's 37-point eruption in the Blazers' opener because he had only topped 20 points in three previous regular-season games. He was an undoubtedly popular preseason pick for Most Improved Player honors, but still. Thirty-seven is a higher total in Game 1 for any Blazer since Kiki Vandeweghe's 47 in 1984.

 

Week 2

4-3

#20

There's an argument to be made that C.J. McCollum was drafted too high and is a little bit too young to be such a MIP favorite, since a top-10 pick is supposed to blossom like this. But we saw so little of him in those first two seasons that you can't ignore such a leap. Last season, remember, McCollum had three 20-point games total.

 

Week 3

4-7

#25

If it were up to me, Portland would not have hosted San Antonio on the same night Dallas hosted DeAndre Jordan, because I'd want to save the LaMarcus Aldridge return for separate viewing. And road reunions didn't work out any better for the Blazers, with Nicolas Batum lasered in and clearly playing for something bigger Sunday night.

 

Week 6

9-12

#20

Amid the ongoing gaudy numbers from Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, as well as the unheralded contributions coming from the likes of Allen Crabbe and Ed Davis, we would be delinquent in our duties if we didn't point out that Major League Soccer's Portland Timbers just won the city's first championship since the '77 Blazers.

 

Week 8

11-18

#27

A long road trip with two more stops to go is going to feel a lot longer if the plantar fasciitis plaguing Damian Lillard in his left heel, as he revealed Sunday night, gets any worse. Another problem: Portland generally has to get to 105 points to put itself in position to win. The Blazers are 10-3 when they get there ... 1-15 when they don't.

 

Week 11

16-24

#21

A game 4-3 effort while Damian Lillard was out battling a nagging case of plantar fasciitis has enabled Portland to hang around the last playoff spot in this weird, weird Western Conference of 2015-16. Then Lillard's eight 3s to surprisingly take down scorching-hot OKC on Sunday night delivered a happy ending to a week mostly spent lamenting a costly "clerical error."

 

Week 13

20-26

#20

We ask you, BlazerManiacs: Would you secretly rather finish no higher than ninth in the West so Portland doesn't have to surrender its first-round pick to Denver to complete the Arron Afflalo trade? Or do you want to see Damian Lillard react with trademark Dame-esque fury and lead a second-half redemption run to the postseason if he's indeed snubbed for an All-Star spot by West coaches?

 

Week 14

23-26

#17

Damian Lillard had an undeniably good case to earn a spot on the West All-Stars as soon as you remember that he has Portland in the hunt for a playoff spot despite last summer's exodus of four starters. Thursday's home date with Toronto pits the snubbed duo of Dame and C.J. McCollum (41.4 PPG, 10.4 APG combined) against East All-Stars Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan (44.2 PPG, 10.4 APG)

 

Week 17

29-27

#9

Hell hath no fury like a Dame scorned (by Western Conference coaches). So much for that 2-9 career record for All-Star snub Damian Lillard against Steph Curry that we were talking about last week. The conversation now has to be about how the Lillard-led Blazers just became the first of five teams to beat the mighty Warriors this season and follow that up with a win in their next game.

 

Week 18

32-28

#8 :MARIS61:

Portland is a heady 13-2 since Jan. 23, which accounts for the league's second-best record in the span behind only the Warriors -- whose only loss in that span, of course, was inflicted by these same Blazers. Better yet: Amid cries that the recent success has been schedule-aided, Damian Lillard & Co. just began 11 of 13 games on the road with an impressive back-to-back sweep in Chicago and Indy.

 

Week 23

41-37

#11

It's probably wise to start getting used to the idea of a Clippers-Blazers series in the first round. A locked-in Damian Lillard on another Oakland homecoming Sunday night couldn't prevent the end of Portland's four-game winning streak, but it's hard to see the battered Griz holding Dame & Co. off for the No. 5 seed now. The Blazers surely want to move up, too, given how much trouble they've had with Oklahoma City.

 

To rise 20 spots in one season is a testament to how hard this team has worked and battled. Much respect.

 

Fantastic idea for a thread, Sly, and well executed.

 

Thanks! Wasn't sure about breaking it down into multiple posts but it seemed to better tell the story that way.