They made no moves……lost SGA’s little cousin and everybody else improved!! People on here (not you) continue to say how much better we will be this season (which I agree with) but sadly it means shit if the rest of the conference basically got better or maintained.
You are a perfect example of somebody who doesn’t think before they pound the keyboard. You’ve obviously been getting by on your looks around here for years.
https://www.espn.com/olympics/baske...es-spoelstra-succeed-kerr-team-usa-head-coach USA Basketball is expected to hire the Miami Heat's Erik Spoelstra as the next head coach of the men's national team, sources told ESPN. Spoelstra succeeds Steve Kerr for the 2027 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics after serving as a lead assistant on Team USA's 2024 gold medal squad.
Can someone explain to me how the west got so much better than last year? Notable players that moved to the western conference from the eastern conference: Jrue Holiday (does not matter for this discussion) Valančiūnas Jordan Poole (Oh no?) Cam Johnson, Al horford Brook Lopez Notable players that moved to the eastern conference from the western conference: Desmond Bane Anfernee Simons Kelly Olynyk CJ McCollum Michael Porter Jr. Norman Powell -- So overall, based on inter-conference movement, I do not think the Western conference got better compared to last year. --- Now, there is a lot of intra-conference movement within the western conference, KD from PHX to HOU for example, but is that going to really change the overall picture of the conference? I guess that in some rare cases that was a win-win move, but just as likely you will see lose-lose moves, so overall, not really sure about that. There are some teams that got better because of health or off-season regiment (LAL, likely, with Luka taking the criticism about his body to heart, SAS with Wemby coming back from injury). So, there is clearly a chance that some teams that had a bad year last year because of health / conditioning will be better this year, but on average, you can expect the opposite too, all it takes is one injury to Jokic or SGA or Edwards (not that I wish this on anyone, just pointing it out) and a team that was great last year is less good this year. So, overall, this idea that the western conference got so much better is just not reasonable to me. Please show me where you think I am missing something obvious.
Maybe the number 1 and 2 picks in the draft might have a little bit to do with it. Also do you feel the Blazers got better? How about the Thunder? I feel the Warriors also will get better as Butler has more time there. I think we can assume LA with Luka got better but that didn’t hurt the Mavs obviously with the luck they had.
The main thing is at the top of the conference both Hou and Den got much better. Houston had everything except a go to scorer and Den desperately needed depth. Both teams got those pieces. The top 4 of the west is mostly what is much better. SAS could be much better DAL added a franchise level rookie. Lakers traded fat Luka for fit Luka. Some teams like the Thunder, Wolves, and Blazers might be significantly better just from young players continuing to improve. East also has a bunch of stars with major Achilles injuries in BOS, IND, MIL so the west got better relatively speaking just from not having that.
I still think the Blazers are going to end up with about 40+ wins or 27 wins. We either make a legit playoff/playin push if we can get close to .500. Or if we have more struggles than we hope we just flip to trading starters/tanking at the end of the year as we've done the last 4 years. I don't think we sit around to complete a ~35 win season. 2026 draft is super strong and 2027 is super weak so makes strategic sense to tank one final year - unless we can unexpectedly become a .500 level of team.
Here are the head to head records for portland against western conference rivals last year: Team Record (Wins-Losses) Dallas Mavericks 1-3 Denver Nuggets 1-3 Golden State Warriors 1-3 Houston Rockets 1-3 LA Clippers 1-3 Los Angeles Lakers 2-2 Memphis Grizzlies 1-3 Minnesota Timberwolves 2-2 New Orleans Pelicans 2-2 Oklahoma City Thunder 1-3 Phoenix Suns 2-2 Sacramento Kings 1-3 San Antonio Spurs 1-3 Utah Jazz 1-3 -- Let's say LAL, Rockets, GSW, Dallas and the Mavericks got so much better, that gives Portland, at worst, 6 wins if they lose all the games that they won last year (and there is no way in hell that happens, imho, we have just seen that when Portland plays it's rotation players it can compete with GSW, so you can't tell me they will not be able to steal at least a game from these teams). On the other hand, Portland lost 3 games to Utah last year, 2 games to Phoenix, 2 games to NOP, 3 to the Grizzlies, 3 to the Clippers. I am sorry, I just don't see how the western conference got so much stronger over the summer. It did not, in aggregate. It might have got more top-heavy, because you now have 3-4 teams that can challenge OKC where there was none last year, but Memphis is probably not as good, Phoenix is a big question mark, are the Kings any better? Utah really wants to tank and the Blazers are not going to lose as many games to it as they did last year. Is Minnesota really better? Now, while GSW has proven to be very good when their big 3 were good, they fell apart when Steph went down and Jimmy played hurt. They are older now, how likely are they to stay healthy for 82 games? How likely is it that the Thunder will not relax some now that the won it all, not an unusual occurrence for new championship teams (*). So, I am still not seeing how the West got tougher, honestly, maybe at the top, but overall? I do not see it. (*) LAL won .732 in their championship year vs .583 the year after Bucks went from .639 to .622 GSW went from .646 to .537 Boston went from .780 to .744 The Nuggets were the only recent exception, going from .646 to .695 In other words, if the Blazers got better, they should, health permitting, have at least as good a record as the year before, or better. The Blazers won only 19 games against western teams last year, finishing with a record of 19-33 - if you do not think they win 19 again at least this year, I don't know what to tell you. Even if they win, let's say 17 (which is a miserable .32 win%) and we all agree that they got better and supposedly the east got worst, surely they will win more than the 17-13 record against the east they had last year. In other words, there's a lot of nonsense about how the west got better (it didn't really overall, just moved around a bit) and the Blazers were so bad against the west last year, I can't see how they end up with less wins than they did last year, overall (health permitting)
Was just watching the Mavs from the other night and they are gong to be exciting to watch! Even with Kyrie out!
More time to reenact moments from his career as ads. Maybe we can revive the not 1, not 2, not 3 moment with an ad for M&M?
Yeah, I watched that game too, they are going to be fun and CF is the real deal. Still, the Blazers finished 1-3 against them last year, I can't see a world (health permitting) where they don't at least repeat that record this year... maybe even improve on it
What are you talking about FAMS!? I recently saw a documentary on them on the Discovery Channel. Very interesting.
