Hollinger Blake #21 41% Outlaw (unranked) 40% Webster #44 39% Blazers: #7 in 3pt% in the league What more do you want?
While Hollinger has some good numbers in there and he at least has logic as to why he thinks we will struggle at times I disagree with his overall assesment. Especially calling Lamarcus a softy. All we have heard this offseason is that Aldridge is bigger and stronger and does not want to be known as a perimeter shooter and he reminded the media of that at media day. i hope Aldridge reads stuff like this and uses it to motivate himself even more then he already is.
Wow. Call me a homer, but I think we're a lot better team this year than just two more wins. Here's the line that surprised me most: I'm not sure what he means by players playing above their career norms. Our two best players, Aldridge and Roy, were only in their second years. What exactly is the "career norm" for second year players? Outlaw played above his career norm, but there's a pretty steady trendline of growth over the past three seasons. He played about as well as you'd expect him to, given that trend. Last year wasn't a fluke for Outlaw--it represented what he really is. Webster put up slightly better stats last year, but again, it's not like they looked like massive aberrations. I think you can pretty confidently pencil him in for at least as good stats this year. Przybilla did about as well as he always does when healthy. That he stayed healthy was the big news there, and maybe that's not something we can count on. Overall, I don't see a lot of players who really played above themselves. They just progressed like talented young players are supposed to. One last thought--I'm surprised Hollinger made so little mention of what Fernandez brings to the table. He looked like one of the best players on either team against NBA superstars in the Olympic championship game. Surely his addition alone is worth more than two wins for this team.
Yeah... I find that argument to be very odd. I thought maybe he meant that the team didn't shoot many... but Portland finished 15th in three pointers made and 18th in three pointers attempted. Even ignoring their low pace, that's a fair amount of three point shooting. I think he's right that a LOT of things went right for Portland last year (especially during the win streak) and that makes it possible that Portland won't improve as much as many are expecting. Hopefully the team proves him wrong! Ed O.
Yeah, like losing the #1 pick in the entire draft! I've not thought much of Hollinger in the past, and this preview does nothing to elevate my opinion of him.
Hollinger feels that adding Oden, Fernandez, and Bayless will yield a 1 game improvement over last season. If his point was that the returning players alone constructed the roster, I might agree with him. But to overlook the potential rookie, or rookies of the year, being added to the roster seems dumb to me and hardly seems irrelevant. Plus, as mook pointed out, it's pretty much a given that young players are going to have "career years" when they have two or three years in the league, or they are just starting to get consistent minutes.
I think Hollinger was conservative on several things. Oden: in his chat, he states that he considered Oden as a defensive improvement, but not much else. 3 pt shooting: again, hit Portland because James Jones is gone? Improvement: said everyone was up last year, but they couldn't repeat that. With the youth on this team, I hope they all keep improving. I think he forgot to consider where these guys are on their learning curve. Overall, he downplayed almost everything--probably too much. Hopefully a few things go better than his prediction and we can get up to the high 40s.
The point that renders Hollinger's article irrelevant, at least for me, is the fact that this team was the 3rd youngest in league history last year. And while it is true that they add Oden and Bayless, Roy and LMA are now confident in their NBA abilities, Blake is hardly a "back-up" when it is clear that Brandon can handle the ball in the clutch, and the bench should be much, much improved offensively with Bayless and Fernandez able to help score. Last year, if Outlaw wasn't having a good game, the bench was an absolute joke except for the rare nights when Jack's offensive pluses outweighed his turnovers. I say the second unit adds 3 wins alone, which puts the team at 44-38, and that doesn't even factor in Oden's impact.
A few things stand out to my about Hollinger's comments. First, if we go 42-40, there's no way we're the 8th seed. Second, the average win improvement after getting the #1 pick is 11 wins. Taking into account that most teams that get the #1 pick aren't 41-41, let's say that bonus gets cut in half. Third, we replaced Jack and Miles with Bayless and Fernandez. Sure, Jarrett knew the league, but Bayless appears to be a better version of Jack. And it's not like Rudy is your typical rookie. He just played, and played well, against the best this league has to offer. Furthermore, one of our problems with our second unit was that our SG was the size of a PG. Rudy offers a length that Jack doesn't. Fourth, unless you've sat on the inactive squad your first year, statistics show that you continue to improve until your fourth year, where you level off. All of our best players have less than four years of experience, so how are they not supposed to improve? Fifth, the areas where we needed help, we got it. Our interior defense stunk. We were wimpy on the boards. We had no game in the paint. Now we have Greg Oden. We didn't have length in our second unit at the two. We had one offensive threat on our second unit (Travis). Rudy, say hi to the rst of the league. Our second string PG couldn't drive and finish nor could he shoot from the outside. Our second string PG couldn't defend. Welcome to the NBA, Jarryd. Even with our good luck last year, I still peg our record as 7-11 wins better than last year.
On top of that, tell me one team that has a better back up center then we have in the league. Teams will not be able to push us around in the paint anymore when we come at them with Oden 1st, then Pryzbilla off the bench. Pryzbilla was one of the better defending/rebounding centers last year as a starter. Now he wont be counted on as much for scoring and will be able to focus all his efforts on defense. Our 2nd unit is rediculously deep, but will probably need a bit of time to develop chemistry.
I'm not sure what Hollinger expects out of the PG position. Blake played almost 30 mpg game and still managed to be #7 in the entire NBA in Assist/TO ratio. He shoots 77% from the line and over 40% on 3pt FG. Plus, he is an underrated defender and has been assigned to Kobe Bryant in the past solely because he could actually keep Kobe in front of him. Playing now with what appear to be 3 possible All-Star-type players, Blake may be exactly the sort of stabilizing influence that the starting unit needs.
you know it's a good thing when the only thing he can come up with as a weakness is "youth". questioning the lack of three point shooting is odd to me. blake, webster, and outlaw all shot 3s very well last year and then you add bayless who was a 40% 3 point shooter in college and rudy who was a 40% 3 point shooter in europe. seems like 3 point shooting will be fine. and i'll never understand this. hollinger has heard scouts make a comparison to robinson, so he won't dismiss that? really? hollinger can't think for himself? i'd hope an espn "expert" (even one that focuses on stats) would actually watch some guys play and be able to make their own judgements.
My only real complaint about Blake is he isn't aggressive enough with the ball and his shot. He gives up after penitrating too often and hesitates on the three if he isn't wide open. I hope his added strength and conditioning will help with this. I think he has the tools to be even more solid than he has been.
Hollinger says he won't dismiss the Robinson comparisons, but yet where does he give it any credit at all? Now, David was older than Oden, and did come in at 24 pts, 12 reb and 4 blocks, with a much more ready offensive game. I would be happy with 10 pts, 12 reb and 4 blocks from Oden.
as others have pointed out, with Blake, Outlaw, Webster, Rudy, Roy, and Bayless, JH seems off base with this criticism. But in addition, Frye and Aldridge spread the court with solid outside shooting as well. Maybe he was drunk when he wrote this... STOMP
I know. I read the article. Really? Ask the Bulls if this is the case. Ask the Clippers of a few years ago. I TOTALLY disagree that there's an inevitable upward trend when players get more experienced. Last year the Blazers played extremely well during their winning streak and less than mediocre the rest of the time. A key to that win streak was the career-best streak that Jones was on... it was sort of a perfect storm. I don't think anyone here expects that kind of fluke of a winning streak, and without something similar Portland is not guaranteed to finish even at .500, let alone markedly over it. I think that Hollinger is being a bit conservative in his estimate and projections, but I tend to agree with him that last year involved a lot of luck for Portland to finish where they did. Ed O.
