You can try and compare Greg Odens loss to those if you want, but I don't think that it makes the same impact with the playing time problems he had last year due to foul trouble. I will agree though that I thought Greg was turning things around when it interrupted him, and that did hurt. You comparing Roy's beat to hell vs Chris Pauls is a joke. I know Roy was beat up, he is my favorite player in the league. But when I watched Chris Paul play, it was way more than obvious he was having a hard time going at all. He wasn't just beat up. He had got beat up and lost his crew backing him and was carrying way too much of the load through the season. Argue all you want. Go back and watch the tape of Chris Paul playing for New Orleans against Denver in the playoffs, and then tell me he wasn't way more than beat up. You can throw all the stats, arguments you want. Go watch the tape, and you will see. Then you still go on to ignore the fact that Deron Williams played with a severe injury through out the year, and never got up to full game speed all year long. He missed 14 games. He is Utah's equivelent of Roy. Boozer missed 45 games. He is their Aldridge in the scheme of things. Peja Stojacovich missed 21 games. Tyson Chandler missed 38 games. Yep the Blazers sure had a lot of injuries compared to that. How about compared to losing KG for half the season and playoffs. The Blazer injuries sure do come close to having that kind of impact. Even the Nuggets lost Carmello for 16 games, although a few of them were actually for being suspended due to technicals. What happened to Portland, well we lost Roy for 3 games. Wow that sure is a big hit on the team compared to what is listed above. Oh and Steve Blake, that hit from him being out really compares too. The only thing that comes remotely close was Oden, and he was a backup at the time he got hurt, so how much effect did it really have? Portland will not be so fortunate to have other teams hurt so much next year. If they do, they got lucky.
If you'd bother to read before posting a response, you'd have realized that I said Utah and San Antonio had more injury problems than Portland. I didn't "throw" a single stat. Are you even responding to me? You don't seem to have read a word of my post. And yes, I watched lots of Paul. He's among my favourite non-Blazers to watch. He played through injuries, but Roy did too and both had similar responsibility in terms of carrying the offensive load and running the offense. You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't think there was much difference between Paul and Roy being "beaten up." Peja Stojakovic is hardly an impact player. He's declining and last year he was comparable to Martell Webster. Remember, the guy you didn't even want to hear about? You're just throwing out anything you can, hoping something sticks. And what's the relevance of bringing up Garnett? Do the Celtics play in the West (as I expressly limited my comments to the West) or did you forget that Garnett is no longer on the Timberwolves? If we widen this to the whole NBA, it actually looks better for the Blazers. Yes, the Celtics had more injury problems than Portland, but the Magic and Cavs didn't. So, three teams among the contenders and semi-contenders had more injury problems than Portland (San Antonio, Utah and Boston) and the rest had comparable or fewer than Portland. Portland, at worst, was about average in terms of injury. I don't think they were particularly "fortunate" in terms of injuries, relative to other contenders/semi-contenders.
I'm not going to comment on whether Roy or Paul got beat up more. However, later you ignore the fact that our starting SF was injured the entire year. As for the missing games Yes, Boston losing KG hurt them a lot. However, the big 3 is getting up there and Allen has a history of injury. It would be surprising if one of them didn't get injured for a fair amount of time. Some other teams were hurt more by injuries than we were, but we won 54 games when we had THREE rookies in the rotation.
no he wasn't... he'd been the starter for some time when he banged knees with Maggette and he'd gone 19-26 from the field in the previous 3 games. how much effect this had on Greg and the Blazers success is only something we can speculate on, but getting the facts straight helps STOMP
hasoos- I don't really see how you can claim Portland was relatively unscathed by injury. Aside from the examples cited, our starting franchise center spent the entire season getting back into shape from microfracture surgery. The guy couldn't lift with his legs, he didn't have any time in the summer to really get up to speed--he was just happy to get on the court for opening night. The microfracture surgery was a huge setback for the Blazers. Just because it happened prior to this last season doesn't mean the injury had little impact on how we played last year. With Oden finally 100% and a full summer to practice without having the repaired knee constantly in the back of his mind, we should see a significant improvement in his game. Guys like Amare slogged through their first year upon returning before exploding in the second year, and if Oden can show as much improvement in his second year after surgery as Amare did, it'll be enormous. Anyway, I had us at 55 wins last year at this time. I was optimistic by 1 game. I'm going with 60 wins this year, and a pretty bad stomping in the WCF by the Lakers (assuming they get Odom back). I'm predicting that Aldridge and Rudy show a 20% improvement in overall game, Oden is able to play 30 mpg, and Batum advances to a 30 mpg role player who firmly cements his role as team defensive stopper and designated three point shooter. I think Bayless will continue to disappoint, although he might have a few games where he explodes like Sergio and Webster have in the past. For the third straight year I'm predicting Roy levels off, but I won't be shocked if he proves me wrong yet again.
59 and WCF. We had the second best differential last year with 4 rookies. With each of the rookies improving incrementally we should pick up a few more wins. People are freaking out over our lack of moves this off season but we have only lost Sergio and Frye from our rotation. They were the last 2 in the rotation and we can replace them with Bayless and Webster so we shouldn't lose anything.
I'd say we could win anywhere from 52 to 58 games- we'll be better this year, but so will the Lakers (if they keep Odom), Denver (will have gained confidence), San Antonio (Ginobli back, Jefferson addition), and Utah. On the minus side, teams will have figured out the Roy-centric offense a little bit- so there will be some losses as we try to work in an expanded game for Rudy and Bayless.
for the 3rd straight year you and I have the same prediction on Blazer wins of 50 55 and now 60... STOMP
50 wins. A) Any improvement the Blazers make "organically" will be off-set if SA and Utah get healthier. I also expect the Suns to regroup and improve their record, off-setting Houston's decline. B) Some of the bottom feeders in the west aren't as weak. That could result in the odd extra loss. C) There will be no surprising teams next season. 54 wins guarantees that teams will take the Blazers seriously. The loss in the Rockets' series exposed the teams' weaknesses. D) The top teams in the east got stronger. If we "only" win 50 games, and make it past the first round of the play-offs, I will consider the season a success. If we get blasted in the first round again, I don't care if we win 60 - the season will still be a disappointment.
Once you reach the threshold of 50-60 wins you are more or less in a category of winning (ie. "The good playoff team") and usually see some plateauing is far more likely than the linear progression we've seen in the past 3 or 4 years. Assuming no additions except for draft picks and the subtractions of Channing, Ike, Stud Ruffin, Randolph and Sergio and the insertion of Bayless into the regular rotation and possibly a healthy Martell my best guess is that we'll see right around the same record. Making the leap to 60+ still feels like one significant move away.
anything less than 55 wins and going to the second round will disapoint me, but I really have no clue how well they will do.
Ha! I knew we were on the same page last year but I'd forgotten about the year before. Both times we were a little too optimistic, but looking back were more realistic than a lot of the pessimists on this board. I'm astounded anybody here thinks we're going to actually win fewer games than last year. I realize that losing Sergio and Frye is quite a blow, but jesus. We've got the second best shooting guard in the league (who only seems to be getting better), one of the best young PF's in the game, and our franchise center is finally 100%. The role players (everyone else on our team) seem positioned to perform about as well as last year, if not a little better. It's quite possible one of them (Rudy or Batum, most likely) really blows up. Every summer a bunch of teams make a bunch of moves, and we all get our panties in a bunch if we haven't made as many. But the fact is that from year to year the NBA, or for that matter either conference, doesn't really get that much more competitive. Some guys get better (typically the younger guys), and at the same time some guys get worse (usually the older guys). Given that our team is loaded with younger guys all still on the rise, it's amazing to me that some think we're going to have a worse record next year. Younger teams that are well coached, have a superstar, another guy who is on the career path to multiple All-Stars, and have a quality center rotation, don't generally win fewer games than they did the prior year.
Adding Miller solidifies my feeling that the team is a high-50s win team and a WCF team. I don't think it closes the gap with the Lakers...but if LA ends up not retaining Odom, it could get pretty interesting.
I can't imagine the Lakers finishing lower then 3rd unless they have either a major injury or Artest and/or Kobe kill the locker room. Who besides Portland and SA were you picking to beat their record?
