Hollinger: Blazers Were "Unlucky" - Should Have Won 61 Last Season

Via: Bleacher Report's Bucket Of Links

 

Interesting. There isn't a person on here that wouldn't be thrilled with 61 wins. That puts us, at worst, 3rd in the West.

 

I sure like the sound of that!

 

If you believe him, then it makes the first-round loss to Houston much more humiliating. We should've creamed those guys.

I think I get Hollinger's system, and I really can't refute his analysis. The guy probably knew more about statistics in 7th grade than I do now.

But I think his models are based on the performance of typical NBA teams. "Typical" NBA teams that average 24 years of age are typically very, very bad. Our team was exceptionally good. I think our highly unusual combination of quality and youth may be the reason we appeared so exceptionally "unlucky." In reality it's not so much luck as it is mental lapses that come from quality players who just don't have the experience to handle pivotal situations. Those lapses manifest themselves in tight games or in the playoffs. Hence we got dumped in the first round and our point margin says we should've won more regular season games.

I'd wager that in the future if some other team assembles this much young talent, they'll appear to be similarly "unlucky" too.

 

The question in my mind is how long this "unluckiness" can continue, if it really is just a reflection of youth. By bolting on a vet like Miller, and by merely aging one year, have we vanquished the issue of inexperience?

 

Vanquished is a strong word. Core guys could use a little more experience. I think that Houston series was a huge lesson for our guys. If we roll into the playoffs with HC again, think we've got a great shot at moving on this time around.

 

like jh said you can't really blame our free throw defense. Just pure bad luck. If you are saying that all young teams will have bad free throw luck, I can't agree.

 

The only thing I could think of when it came to giving up such a high percentage from the charity stripe is perhaps the team was fouling the good free three shooters more than the league average. I have no idea how you could get ahold of those kinds of stats, except to compare each opponent's free throws against us to their average against all other teams. Something tells me that there's more to this high percentage stuff than simple bad luck.

 

But he's attributing FT% to 2 of the 7 "unlucky" losses, so the 5 losses that point differential says should have gone our way are the bigger issue. I've said before, and I think it echoes what mook was saying above about youth/inconsistency, that point differential was strangely misleading with the Blazers last year because of all the blowout victories. That isn't unlucky, just a statistical oddity.

 

That's an interesting question. That wasn't my point, but it kind of makes sense.

As an examples, a guy like Batum might foul Zach Randolph near the basket because he doesn't want a big man to score so close to the rim, and big men tend to be bad free throw shooters. However, experience tells you that Zach can often be blocked even at point blank range, and that Zach's a 77% FT shooter. So the smart play is to contest the shot and not foul. (And hope somebody else cleans up the rebound, because Zach does that really well too.)

Batum makes the right play philosophically, but he makes the wrong play in this particular instance because he lacks the experience to recognize a particular player's skill set. Over the course of a season with hundreds of such instances, you could see how we have a 3% worse FT% defense.

 

But I can think of 3 games where we got really lucky and won!

 

I can think of a few things besides luck that would affect "FT defense"
1) being dumb about who you foul
2) poor defense v guard penetration (since typically guards have better FT%)
3) soft homcourt rims

 

That's what I was thinking.

 

I blame our pathetic FT defense, which is the fans.

It appears Portland fans have gotten soft, lazy, and unimaginative.

We're all that stands between opposing players and a free point, and all it takes is some creative distraction.

A waved Playboy (or better yet Playgirl pin-up), a shouted slur of the player's wife, a hilarious remark at the right time, that's all it takes to tilt the score.

 

Why? When dealing with statics and finding a mean, there has to be a high end and a low end. It really could be that you guys were flat out unlucky.

 

Games that we could have won

Philly at home (after coming back from a road trip, but Philly beat us soundly at their place)
Orlando at home (Hedo's three at the buzzer)
at Golden St. twice (I think the Warriors are still hurt from flopping)
at OKC (OKC earned the win though. Loved how they came out with gusto.)
New Orleans at home (Still not understanding how we went absolutely flat after the Tyson ejection. Paul played a great game.)
at Charlotte (They earned the victory, but easily could have went the other way.)
Clippers at home (Blake will forever remember this one)

Games we easily could have lost

at New Orleans (JB's best game coupled with Paul going down)
Houston at home (Great way to start a season)

Games where we exceeded expectation

at Orlando
at San Antonio

I think we will deserve to win over 60 games when we can be competitive on the road against playoff teams. The New Orleans game was fluky and the San Antonio win came when they were really beat up. Until then, it does not leave alot of room for error.

 

I blame dependance on ThunderSticks for our lack of creativity.

 

This is supposed to be captured in the point differential analysis. Really good teams should have a lot more blowout victories. That isn't misleading. You could look at the variance of the Blazers' point differential and see how it compares to other teams to see if we were possibly more inconsistent (possibly due to youth).

However, I think you could make the argument that there should be a cap on the point differential. A 40 point win probably doesn't mean more than a 25 point win since the majority of either game was garbage time.

 

4) Fouling soft instead of hard. If a guy gets put on his ass when he goes to the rim, his free throw percentage might go down a bit.