OKC= way overrated Phoenix= wayyyy underratee People had the Suns missing the playoffs last year too and they reached the WCF. Yes, Amare is gone and they will drop off but Turkoglu and Childress are good fits and they will make the playoffs, IMHO.
Are you seriously trying to posit that all NBA players have the exact same chance of being injured? That durability and "injury-prone-ness" (not a word, I know) are nothing more than the products of random chance? That--for instance--physical build, style of play, and prior injury history have no impact on Miller never missing a game and Roy missing several every year? Am I reading that right?
...and they have absolutely no bigs. Lopez twin and Earl Clark? Haha. Those guys are closer in talent to Pendo than they are Oden and Camby. Whats Phoenix going to do when Nash doesn't have a good enough option to run the pick and roll with. I guess they hope Warrick can live up to Amare's
True, it is an exaggeration to the other side to put the statistical base to the point. But to some extent, most of the "physcial build", "age", "style of play" are variation of white noise that cancel out over the greater whole. Most teams have a center out there banging knees with other centers, most teams have a shooter out there not doing anything but jumping, most teams have some rookies and second year young guys and many teams have some 10 year plus vets. Point is everyone has a little bit of everything. And yes, there are 3-4 exceptions in the league that have a pre-existing condition that will never go away (see Yao's foot). Or they've had some significant ligament or tendon issues which as we all know don't ever heal back to 100% and there are bound to be high injury rates for the rest of their playing lives (see Andrew Bynum or Dejuan Blair). And you could make the case that Roy has a slighly elevated disposition to some of these soft tissue injuries and that could raise our percent slightly over a team like OKC who has all young players, and not one with a single disposition to injuries. So I'll give you the slight variable that we could say for Roy maybe being a 20% chance he gets injured due to some lingering soft tissue items over a Durant being more like 10%. But guys like Oden and Horford and Noah are all bangers that will have some random broken bones and patellas that will heal back to 100% every few years and Oden just had his coin land tails twice, so it certainly doesn't make sesne to separate him out from every other center that has the same chance of having one of those bone type of injuries.
Even though I agreed with ESPN's overarching point about injuries his strange "plucked from air" 13% chance seemed bizarre to me as well. I loved the rest of what he brought to the table...next time leave the Mac and Velveta at home.
I'm sorry you don't like the way I phrased it, but I stand by my point. The WC play-off race of recent years has been a dogfight. Outside of the Lakers being the #1 seed, you might as well throw the other 7 teams' names in a hat and pick them out at random. The race will likely go down to the closing weeks of the season, and health will be a major factor. If both Roy and Oden stay healthy for 82 games, the Blazers could challenge for the #2 seed. If both miss a substantial number of games, they will have to battle for the #8th seed. If one stays healthy, they will likely finish in the middle. What about that opinion do you see as being in bad faith? I will gladly admit I am very frustrated with the team. Prior to the Petrie era, the Blazer front office had a history of ignoring red flags about injuries. They would blindly go into the season hoping an injury prone player would somehow play a key role. Petrie changed that. When Petrie opted to go with Duck over Steve Johnson, or Kersey over Kiki, many people ripped him a new one. A couple of years later, those guys were playing in the finals, while Johnson and Kiki were forced into early retirement. Sadly, I think the team has forgotten that lesson, and is returning to the their old habits.
That is why I love Bayless so much! Not calling him a great scorer, but he has the ability to put the defense on it's heals and get to the line!
I think the Spurs could be a surprise this season if Splitter is as good as advertised. He will extend the shelf life of Tim Duncan and make things easier on Parker. OKC is over-rated primarily because they lack the size needed to be an elite team. Just because they played well against a bored as fuck Lakers team doesn't mean they are ready to make a big leap. I think Portland got under rated by ESPN this year but that's hardly a surprise.
