Gotta admit, even when people are giving us props, they still tend to be statistical idiots. First he mentions just how good this team was with Oden healthy (giving up 90 ppg with Oden) compared to the 96 ppg we gave up in the 62 games that Oden didn't major minutes in. So that is really one of the greatest indicators of the difference if "healthy" and Oden plays 70-80 games, we're talking about cutting 6 pts off of opponent scores. So let's to a little high school level math here. Portland wins 41 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge and having them become the core that we run the offense through. We get Oden into the lineup for 60 games and add that to an improving Roy and Aldridge and go from 41 wins to 54 wins. We then take a small step backwards because we only get Oden for 20 games (not to mention lose Batum and Roy for a handful of games as well). So 41 to 54 to a broken down 50. But if you read in there, he mentions that he thinks a healthy Portland might be good enough to win 50 games? Are you kidding me? Did he even do any homework? Like I said, I don't want to trash the guy for writing a positive piece on Portland, but come on. If we have a healthy Batum, Roy and Oden (along with other guys like Camby and Miller) then we would have to lose a lot of close games and OT games to only get to 55. We're easily 58-60 if healthy. The question is whether we're going to be 100% healthy between all starters, that's the reason many aren't sure we'll win 60. But when you put the "if" out there, it isn't really a question when you simply run the numbers.
Bingo. This belongs with the "how good would the Blazers be if they had drafted Durant/Jordan?" threads.
Portland won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge, and running the offense through Roy and Zach Randolph, then won 41 games when running the offense through Roy and Aldridge after getting rid of Randolph. Then, 54 wins the next year, as LA and Roy improve their games, with Oden chips in with a PER of 18.1. What was your point again? You left out an entire season.
That it makes no sense that the team would win the same number of games whether the team is fully healthy or as injured as they were last year. Ed O.
What else is going to happen? Other, I mean, than the Blazers never being healthy. I'm interested to hear more of your insights into the unknowable. Ed O.
That's a hypothetical, though. Hypotheticals make no factual sense. The fact is the Blazers won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge. Am I wrong?
All I hope is that Nate has figured out how to appropriately navigate a full Blazers roster. The early stages of last season were quite painful.
Who cares if you're wrong? We are capable of looking on the Web to see how many games we won several years ago. This thread is about a healthy Blazers team. espn_hall_of_famer was demonstrating internal inconsistency in the CBS article. You raised an obvious fact and then asked a question and I answered it. Whether you're wrong or not doesn't matter. Ed O.
Apparently, not all of us are capable of doing it. Also, I still don't even understand your reply to me. You are defending an incorrect "fact". If you want to start your own thread, based on actual facts, I'll be happy to reply to it. I find this strawman tactic of yours tiresome, though, in this thread. HOF made no sense in his post; that's not my fault, is it?
That wasn't the point. The point was doing math with core players. As you mention, Z-bo was here in 06/07 (not to mention Jack as the PG and Roy injured half the season). So that wasn't really my starting point. So my POINT was that we can really use 08/09 as our baseline statistically for a healthy team because we had a large number of our guys healthy that season. You take out last year because it was that random anamoly year that we DID have significant injuries that you would hope would never happen again. So now we add the current 10/11 roster improvements to that statistical baseline that we set as a healthy core team of Roy, Aldridge, Batum and Oden and you now have improved backups of Camby and Matthews to add in and how many wins would that equate to (again using the premise of the article that the Blazers DON'T suffer injuries since that is that this entire thread and the article was about)?
Thank you for clarifying your post. I appreciate it. It's still subjective, but it does make a bit more sense now.
They also won 41 games after drafting them, and it didn't in fact say in the year they were drafted... so argue something else for a bit, you are no more right than he is.
I clarified and we're good now. It was meant as after they got drafted AND the offense was primarily ran through both of them (and not the stale offense Nate ran through Roy and Z-Bo during LMA's rookie year).
Do you want to repeat your "HOF made no sense" comment? Or do you want to apologize for blaming me for your inability to comprehend his post? Ed O.
