I think it all hinges on Aldridge. Can he build on what he did last year? Can he take the step into stardom? If LMA can be THE MAN, with the roster we have around him I think we can make some serious noise. I would still like to see an upgrade at the center position, but right now I'm not as worried as I was. I like Thomas, Camby, and Johnson.
I think on most nights that front line would get abused on the boards and down in the low block. It would be good in stretches though
Yeah, if you were to try to give our team a cumulative PER (is that ever even done? If so it seems like it'd be pretty interesting to see), I'd expect it to be around 16. Plus, other than Gerald Wallace and Camby, everybody else who gets major minutes should see their PER either stay level or increase. By way of comparison: Dallas had 5 rotation guys last year with PER's over 14. Last year Miami: 3 Last year Lakers: 4 2004 Championship Pistons: 6 72 win Championship Bulls: 5 So I guess on one hand you could look at this team as unusually deep in talent, at least according to PER. On the other hand, you could point out that depth doesn't really seem to matter in terms of contending. As we all know, at the very elite level it's all about the top 2-5 guys. Also, it may not even be possible to have 8 players have high PER's. I haven't really looked into it. It's somewhat based on efficiency, so Batum shooting well doesn't harm Matthews shooting well. But it also factors in raw numbers, so rebounds Wallace nabs will necessarily be rebounds Aldridge doesn't. Anyway, I'm excited to see these guys play. But I'd also be pretty excited to see a consolidation trade happen where we swap out some of these decent-but-not-spectacular guys for a single major upgrade. As my simplistic little analysis shows, it's quality not quantity that gets you to the prize. Even on notoriously diversified teams like the 2004 Pistons.
I think we will see that lineup from time to time, absolutely, but I'm worried Wallace and Aldridge would get abused by bigger teams.
The Batum Wallace front court will get abused off the glass. Teams with a defined starting center and power forward William handle us on the boards. I can't stomached watching us have a great defensive effort, only to see the other team get an offensive board. I see that lineup playing limited minutes, but not starting.
Yeah, that's why I was thinking we might see a lineup with Batum, Wallace, and Aldridge in certain situations this year. Obviously they probably wouldn't run it against the Lakers, but against the Heat we might able to get away with it. Have the most defensive players on the floor to guard their lineup.
I gotta say I had a lot of fun watching Okur trying to guard Gerald Wallace last night. The pieces kind of fit for a lot of small ball this year: 1. Batum and Wallace both need tons of minutes, but they are both natural 3's. Playing Wallace at 4 solves that. 2. The team has lots of pieces that seem capable of running a scrambling defensive pressure that produces runouts. This may be the first year Nate actually coaches a reasonably fast team to be reasonably fast. 3. We're pretty deep at the small positions, so we can shuffle lots of guys through as guys inevitably get tired. 4. We're very shallow at the big positions. Aldridge is the only guy over 6'9 with a PER over 15. 5. With such a compressed schedule, teams aren't going to have any time to prepare for us. A small, scrambling, defensive lineup focused on traps and turnovers and denying post entry passes is going to catch a lot of tired teams off-guard. Ideally, we ride this pressuring, high-energy small defensive team until mid-April, leading to us getting a top 2 seed. Oden is then 100% healthy and is a defensive monster that allows us to take the foot off the pedal a little and go with more traditional half-court sets in preparation for the playoffs. The Blazers crush their enemies, see them driven before them, and hear the lamentations of their women on the way to a championship. Hey, I said ideally.
Well, like I was saying, I think we will see it against certain teams. The Jazz aren't especially big and bruising (until Kanter came in and dominated the glass). Okur has always been a cliche euro big who likes to play on the perimeter and doesn't box out much. That's why Wallace was such a pain in the ass for him. I suspect Wallace would have had a hard time guarding Milsap though.
You'd have to weight each player's PER by their minutes played, so that a player who has a 19 PER in 4 MPG isn't contributing more to "team PER" than a player putting up a 16 PER in 25 MPG. You'd have to use their share of the total minutes played by the team for the season, though, to account for games missed entirely (which wouldn't drag down their MPG, but would detract from their contributions). And you'd have to be someone other than me, since I'm far too lazy to do it.
In a sense, this team is a poor man's version of the 2000 Blazers...pretty solid depth of talent, no true superstars. Wallace was a bit too inconsistent to be one, Pippen was past his prime. Of course, there's no 2000 LA Lakers, either. No team in the West looks to have overwhelming talent. The Blazers could do quite well this season.
I'm really high on this team too. I think they'll be very fun to watch! I like our bench, I like our mixture of vets and young players. We seem to have a very balanced roster, full of athletisism, hustle, defense, inside/outside scoring. And there are really no expectations like there were with the "big 3", but ironically, I think this team will go deeper into the playoffs than the big 3 ever did. Not to crap on Roy, but the Roy lead Blazers could be really boring to watch. Our problem last year was lack of depth, but we've got that covered this year. If this team finishes in the top 4 and goes deep into the playoffs, I think the Blazers should really consider using the cap space to keep this squad together, rather than going after a FA. And no, don't waste any more $ on Oden.
Star pf and center yes, but there are plenty of teams with a legitimate center type and pf. We have the ability to play in position at all positions. We haven't Ben like that since early 2000. I would rather us have Wallace dominate the sf, while Aldridge dominates the pf position. Like you said, not many teams have a legit center, so it doesn't matter as much playing camby and Thomas there.
LMA is heavier than Tyson Chandler, and not much shorter. Wallace grabbed 10 boards a game two seasons ago. Batum is no beast on the boards, but he's fine for a SF.
Interesting comparison. Had to look it up--7 of 8 guys met my magical mark of a PER over 14 on that team. The only one who didn't was Greg Anthony (13), who was a defensive stud that year. The 9th guy in that rotation (Bonzi) had a PER of 17. Just a really stacked team of very good but not great players. The most striking difference is not only overall talent, though, but size. Sabas, Wallace, Grant, Jermaine--even Steve Smith was big for an SG. That was a team of giants. This one is more about versatile athletes. I'm certainly not predicting a finals appearance for this team, but yeah, I can see how if all the stars aligned (including a few other teams maybe having some key injuries) it could make it there. And we'd all be talking about how a Heat/Blazers Finals series was reminiscent of the 2000 Lakers/Blazers series. (Until the games actually start and we likely get stomped.)
