Who is our 8th man projected to be around 15.0? You only list 7, and Kurt Thomas was 10.0 last season. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/thomaku01.html As stated, the best teams have a more centralized core of go-to players.
I did some similar analysis a couple of years ago, and if I remember right, lots of guys with PER over 14-ish isn't as big a deal as the teams that have two guys with PER over 20.
Weren't you down on the Blazers a few days ago? No Roy, no chance? And we had all of those defensive players last year except for Crawford. MM- you gotta be in it to win it and with this team, we'll be in it. After losing in the first round, did you think Dallas would win the title this time last year?
I don't think I've ever said, No Roy, No Chance. I did say (before we signed Crawford/Thomas/Smith) that I thought it might be better to rebuild. Did you look at our bench a few weeks ago, Eric? It was less than abysmal. It was down right "fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down" terrible.
Ok so you spoke too soon. You said we were done because we lost our star and didn't replace him. I think that was after the Crawford signing,
You realize that last year only three players bested 25, and Dirk was not one of them, right? And that the Mavs' second-highest PER was Chandler's 18.45?
My bad. I miscounted. You are correct that it's 7 out of 8. Very true. This team is getting primed for a consolidation trade. Between Matthews, Wallace, Batum and Crawford, you've got 4 decent starting-quality players for 2 positions.
As I said before, it's been a couple of years since I did my deep dive on the PER stats for championship teams. Besides, some teams make huge transformations between the regular season and the playoffs (which would explain why we were favorites in our series against Dallas and they ended up being champs). What was their Playoff PER like? Dirk - 25.2 Terry - 20.3
So all that matters is being good enough to get into the playoffs, and then playing like champs once you're there? OK, great. Is anyone going to argue that LMA isn't capable of a PER over 25 for a 20-game stretch? Or that Crawford or Wallace couldn't be above 20 for a month? Sounds like our team, according to your analysis, has the pieces necessary to make a deep playoff run after all.
Totally agree (and I don't think you realize it, but I was never arguing against it); if LMA has the moves not to be trapped by a defense that's ready for him, and Wallace hustles his ass off, we might be in for a deep playoff run, especially in a chaotic west like this year's west. It's also no guarantee; Miami's big three were 26.3, 23.7, and 18.5. At that point (when two teams are equally matched), it does become players 4-9 who matter.
I think the key is the lack of distractions. As much as I love Roy and the possibility of Oden, they distracted the growth of our team. It was still Roy's team, even with injury, which made our team, coaches and management wait it out. Now that they aren't waiting, I expect the others to step up their game. We may see a much better team game then we've had since 1998. Better defense, more hustle, and better execution. No more Blake or miller questions. No more jack or Blake concerns. No more being the worst offensive output. We have turned a new leaf and I think I like it!
The coaches and management maybe waited it out, but this notion that players stunted their own developemnt with Roy and Oden out is a complete canard. When Roy was out last year I only saw one guy truly make a step forward from complimentary player to star and that was Aldridge ... a second overall pick.
