You realize that 36 wins is roughly equivalent to 45 wins in a full 82 game season right? Minus Roy, minus Oden in a wacky ass year he's saying we're still a playoff team and pretty good ... and all you do is say he's hating? Wow.
blazers won 48 last year, and that was with "roy holding them back" as you like to say, and without oden. now we have a full season of crash a better sg backup in crawford better big man depth and promising rookies soooooooo
The schedule is so jacked up though. I think it's going to have a profound affect on every team (ie. really good teams that "should" have a .700 win percentage in a normal year will be closer to .650 and bad teams are going to win more than they should as they get exhausted teams stumbling in to their building).
Simmons likes riling up the soccer moms. That said, I don't know that there's anyone alive that has a better grasp of NBA history post-merger. Maybe his prognostication sucks, but the dude knows what he's talking about (unlike, say, Bucher/Broussard/Adande/Platchke/LeBatard). Wilbon knows his stuff, but I think is too close to some players.
Maybe he knows stuff that happened in the past, which is easy to get out of a book. Always has come across to me as someone that doesn't know a ton about what's going on in the rest of the league outside of his few teams with recent years. And then I stopped reading his articles because he sounded like an idiot, and I got tired of the forced pop culture references.
First off, I like Simmons. He does not pretend to be anything other than what he is, a huge basketball fan who has his biases and favorite teams. He is one of the few writers who ever actually makes me laugh. As far as his prediction, I would expect perhaps 2 more wins than him, so his prediction seems reasonable. 38 and 28 would meet my expectations. 40 wins or better and I'm loving it.
He definitely has a slant toward Boston, but to say that he doesn't know the league or its history is just flat out wrong.
so the schedule will only effect good teams? all of the teams are gonna be beat man, i dont get this line of reasoning as anything more than projected statistical noise. it might happen here and there, and it might happen the other way as well. old schedule, you would be going into a back to back on the road against a crap team and maybe lose, now THEY are gonna be just as beat as you are. also we are going to catch teams better than us on the shit end of THEIR stick as well, so shouldnt it even out? i mean we are probably quibbling over a win or 2 so it really doesnt matter
I didn't say he doesn't know its history. His knowledge of the league as a whole right now doesn't come across as any better, to me, than a big fan of a team. Which is what he is, and great for him getting a job out of it. I don't see his knowledge of the league as a whole as any better than mine or yours. I don't know how you can really say that's "flat wrong" either.
i thought simmons gave us love! not a bad take on blazers. he was also hilarious with the message board "rip city coming after us" comment
No, I said it's going to have an affect on every team. Call it a "volatility index" if you like. The more stress and fatigue that gets introduced into a system the more random the outcomes. The more random the outcomes, the more likely records will regress to a mean (.500 in this case) over time. A screwy schedule minimizes the real impact of talent and puts a greater emphasis on luck or depth or conditioning.
It should effect older teams more later on during the season and younger teams or new lineup teams in the beginning.
If this team stays mostly healthy, I think 40 wins is reasonable. 38 is the safe bet on my side, unless Nate realizes that Aldridge is a center and he plays Felton/Wes(or Crawford)//Nic/G-Wallace/Aldridge heavy minutes. If this happens - this team is a handful and an offensive force - at which point I would not be surprised to see 44-45 wins.
And who are the good teams and bad teams usually? I don't care which teams start out hot and which ones get on a roll at the end. I'm talking about the overall impact when you add up all the wins and losses for each team at the end.
Well okc was pretty young last year. Denver was also pretty young too. Lakers, spurs and Dallas in he west would arguably be the older better teams. But in theory, a younger team would be considered the bad teams and the more experienced, older teams usually do very well.
Losing Roy won't hurt as much as some people are projecting. Having Crash all season is a plus. Unless Camby reverses his slide, that is a minus. (at least he gave us half a good season) Losing Miller is going to hurt more than many people here think. 36 wins is a reasonable projection.
Btw I'm not disagreeing with your theory. I just wanted many in here to not shoot it down until we see an entire season because it may just even out in the end. We could see a laker team win 20 straight, then slow way down either due to injury or just age; which may even out in the end. And on the flip side, we could see a young team do terrible in the beginning of the season, then finish out stronger later on.
