The Blazers were in third place in the West on March 6th when Wes went down. 1 Warriors 47 - 12 2 Grizzlies 43 - 17 3 Trail Blazers 41-19 4 Rockets 41 - 20 5 Clippers 40 - 22 6 Mavericks 40 - 23 7 Spurs 37 - 23 8 Thunder 34 - 28 9 Pelicans 33 - 28 10 Suns 32 - 30 11 Jazz 24 - 36 12 Nuggets 22 - 39 13 Kings 21 - 38 14 Lakers 16 - 44 15 Timberwolves 13 - 47
There are about nine teams in the West that are borderline playoff teams. The margin between the teams is so slim that an injury or two gets even the Warriors bounced.
San Antonio never found an elite gear. San Antonio finished below Portland in the standings and, like Portland, was bounced in the first round.
I was referring to your "tied with Golden State for the best record, therefore best team in league" thing. Yes, in March they were pretty high in the seedings, but that's because the Spurs started slow. In the second half, they were astoundingly good. They were clearly better than the Blazers once they turned it on in the second half. Their second half point differential was rivaled only by the Warriors and second half Cavaliers.
Pre allstar break 34-19 End of season 55-27 So their record was 21-8 = .724 Blazers record until Wes went down 41-19 = .683 difference of .041 is not CLEARLY better
They finished behind the Blazers because A. they started slowly and B. division winners automatically got a top-four seed (which is changing). The Spurs still finished with a better record than the Blazers and were one win from the second seed. They got bounced by the Clippers, a far better team than the Grizzlies. There's no question that they were playing elite basketball in the second half. That's why they were the trendiest pick to beat the Warriors in the playoffs. But their poor start did them in.
Yeah, saying "second half" was lazy. I was thinking of their 21-4 finish to the season. I mean, you could argue that 25 games is too small a sample, but they were winning a lot of blow outs (including one of the Warriors). I just don't think that the Spurs team that closed the season was all that close to even the healthy Blazers. It's not that I don't think the Blazers were good, this was just one of the greatest conferences ever.
What did GS and Portland have in common for most of the season, until Portland was obliterated by injury? It's something I think is a great indicator of where a team sits besides a W-L record? Both teams were top 10 in Offense and Defense. IIRC they were the ONLY 2 teams in that category. I could be wrong, I didn't double check, just going from memory. But I just thought I'd throw that out there.
Well, it probably depends on how you measure offense and defense, but using ESPN's adjusted FG% (which counts the higher value for three-pointers and, I believe, factors in free throws), Golden State, Portland, San Antonio and Houston accomplished that. There's no question Portland was a great team before the injuries. The type of team that could have been the best team in the conference at many points in NBA history. This was just a super-loaded conference.
Without injury, they may have made it to the wcf. If that happened, I doubt anyone would say Aldridge is 99.9% bolting. That's the entire premise of the argument. Even with Batum playing like utter shit all season, dame's slump and Aldridge's torn ligament, we were just 5 wins from being 2nd in the west. Matthews going down destroyed all of this. So if we make adjustments to the roster, reload, and more diverse; we can be a top 3 team in the west. Then it's anyone's ballgame. The people saying that we have no shot winning the west is ridiculous!
*facepalm* I meant do they have fool proof audio that LMA said it. I don't give a rats ass that they said it, but, you know, the person who they are saying said it... that's the one I care about. If they don't have audio of it, then it's just hot air and bullshit.
Sure. In 6 years when the team is still churning along without having won a championship I have no doubt that he (or anyone else at the tail-end of their career) would do such a thing.
It's easy for agents and GMs to steer other teams by leaking false rumors. Aldridge isn't a talker (does he still stutter?) and has no history of babbling his opinions. I'm not a big Aldridge fan, but these anti-Aldridge rumors are like Kardashian news to me. I just skip over such "news" to save time.
