Report: Blazers will have the worst starting 5 in the Western Conference

We're going to be bad. Really bad.

 

Bottom Line Up Front for the Tl;dr folks: I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.

For the full meal deal:

It's another example of why so many say "Bleacher Report, lol...", because there's plenty in this little ditty to disagree with. I'll just go in order:

1)

I don't know why losing Batum was "always going to hurt"...he was a useful, limited role player for the last few years (last year above 15 PER was 2010-11), and last year not only had a counting number line of 9ppg/6rpg (to go with a really good 5apg) and PER of 13, but was limited by injury for much more than the 11 games he missed. His 3pt shooting was 32%. If you say that the return for Batum was Henderson, Vonleh and the space for Aminu's contract to replace him, I don't see how that "hurt" the Blazers at all. And I'll go into it more later, but if you're going to complain that Wes and Robin and LMA "left for nothing", then it seems disingenuous (or, "Bleacher Report-level writing") to not bring that part up because it blows up your premise from the jump.

2)

As has been hashed out here over multiple hundreds of pages, yes, POR lost 4/5 of its starting lineup. But even assuming that Mr. Fromal's lineup is correct (and as has been stated, I'm not sure it is), here's how that "precipitous drop" ends up**:

Dame 2014-15 v. Dame: worst shooting season of his career (40% 3pt before hurting his back in MIA, 24% 3pt over the next month, 35% over rest of season ) still ended up with the highest PER (21) and ORtg (112) of his career, even with increased usage rate (27%). Obviously, I don’t expect his skills to get worse—he should probably get back to the 39% or so 3pt shooting range, but if he’s doubled/trapped/gameplanned for more this year, he has the ability to have a bunch of “rollers” in the frontcourt to either get easy rim shots or pull defenders away to give Dame open 3’s. But Dame, I’m sure, was not one of Mr. Fromal’s “precipitous drops” prognostications.

While Aminu may “be more limited”, hard-core Blazers fans know about the difficulties in unlocking that unlimited offense that Batum supposedly possesses. Let’s just compare last year, shall we? I’ll just drop this link right here… http://bkref.com/tiny/UUcQ0
Higher PER, higher FG%, lower 3pt% (32% to 27%), much higher Rebounding rates, much lower assist rates, much higher steal and block rates, lower turnover rates, higher foul rate, higher ORtg. While Aminu may be “more limited”, he’s producing as (if not more) efficiently as limited-by-himself Batum in every category except 3pt% and assists. And he’s 2 years younger. Since he didn’t, I won’t, but that’s not even counting defense or play in pressure situations.

3)

Wanna bet? LMA is an all-star, and when he chooses to be LaMonster (as HOU found out for 2 games) he is awesome. Like Batum, he chose often to not unlock that level of his game. And because of that, it gets “remotely close”, especially when you figure that the calling card of P/D/L is “high percentage shots or pass”. The counting numbers you miss will not be the “good” shots DivaStar took---you’ll see a dropoff in the number of 18’ers at 41%.
Tool #12/Lopez vs. Leonard/Davis/Plumlee:
Group A: 4150 minutes played, 932 shots in paint, 931 shots 10-23 feet, 116 3pt.
Group B: 4430 minutes played, 1029 shots in paint, 74 shots 10-23 feet, 128 3pt.
Yes, you’ll see a dropoff. Our PF will not get 23/10. However, you’ll have much better efficiency of shots, more options to defend against, and if you’re asking me if the 3-headed monster or PLD will get close to LMA/Lopez’s combined 32/17, I think that’s more than possible.

4) Frankly, I see Wes v. Henderson as the biggest drop. We have a pretty good idea of what Henderson is: a lower-than-average PER (13-15 over his career) in starting roles, basically what in baseball we call an “innings-eater”. He likes taking too many mid-range J’s, which I hope he’ll get out of the habit of, but amazingly enough, he shoots them as well as Tool #12 did (41% from 10-23’). He’s “adequate”, nothing special, on D, and if he’s taking the Wes role of stopping the #2 backcourt player (I see Aminu taking the #1) then we may have some issues there. I think some of his lack of offensive prowess may be overcome by sharing a lot of minutes with CJ, but that brings up the defensive issues again.

**I’m using “per 36’s” in addition to other stats because of course someone playing 22mpg will not have the same counting stats as someone playing 36. But in the cases of Plumlee, Henderson and Aminu (not Leonard and semi-not for Davis) you can see that in their career when the HAVE been starters and played many minutes, their efficiencies actually increase.

5)

Again, Bleacher Report-ing, but I’d love to see his take on why spacing will be an issue. That’s a heckuva note to just drop there and then let it be. POR now has two bigs who are fantastic around the rim, 2 bigs with the ability to shoot 3’s well enough for “spacing”, and maybe the 2nd- or 3rd-best deep shooter in the league (behind Curry and Korver). Yes, Aminu and Henderson are not known for being long-bomb threats, but did you know that both had eFG% the same as Tool #12 the last 2 years? And let’s be realistic, there’s really not a ton of difference between Batum’s 32% on 3pt shots last year and Aminu’s 28%. Davis and Plumlee are at least on the same level as RoLo on the P&R (many would say they’re better, but I won’t go there). Again, the big drop is from Wes’ shooting and defense to that of Henderson.

6) Here are some comps:

So to get this straight, he can’t get a read on a rookie playing out of position, 2 guys coming off of season-ending surgeries, Hibbert (who I like, but not on this team) and Jordan Friggin’ Clarkson—but he knows they’re better than the Blazers?
I think DEN’s interesting, but he said that Lawson is the difference between being above POR and below. So, Lawson/Foye/Gallinari/Faried/Nurkic? I don’t see it, but that’s a minor quibble.
MIN has Wiggins and Towns. Got it. But they were also BY FAR the worst D in the league last year. Towns fixes all that? Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng, Karl-Anthony Towns… they might be good in a couple of years, but I have little doubt that that five loses to our five. Rubio “held” Dame to 22/7 last year, and Martin’s not guarding anyone, so they better hope that Wiggins and Towns can hold down the fort…
SAC: Rajon Rondo, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Willie Cauley-Stein, DeMarcus Cousins. Boogie’s awesome. Gay’s a chucker. McLemore has potential, but has done nothing yet. Rondo is Rondo. Would you switch our 5 with theirs? I’d love to see why.

So to recap, I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.