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

The_Lillard_King · Jul 19, 2015

BrianFromWA said: ↑

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.
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Brian you use last year stats to compare Batum v. Aminu but also say that Batum was limited last year by injury much more than the 11 games he didn't play. Being that Batum had one of his worst years and from what I hear Aminu had one of his best years, wouldn't it be a better analysis to compare the two by using career stats? Or maybe the last 3 years of each?

Also do you feel if Blazer re-signed Matthews that they would be almost as good as last year's team?

BrianFromWA · Jul 19, 2015

The_Lillard_King said: ↑

Brian you use last year stats to compare Batum v. Aminu but also say that Batum was limited last year by injury much more than the 11 games he didn't play. Being that Batum had one of his worst years and from what I hear Aminu had one of his best years, wouldn't it be a better analysis to compare the two by using career stats? Or maybe the last 3 years of each?
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That's a good point, but I'll tell you why I say no. Nic's Career Year (by far) was his 6th season in 2013-14, where he played all 82 games and went for 14/7/6 and good D. That's the only year in the past 4 where he hasn't been limited by injury, and the only year where people were saying "that's what we paid 12M/yr for". If that was the Nic that you're projecting for or comparing against, I could see where you'd want that reflected. And he's young enough that he may get back there. However, if you want to do a comparison of their first 5 years in the league (Aminu just finished his 5th):

http://bkref.com/tiny/TpB03

Aminu's not an All-Star. Neither, however, is Nic. Nic's skillset would be useful to us this year, especially with our bigs able to be P&R masters. But the drop you'll see in 3pt shooting is not that much...for instance, assuming that Aminu shot as many 3's as Nic last year (which shouldn't happen, but whatever), at the same percentage he did last year (again, assuming the Blazers don't focus on that this offseason), the difference b/w Nic nd Aminu is 15 3s per year. 1 every 5 games or so. His passing will be missed, esp. with this crew, but if you look at it as much more offensive rebounding taking the place, you get close to a wash.

If you have rosy glasses on, you could say that Aminu's ready for a career year, while Nic already had his and is perpetually nicked up (no pun intended). If not, you could say we traded a triple-double machine for a dude who can't shoot. We'll see. But I don't think there's a noticeable drop there in actual production, but a dropoff in ceiling. I don't think Aminu will get a triple double once this year, while Nic may have 5. But I also don't think that Aminu's going to be the one-dimensional garbage player many think he is.

Also do you feel if Blazer re-signed Matthews that they would be almost as good as last year's team?
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I'll put it this way---if an uninjured Wes playing 2014-15 caliber was re-signed to this team, I think they could maybe fight for the playoffs. I think that you guys are finally going to see what happens when you take 1000 mid-range jumpers out of the offense and put in pick-and-rolls, slashing to the rim, offensive rebounding, etc. And if we had Wes, there's no way....no way...that people would say we're the worst starters in the league.

The_Lillard_King · Jul 19, 2015

BrianFromWA said: ↑

That's a good point, but I'll tell you why I say no. Nic's Career Year (by far) was his 6th season in 2013-14, where he played all 82 games and went for 14/7/6 and good D. That's the only year in the past 4 where he hasn't been limited by injury, and the only year where people were saying "that's what we paid 12M/yr for". If that was the Nic that you're projecting for or comparing against, I could see where you'd want that reflected. And he's young enough that he may get back there. However, if you want to do a comparison of their first 5 years in the league (Aminu just finished his 5th):

http://bkref.com/tiny/TpB03

Aminu's not an All-Star. Neither, however, is Nic. Nic's skillset would be useful to us this year, especially with our bigs able to be P&R masters. But the drop you'll see in 3pt shooting is not that much...for instance, assuming that Aminu shot as many 3's as Nic last year (which shouldn't happen, but whatever), at the same percentage he did last year (again, assuming the Blazers don't focus on that this offseason), the difference b/w Nic nd Aminu is 15 3s per year. 1 every 5 games or so. His passing will be missed, esp. with this crew, but if you look at it as much more offensive rebounding taking the place, you get close to a wash.

If you have rosy glasses on, you could say that Aminu's ready for a career year, while Nic already had his and is perpetually nicked up (no pun intended). If not, you could say we traded a triple-double machine for a dude who can't shoot. We'll see. But I don't think there's a noticeable drop there in actual production, but a dropoff in ceiling. I don't think Aminu will get a triple double once this year, while Nic may have 5. But I also don't think that Aminu's going to be the one-dimensional garbage player many think he is.

I'll put it this way---if an uninjured Wes playing 2014-15 caliber was re-signed to this team, I think they could maybe fight for the playoffs. I think that you guys are finally going to see what happens when you take 1000 mid-range jumpers out of the offense and put in pick-and-rolls, slashing to the rim, offensive rebounding, etc. And if we had Wes, there's no way....no way...that people would say we're the worst starters in the league.
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Thanks for reply.

I like your analysis and while being a huge Nic fan (no comment needed) I am somewhat excited (if I can actually use that word with this year's Blazers) to see what Aminu can do. I feel like Olshey might have stolen him away from Dallas while the Mavs were all caught up in the Jordan saga.

Not as excited about Vonleh or Plume as the Blazers had to give up value for those players and other teams were willing to let them go. But the whole roster (besides Dame) is one big question mark to me so let the season begin and see how it all plays out. Meanwhile I can go to the games to watch other team's stars play.

magnifier661 · Jul 19, 2015

oldfisherman said: ↑

My view is, some fans do not realize how much damage has been done by LMA’s betrayal. While Olshey has done what he believed was in the best interest of the team at the time.

LMA’s betrayal was like the captain of a Navy Destroyer intentionally setting off a depth charge inside of his own ship, followed by his desertion to an enemy ship.

The explosion caused by LMA resulted in the Blazers crew landing in water over their heads, so Olshey made trades for a few more life jackets. Meanwhile, more top members of the crew deserted to enemy ships. This further weakened the crew, the result of which is it will take longer to refloat the Destroyer.

Olshey is a salesman and likes to put a spin on changes. The mistake he is making is covering up the damage that has been done and how long it will take to fix. Instead, he is calling his sinking Destroyer an opportunity for the remaining old crew and the new crew members to take free swimming lessons.

This roster is a long way from getting back to where their Destroyer was before LMA’s desertion. Let alone being trained enough, and rearmed enough to beat the best battleships the enemy has.
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But the destroyer was a used up WWII destroyer that could never sink modern ships. He put us on life rafts until and we have an opportunity to move the old players into a 2015 destroyer to sink Russian ships!

magnifier661 · Jul 19, 2015

oldfisherman · Jul 19, 2015

magnifier661 said: ↑

But the destroyer was a used up WWII destroyer that could never sink modern ships. He put us on life rafts until and we have an opportunity to move the old players into a 2015 destroyer to sink Russian ships!
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I agree with you, there must have been a solar flare-up.

Only, it will not be a 2015 Destroyer. Destroyers are sold out until 2018. We will be fighting from lifeboats for a while. Best we can hope for this season and next is a fast torpedo boat.

magnifier661 · Jul 19, 2015

oldfisherman said: ↑

I agree with you, there must have been a solar flare-up.

Only, it will not be a 2015 Destroyer. Destroyers are sold out until 2018. We will be fighting from lifeboats for a while. Best we can hope for this season and next is a fast torpedo boat.
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We will be moved to planet eaters that will consume Mars and put an end to Martian life forever!

oldmangrouch · Jul 19, 2015

magnifier661 said: ↑

We will be moved to planet eaters that will consume Mars and put an end to Martian life forever!
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He's loose in the garden again! And he's naked! Fetch the butterfly net!

magnifier661 · Jul 19, 2015

oldmangrouch said: ↑

He's loose in the garden again! And he's naked! Fetch the butterfly net!
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EATER OF WORLDS!

magnifier661 · Jul 19, 2015

Me fending off u tank sharks

oldmangrouch · Jul 19, 2015

magnifier661 said: ↑

EATER OF WORLDS!
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POOPER OF SMALL PEBBLES!

You are letting you Galactus mouth overwhelm your Ant-Man ass!

oldfisherman · Jul 19, 2015

Harry's Raincoat · Jul 19, 2015

Great posts by Brianfromwa - which need to be read and read again! Thanks.

We're going to be a very different team this year. Maybe a lot worse, but I don't guess so. I think long distance shooting will be our biggest problem. But much of that lapse will be covered by the much better O-Rebounding for put backs.

I am hoping that we aren't a very good win/loss record and "earn" a great draft pick this year and maybe next. But, that they play their tails off and earn our pride and respect and fan-dom!! Go Blazers.

I don't think that Lillard - Henderson - Aminu - Davis - Plumlee (my predicted starters) is the worst. Sixers, Knicks, Nuggets, and Mavs will all be right near the bottom of any ranking of "worsts" too IMO.

Orion Bailey · Jul 19, 2015

BrianFromWA said: ↑

brianfromwa on twitter. You can be follower #61. I have wookee-level twitter skillz.
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Nice! lol, NOt a twitter guy though.. Except PR people say I need to expand the band to that.

The_Lillard_King said: ↑

Thanks for reply.

I like your analysis and while being a huge Nic fan (no comment needed) I am somewhat excited (if I can actually use that word with this year's Blazers) to see what Aminu can do. I feel like Olshey might have stolen him away from Dallas while the Mavs were all caught up in the Jordan saga.

Not as excited about Vonleh or Plume as the Blazers had to give up value for those players and other teams were willing to let them go. But the whole roster (besides Dame) is one big question mark to me so let the season begin and see how it all plays out. Meanwhile I can go to the games to watch other team's stars play.
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Sometimes...?

its even cooler down the road to say... "you know? I watched him before he became a star, back in 15'-16' when he was breaking out..."

MickZagger · Jul 19, 2015

I think being shitty next year was the whole point of the offseason after we lost Aldridge. In the NBA you either want to be really good with a chance at the Finals or really shitty with a young core to build around. Losing Aldridge and having average guys like Lopez, Matthews, and Batum around Lillard would be a boring team maybe fighting for the 8th seed.

BrianFromWA · Jul 19, 2015

For all of you saying we're going to be "20 wins" bad, last year MIN and the L*kers were the only teams in the West to win less than 29 games. Even the worst Blazers team of my lifetime won 27 games, and that's with KP legitimately trying to tank the last 1/3 of the season.

We aren't the worst starters in the west, and we're damn sure not the worst roster in the West, much less in the East...we may end up with a lotto pick, but it'll be the 9-14 variety (barring insane luck) rather than the 4-9 variety. And that's ok with me.

SlyPokerDog · Jul 19, 2015

BrianFromWA said: ↑

For all of you saying we're going to be "20 wins" bad, last year MIN and the L*kers were the only teams in the West to win less than 29 games. Even the worst Blazers team of my lifetime won 27 games, and that's with KP legitimately trying to tank the last 1/3 of the season.

We aren't the worst starters in the west, and we're damn sure not the worst roster in the West, much less in the East...we may end up with a lotto pick, but it'll be the 9-14 variety (barring insane luck) rather than the 4-9 variety. And that's ok with me.
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We could tell Lillard the team plane leaves a hour later then it actually does. He misses a few road trips and we'll be looking at 20 games.

Problem solved.

riverman · Jul 19, 2015

SlyPokerDog said: ↑

We could tell Lillard the team plane leaves a hour later then it actually does. He misses a few road trips and we'll be looking at 20 games.

Problem solved.
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Or just rest the starters and play the bench only against the elite teams.

tlongII · Jul 20, 2015

Uh, wrong. This team is horrible. The only thing worse than our starters is our bench.

riverman · Jul 20, 2015

tlongII said: ↑

Uh, wrong. This team is horrible. The only thing worse than our starters is our bench.
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I love being called wrong when I attempt sarcasm...whooosh...just don't see a point to debating the merits of a bad joke

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

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