See that's just it. I don't think I'll look bad with that prediction. That is truly the talent level I believed we had on this roster in October. I have on a few occasions stated on here that I believe our guys have played their asses off. I do believe our best play is behind us and we have a pretty tough schedule overall the rest of the way. Way above most "experts" expectations. We may hit 30, but I don't feel "bad" about my original opinion, proud of our boys! Who looks bad are the people who said we'd win 55 games..... or 40 for even that matter.
I said 42. If it turns out to be 35, I look great. You look like you're really down on this team when there's no call for it. They're certainly not talented enough to topple the Warriors, but they still do have to play the games. That they have to play the game is why you look bad.
43.... We'll find out what the spread is when it's all over this season. I still feel I won't be that far off.
I compared this team to last year's Bucks. They were 41-41/.500. I think we have better players, too. I'd take Dame over Brandon Knight or MCW, CJ over Middleton. The greek guy is about the same as Aminu. I expected us to play better defense. It only takes effort to play defense and we have the youth to do it. Keep games close and it's Dame Time for the winning baskets or maintaining the lead. Stotts is obviously building a system for the long haul, focused on offense. It's working out better than HCP expected.
We lost about 9 of our best players and signed a bunch of bench guys and you say I had "no call" to believe we would suck!!?? You realize the national media and some pretty damn respected writers had us at about 26 wins and The HCP doesn't know what he's talking about? Please..... we will nosedive a bit after this homestead when our schedule gets tough again or we dump some vet players around trade deadline time. Said it already, that these guys have played way over their heads and I'm proud of 'em, but don't make it out like I was just hating! There were a plethora of reasons to assume we'd have a tough year.
We replaced about 9 players with some pretty good ones. They haven't played over their heads - they've lost games they should have won - like Philly recently. They have to have a serious slide for you to be even close. 4-33 the rest of the way and you look like a genius. At 42 wins, I wasn't calling them contenders for anything but maybe a shot at 8th seed. And I showed a bit of confidence in the new guys and Stotts and Olshey. A cursory look at what kind of teams win just 23 games and it's obvious we are going to do much better. We are FAMS.
Pay no attention to the Hispanic Causin' Panic. He just gets off his meds every once in a while and comes on here to vent since his mom wont let him outta his room.
Vegas didn't set the line at 26.5 for no reason. The have the ability to run millions of models & simulations, and they set the line that will draw money on both sides. Really, 23 wins falls right in the margin of error- when the line came out I figured 3.5 was the swing. I put money on the over but it would've been a whole lot more had I seen this coming- with that in mind my original pick was 31 wins and I still think it's going to fall between 31-33. HCP has history backing him up on his projection- I can't find a time when a team was gutted more than this team was in the off season- even then, 23 wins isn't the train wreck type teams, but typically associated with a young/growing team, which fits perfectly with the Blazers model.
Teams with 23 wins or less last season: 76ers 18-54 Knicks 17-65 TWolves 16-66 L*kers 21-61 None of them have a player of Lillard's abilities. He's good for 10-15 wins by himself.
I wouldn't go to that level- especially considering so many unknown variables, 10-15 is a lot of wins. I'd point more to the 6-8 wins, on the high end that's 10% of a season from one player, but I get where you're coming from. I opted for the over on wins so I wasn't as low as HCP- but I recognize why he went with that number. Oh and here's a look at the EWA list: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics/_/sort/VORPe Not perfect, but it gives some insight.
