Minnesota with Gobert and growth from Edwards who has more trade value than Durant could easily make the playoffs. They were 7th seed, 2 games out of 6th last year. Lot of young talent in the west along with veteran clubs like the Warriors Suns Clippers. Jazz are only clear team taking a step back.
Most likely a play-in team. Though Dame has managed to do some crazy stuff with marginal rosters before.
You said you didn't want me to now I owe Hailblazers a mousepad? I'm more than happy to send him one but this is news to me.
I guess 7th place is now considered a play-in team? Yeah, I can see that. I would be happy with the 6th spot. It is basically the same as the 3 seed. Not sure there will be much difference in the top 3-5 teams. They will all be tough.
I think that people are underrating Grant, the guy should be hitting his prime right now, he just had a season where he was getting way too much attention and wasn't playing for anything in which he averaged right around 19 points, a block and a steal per game, getting to the line 5 or 6 times a game and knocking down just under 84% from the stripe and knocking down nearly 36% of his threes. Again, that's playing for nothing with every team trying to stop him from scoring. I'm pretty sure that makes him the best forward Dame has had since LaMarcus. If Ant didn't show you last season that he's better than CJ then I think you'll be in for a pleasant surprise. Josh Hart is a legit two way player and if Nas beats him out for the starting SF spot that will be saying a lot. Nurk is Nurk and hopefully playing FIBA ball this summer will mean he'll come into this season in the best shape of his career. This is also the deepest roster we've had in Dame's career. GP2, Hart or Nas, Winslow, possibly a real difference maker in Sharpe have to be the four best guys we've had off the bench in Dame's career. I realize it's an unbalanced roster but maybe Trendon or Jabari will have a breakout year at smallball 5. I think the roster is better than marginal. I think Dame, Grant and Ant are the best three player combo we've had in Dame's career, I also think outside of Dame and Ant we have the most two way players we've had in that time frame.
Kinda seems like Blazers fans are falling in line with how the national media is talking about the Blazers. I wouldn't go off that at all. The national media barely knows more than a few players we have. This is already a really good team. We got way better. This is closer to the 1990 Blazers or the Chauncey Pistons. To me, they shouldn't be less than 5 in the Western Conference.
While I don't know if they're closer to the 90 blazers of the Pistons, I do agree that people are underrating the team. Take the best player off of any team, and they're going to be bad. You take off the best player and then trade the 2nd best player off that team, and they'll be HORRIBLE. Think about it, before they traded CJ , they were 21-34 (after a 6 game losing streak) and that was after Dame went down. 13-22 when Dame stopped playing. I think the fact that dumpster fire of a roster got 27 wins was a miracle. Once Simons and Nurk went "down", they were putting up glorified CBA players (not even good enough to be G-league). You add a healthy Dame to last years team, and they probably win 40 games. This years roster is better than last years, so I don't know how 45 wins isn't the basement of the teams wins *injuries withstanding*. The year before, with Nurk and CJ missing chunks of games, won 42 games (out of 72, per 82 that'd be approx 48 wins). I'd argue that this year's roster is better (albeit smaller) than that roster, and on top of that the team is much better defensively. They have offensive threats from 4 of the 5 starters (if Hart is the starter, 5 of 5, with Nassir as the starter he's not necessarily a "threat" yet). They have a much stronger bench (which admittedly isn't saying much since last years bench was meh at best). but mostly, they have a healthy Dame, arguably a top 4-8 player in the league, and probably the 2nd or 3rd best PG in the league. That will make a huge difference for this year. He took far crappier rosters to the playoffs before. There are at least 4 teams in the WC who are outright tanking (Houston, San Antonio, OKC, and Utah...and you could argue that should be 12-13 wins right there). Throw in the teams in the EC who are tanking, and then the team being healthy...
Defense is going to shock some folks....even our summer league team was holding teams to 70 some points a game....we're going to lock some folks down...saw a Warriors breakdown of how Payton frustrated Ja Morant and unlike most guards...Ja couldn't get by him. This kid is going to be a difference maker compared to the layup drills we've seen in the past against us...bigger yet...Nurk isn't going to have to anchor the defense by himself anymore and will not have to foul those guys who used to do layup drills against us. This is going to work out in our favor...Chauncey is going to put his stamp on the Blazers and I'm thinking it's going to be a strong msg. We have some very good defenders and some very good rebounders now.
I said that assuming normal health I think this team ends up 6th in the west, 45 wind or so. If nas or sharp break out or any is an even better version of last year, it is a dangerous team
Better D out of Lillard and Simons should be expected for 4 reasons: a healthy Dame, a stronger Simons, better surrounding defenders (as a daily influence), and Billups. GP2 is going to be fun. IMHO, with so many questions throughout the line-up, rankings of Portland in the late teens should be unsurprising. And I’m glad media consensus opinion has the Blazers just over .500 and a play-in team (7-10) (with more play than in). I haven’t been this interested in the line-up in several years.
How is any team going to score on us? We're probably going to have the best defense in the league. Dame alone probably gives us a top7 offense. We should be favored over everyone except the Warriors and Hawks. I'd start planning the parade, just in case.
Given the importance of communication and understanding scheme, combined with the amount of live reps and practice, I think the summer squad was unusually experienced in a scenario where no one plays effective defense. I hope that translates to the regular season, but think it safe to not include in any projections.
I'm going to project we play defense like we haven't seen in a decade this season...safe or not. I saw a glimpse after the CJ trade and I think it's the key to success.