All I see is a list of flawed teams that we can beat on any given night. Where does the yikes come from?
To be fair, Portland has 22 games against teams that did not make the playoffs last season. That leaves 60 against teams in the play in and playoffs. In the east, Indy and Orlando might fight to get in the play in with Miami and Chicago most likely fighting to stay in. In the west Dallas and Utah will be fighting to get into the play in with Minny, OKC and New Orleans fighting to make the play in. As a percentage, Portland should win 50% of the winnable games in my estimation, which is 11. Then win maybe 20% of games they are clearly the underdogs, which is 12. By my math Portland should win 23 games. That is what the Dixon/Blake team won I believe. This team has much more talent than that team. I predicted 34 wins. To get to 34 they would have to win at a 33% clip against the better teams and win a couple extra against the bottom feeders. Portland won at a 40% clip last season.
Blazers lineup will include rookie rookie rookie rookie rookie, sophmore sophmore sophomore. There probably will be some yikes.
Most of those teams are playoff bound? That schedule looks pretty brutal to me and I also simultaneously think we will shock people, but mostly in the 2nd half based on this schedule.
I expected someone to confidently state "25-0!". I'm thinking 6-8 wins. Difficult to know as we don't know much about so much of the team nor what style they'll play. Could be higher, fair chance it is lower. I want to see movement, excitement and growth. If we go 0-20 and then win 5 in a row, I would be happy. Would tend to indicate gelling and improvement.
The only must win game is the Warriors. I would guess 10 wins. There aren’t that many for-sure wins, but I’m guessing guys like Brogdon, Williams, DA can change a game or two and we win more games than expected. When some of the vets are traded like Brogdon and maybe Thybulle, we could get a lot of those L’s back. Williams also should be sitting when we tank the rest of the season.
I would say 6-8 capable wins. Due some of these teams might play down to our level or might be better then anybody thinks.
That is a tough start to the season we’ll be lucky to win 6. If we win more than that it’s because Scoot or Sharpe end up being even better than we thought
