After a strong preseason, what should the Blazer's goal be this year?

Of course I am (happy when they do well). I've said so many times.

But the teams who rebuild based on emotion tend to have unsuccessful rebuilds that can take decades.

 

I'm not sure what that means

for me, I'm not happy with a lot of thing "about this team"

* I'm not happy, at all, with the ownership situation. I think it's terrible and that the 'owners', whoever or whatever they actually are, don't give a shit about the team improving as long as the cash keeps flowing

* I'm on the dark side of ambivalent about the GM's office. I see fence-straddling and indecisiveness about picking a lane. My hunch is that the team will try to win games to start the season, damaging their lottery chances, and when that fails and they don't win enough to be a threat to make the play-in, management will switch gears and plunge the team into a 4th season of blatant tanking; but early season wins will keep them out of the top-5 in the draft

* I'm not happy about the head coach. That's not to say I hate Billups but I have no confidence in him. Olshey should not have been allowed to hire the HC in the first place

* speaking of Olshey, I'm not happy that he was allowed to operate for a decade. I think his actions are still staining the Blazer team on several levels

* I'm not happy with the structure of the roster, mainly that Simons and Grant are still on the team, with those contracts. I'm not happy that empty-calories Ayton was added in the Dame trade. I'm also not happy that after all their experience with injury prone big men, the Blazers idiotically added Timelord

that is NOT viewing the team thru "wins only"

 

That I could score more points than the Minaya guy if I got 48 minutes!

 

Umm.. The scoring is kind of balanced? There are two guards who score a lot but on very low efficiency? Too many guys are poor free throw shooters?

 

I too am concerned that Portland will try to win games early as well before throwing in the towel. I went and looked at their schedule before January 1, 2025. For games they might be competitive in, I found;

@ SA x 2
H ATL
@ HOU x 2
H UTAH x 2

I doubt Portland wins in San Antonio or Houston. Atlanta and Utah should be wins. But the schedule is very difficult to start the season with;

SAC x 2
MEM x 2
NOP x 3
OKC x 2
LAC x 2
MIN x 3
DAL x 3
LAL x 1
with one game each against GSW, PHX, DEN, PHI and IND

Yes, they will steal a game here or there, but they will also cough up a couple. I only see Portland being a favorite against ATL and Utah twice. ATL is probably a pick 'em.

Starting in 2025, Portland has their two games against Brooklyn, WAS, DET, CHA, CHI, TOR and two more with UTA, as well as games against SAS, HOU and ATL. That is 15 winnable games. Of course they won't win them all, and they will steal a couple against good teams resting players. Twenty five wins is probably the max win total unless border line play in teams go full tank early also.

 

Will Joe keep Chauncey from letting the team win as many games as possible? If Chauncey is a lame duck coach why wouldn't he just let the team win as many as possible. Or, his he wanting to re-sign as Joes coach?

 

Gotta wonder what Chauncey is thinking at this point?

 

Don’t sleep on the Rockets!

 

Been wondering that for a while...

 

I would if I were him. The perception is he is a shitty coach mostly based on his win total. I assume he will want another gig so yeah if I were him I would say fuck you and try to win as much as possible.

 

Thats how I see it too. Unless, he and Joe have a handshake deal for another 3 years.

 

Flip side of that is Chauncey is getting millions and has one of 32 NBA head coaching jobs in the entire world.
Not sure he is all that worried about what people think?

 

Coaches and players all care. 95% of them are too competitive not to.

 

Caring about winning and losing and caring about players and the organization is much different than caring about what people think.
If they have a plan in place and they both feel they are following that plan he won’t care much about what the average Joe or even those in media are saying.

 

probably that this is the last year, for a long time maybe, that he'll make the salary of an NBA head coach.

 

I just have a very tough time holding the record and the current situation against Chauncey. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else of some importance didn’t feel the same?

 

If I wanted to watch math, I'd subscribe to BBC USA so I could watch Countdown every night. I want to watch basketball players, playing basketball and trying to win.

 

not sure who you're referring to?

Cronin?....he declined to pick up the 5th year option for Billups

I'm sure the rest of the NBA knows what the situation was. But I'd also imagine that the same rest of the NBA hasn't seen anything compelling about Chauncey's tenure as HC.

 

Certainly could be the case but again what chance did he really have to roll with a good team?

 

he had no chance to roll with a good team because a good NBA team would never have hired a coach with a single year of coaching at any level. Billups was a viable candidate to only one GM: