Blazers 2025-26 West predictions

Kind of surprised most Blazers fans are picking 9th or worse. That would make paying $105 million to Jrue a fail IMO.

 

well, if you boil it down to winshares = wins, so far, the Blazers have lost:

Anfernee Simons 4.2
Deandre Ayton 2.8
Jabari Walker 2.0
Dalano Banton 0.8

9.8 winshares. From 36 wins to 26? Very unlikely that Jrue, at 35, & Yang can make all that up; might not even get halfway there. So it will have to come from growth of the rest of the roster. You'd expect a chunk of it will come from Thybulle playing more than 15 games. Maybe Sharpe will step up; maybe Avdija will play well all year. Clingan was 3rd on the team in winshares/48 and won't be stuck behind Ayton

a .500 record would have been good for 9th last season. 8th seed had 48 wins and that's an extremely high bar for this Blazer team. Below 48 wins = 9th, 10th, or the lottery. Pretty logical to land on that projection

 

This win-share stat confuses me. Didn't Clingan have a better winshare? So having him start instead of Ayton should theoretically improve our wins?

 

I noted that

but it's just math. Clingan's winshare/48 was .144; Ayton's was .113. That's a .031/48 differential which isn't much. Say he plays 700 more minutes next season than last season when he played 1324 minutes. So, 1324+700/48 X .144. That would bump Clingan's winshares from 4.0 to 6.1. But that 2.1 winshare increases doesn't fully offset Ayton's 2.8 winshares

now, if Clingan gets better next season, for example .155 winshares rather than .144, he'd generate 6.5 winshares. Still not quite a full offset from Ayton. You also have to account for the rest of the non-starter C minutes. Last season the non-Ayton C's produced 6.3 winshares (Clingan 4.0; Timelord 1.3; Reath 1.0). Taking Clingan out of that group means that Timelord/Yang/Reath will have to generate 6.3 to break even. Even accounting for Clingan possibly generating around 6, the backups would have to generate at least 3.0 for Portland to break even with last season

Obviously, winshares are an estimation of a player's share of what the team did and that isn't necessarily equivalent to impact or actual wins. Advanced stats tend to favor bigs a little too much, IMO

 

Do you think Clingan/Scoot and Sharpe will continue ti improv this year?

this is the context i think continually gets overlooked. Your math is based on last years numbers, comparing a vet to a rookie.
I think its safe to assume the rookie improves?

I think the improvement alone would offset the winshares. Or i hope it will at least. Do you think that isnt realistic?

 

did you really read what I posted? I was accounting for all that

 

Barring any more moves by the Blazers, I'd say they end up in the lottery again. Probably 2nd or 3rd worst in the West, maybe 8th or 9th worst overall when the LEast is factored in. OTOH, when you consider injuries to star players like we've seen around the league, anything could happen.

 

did you read my question and then read what you wrote? You did not address scoot or sharpe.
Please quote where you addressed scoot snd sharpe potentially improving?

You addressed the center position only…..

 

I read nothing discussing potential improvement of scoot and Sharpe offsetting winshares…..other than Sharpe may step up?


My question is we have 3-5 young plYers who are expected to improve. Will that not offset the win-shares and possibly even make is better than last year if they improve enough?


Sometimes addition by subtraction adds up to more.
To me, these moves make us better. Not worse like many think, obviously as long as the youth continue to improv.

 

.
that's not true....I said:

notice I mentioned Simons, Walker, Banton, Jrue, Thybulle, Sharpe, and Avdija. Are all 7 of those guys C's?

I was simply replying to the question of why most posters have predicted 9th seed, or lower for next season using winshares last season as an explanation.

enough with you asking me to justify my prediction. How about you justifying why you have the most homerific prediction of anybody: 6th seed. Last season it would have taken 49-50 wins to reach 6th seed

using last season and winshares again, Blazers had 36 wins and 10 of those, according to winshares were from the 4 departing Blazers. So, a rough starting point of 26 wins meaning new additions and exiting player improvement have to generate 23-24 wins to reach 6th seed. That's an extremely tall order

or, put it another way using last season:



which 3 of those 8 teams will the Blazers be better than this year?

 

Sorry your response to my question only referenced centers.
But the loss of those seven guys, half are moving on.

Im not trying to get you to justify anything. Im just trying to better understand your stance compared to mine. No need to get defensive.
Im just asking if you think Scoot/ Sharpe/Clingan and even Camara will improve next year and if they do as expected, im asking, wouldnt that alter the winshares to the point we might possibly be better than last year?

The reason i ask is not due to your prediction of 9th as much as you referencing going from 36 wins to 24 or whatever it was.
With the roster as it is now, do you really think we are 10-12 games worse then last year, even with the predicted youth development?

its not an argument, just a conversation.

Regarding the conference, I think we have an outside chance of getting to the 6th seed. But we need the youth to pop. I think we can be better than memphis, Denver, LAC, GSW.
Not sure about Minni or the others.

 

As of this writing, 12 people have the correct answer.

Lottery team is the correct answer.

 

UTA is tanking. Who knows what SAC and NOP are doing. That leaves POR and probably MEM both trying to win. SAS will likely be better than those mentioned. GSW and DAL is a tough read.

 

I’m the homer vote. 54 wins. 3rd seed in the west. Scoot, Murray, Matisse’, Grant and Duop are all capable of popping. Grant will benefit from Jrue running the offense. Deni and Tou already popped. Two young promising centers. It’s time those older vets in the west take a step back. Our youth and defense is going to be an advantage. I can’t imagine wasting another season on an imaginary draft pick

 

No love for Shaedon and his ability to pop?

 

Bah humbug!!!

 

I stand corrected. I think he’s the perfect 6 man on the team now that we have a real alpha combo guard in Holiday..Shaedon or Deni could fit that role perfectly. Deni is actually paid like a 6 man

 

I want one of our big 3 to be the 6 man like Ginobli was. A deep bench will win games. We’ve got a lot of bench depth..

 

1. Portland
2. Denver
3. OKC
4. Memphis
5. Lakers
6. Warriors
7. Mavericks
8. Clippers
9. Spurs
10. Timberwolves
11. Pelicans
12. Rockets
13. Kings
14. Suns
15. Jazz

 

ESPN has us in the 9th-11th tier

OKC - Tier 1: The clear-cut favorite

Tier 2: Ready to deny a repeat champ
HOU
DEN
MIN

Tier 3: The old guard
LAC
LAL
GSW
DAL

Tier 4: Young and hungry
MEM
SAS
PDX - BLAZERS
Last season, the Trail Blazers went 13-28 in the first half of their schedule, then 23-18 in the second half, as wings Deni Avdija and Toumani Camara emerged as two-way contributors. And by swapping Anfernee Simons for Jrue Holiday and elevating Donovan Clingan to a starting role -- a move that included buying out Ayton -- Portland affirmed and strengthened its defensive identity this summer.
It's unclear whether the Simons-less Blazers have enough offensive juice to rise into the play-in ranks, and they'll be counting on Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe to show more growth in the backcourt. But for the team with the West's second-longest playoff drought -- only the Spurs' is longer -- things are looking up in Portland.

Tier 5: What's the plan?
SAC
PHX
NOP
UTH

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...e-thunder-lakers-warriors-land-new-west-tiers