I never attempt to make predictions on which games will be won and lost, but what the heck - bolded ones are wins. In actuality I think we'll lose at least one of those and win at least one game I didn't put in bold. The pessimist in me thinks we'll beat DAL. And the optimist in me thinks we'll beat LAL - but the realist thinks there's no way the league will allow that if it's still up in the air as to whether LAL makes the POs...I just couldn't NOT put it in bold though. Oh, and the last game - I have us winning if GS is locked into a position and won't be affected by a win or loss.
Aren't we sitting in the perfect situation right now? If we miss the playoffs we will be in the lottery. If we get lucky, we get into the top three and keep our valuable pick. If we do not get into the top three, then we have a relatively worthless pick with a high salary attached to it that hurts our cap space--whereby we would love for it to go away. Shouldn't we be happy to end up between the playoffs and the 12th worst record?
Just to answer my own question we're 1-2 vs. Dallas so far. We play them April 7, the 77th game of the season.
the 12th pick is "relatively worthless"? And 1.4M is a "high salary?" Here's a list of 12-18 picks the last 5 years: 12: Jeremy Lamb, Kendall Marshall, John Henson, Harkless, White, Tyler Zeller 11: Burks, the Morris Twins, Kawhi Leonard, Vucevic, Iman Shumpert 10: Xavier Henry (d'oh!), Ed Davis, Patrick Patterson, Larry Sanders, (Babbitt), Seraphin, Bledsoe 09: Gerald Henderson, Psycho T, Earl Clark, Daye, Johnson, Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson 08: Jason Thompson, Brandon Rush, Anthony Randolph, Robin Lopez, Marresse Speights, Roy Hibbert, Javale McGee There's some pretty useful talent there on roughly 4yr/8M total contracts that remove 1.4M of cap space.
Had a convo with sly and trip tango last night. Said "could you imagine if Portland actually won the lotto again?" The Roy rookie year in a nutshell. Although Roy was bringing the team out of ashes; while this Roy still had a decent team. But look at the similarities. 6th pick, a wannabe batman, Lillard plays a very similar game like Roy, instantly knew he was batman material halfway through their rookie season, 4 years of college. It's scary if you really think of it.
I get the similarities except whoever goes at #1 this year could just as easily go instead at #5. Draft is weak at the top. I think you are better off with 5th-7th pick (not possible for us) then having a top 3 pick.
That is an option but no I wasn't talking about that. I said as much (not possible for us to get 5th to 7th) but I think it is more advantageous for teams then a top 3 pick.
I was just referring to the similarities. If we won top pick; could you imagine if we picked that center that has knee problems? Hahaha
