i think it is wide open next year, as long as we add some talent, which im sure the brass will do anything to accomplish, and i have high hopes for oden still like bring in monta ellis/devin harris/elton brand/etc, something will get done im sure
Part of the premise of this thread is the fact that Dallas is now in the Finals, playing for a championship. Without their miracle comeback against OKC, they wouldn't be in this position, and this thread likely wouldn't exist (yet).
Well, they'd be at 3-2 instead of winning 4-1. I still don't understand how Nik pointing out the Blazers' own miracle win is a bad thing. He didn't start this thread.
It's not a bad thing. But if you take away the great moments from a team, every team can be made to look worse. Portland was a great quarter from Roy from losing in 5. Dallas was a (somewhat unreasonable) free throw parade in Game 1 away from a tied series going into game 7. It's not at all logical to "take out" the best performances or unexpected happenings as outliers, in a situation like this. Basketball games are concatenations of "outlier" runs, positive and negative.
I agree. I just don't see how Nik failing to mention a Dallas win against OKC is worthy of attacking his post for it. The fact is the Blazers lost 4-2 to the Mavs. Opinions on how or why that happened vary, as we've seen in this thread.
i think people get a little miffed at the doom and gloom crowd, no surprise there... i usually prefer to see the team as it is, and how i hope it will be. realist for the present, optimistic towards the future
It's perfectly reasonable to say that Portland was a "miracle quarter from Roy away from losing in 5 games" from a descriptive point of view. That's pretty factual (though incomplete if that is all you said about the series). The issue I'd have with that was Nik's fairly explicit conclusion that, therefore, the Blazers weren't really as good as the series score indicates (taking the Mavericks to 6 games). I think that's an extremely shaky conclusion, more akin to already believing something and trying to interpret the results to support that pre-existing belief, rather than making a neutral analysis.
The four teams that made the conference finals this year have 6 of the top-10 players in the league among them. I'd say one or two MVP-caliber players is damn near essential to making it deep into the playoffs.
Exactly. The only reason I even brought up the Roy Miracle (TM) wasn't to denigrate what they did but it was to bring a counterpoint to the gist of this thread which seemed to suggest that because we played Dallas to a six game series versus the 4 and 5 game series they had afterward, that the Blazers were somehow superior to the teams that Dallas faced (ergo the Blazers are the 2nd best team). A moment here or a moment there and the complexion of any series can turn out dramatically differently in terms of the number of games a series can go to (but almost always the better team does in fact win). Success in the playoffs is about mastering matchups and being able to beat a succession of varying styles, not just drawing a team that you match up favorably against -- which is what many people thought Dallas would be for the Blazers -- Ultimately, the Blazers competed against the Mavs, that's good and that's something I guess, but I don't think there's anything to be read into the team's overall standing in the league based on their performance in that single series.
What I read into it is if Brandon Roy plays at an All-Star level, like he did in Games 3 and 4, then the team can compete and win against the best the West has to offer. Since that's never going to be the norm again, I'd say the two Blazer wins were an aberration, and that the 4 losses are more indicative of where the team is at right now. Brandon Roy caught his past lightning in a bottle for a couple of games. A couple of quarters, if you really want to narrow it down. That Brandon Roy is not one that can be relied upon, so either LMA needs to become that elite/MVP-level guy, or Oden does, or the Blazers need to find one somewhere else. I thought your post was an accurate reflection on the Blazers of the past versus what we see right now. Right now, the 4 losses are more representative of reality than the 2 wins, IMO.
While we have some decent pieces everyone seems to have it right were our big flaws are. Two starters are both very old and there age is catching up fast with no clear replacements for them. We have decent wings but are missing a true backup PF and a few young unproven talents at the Guard spot with a very big ?? with our big man Oden. Going into next season are we going to stay mostly pat and see if our two Guards in Williams/Armon who are both very unproven can take over for Miller or are we gonna try and make a swing for a PG. If we make a swing for one it'll most likely cost us Batum and who do we have for a backup 3 then Babbit? Do we move Roy back into the starting lineup and move Mathews into the second unit were his lack of ball handling will be very evident or do we keep a very diminished Roy coming off the bench. Is there gonna be an amnesty clause and will we use it on Roy? Are we going to be able to get a backup PF/C so we don't constantly have to go small and play LMA at center and make him play 42m a night. Do we resign Jeff so he can play that 10-15m or how about the Vanilla Gorilla for 10-15m. Are those two even that viable for what we need in backups and what backup big men can we really get our hands on. Do we bring Freeland over? I'm a very optimistic person and think Greg will come back healthy and we'll keep him for a long time and that will fix a lot of our problems but there are still a lot of unanswered questions to be asked and very little information to provide the answers for said questions. Those are just a few of the huge questions i'm seeing for this off season. When you have so many questions and not many answers you are not the second best team in the west and going into next season without much if any change we are defiantly not contenders and we would be risking everything on the knees and legs of two very injury prone players (Roy/Oden).
Just another input on where the Blazers stand in terms of competitiveness: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-heat/sfl-ira-nba-column-s052911,0,1934039.column The context was that no Eastern Conference team seems well situated to challenge the Heat over the next few years. Ira Winderman is a South Florida writer, so it's hard to imagine a pro-Portland bias. In addition, he writes general NBA columns for MSNBC Sports, so it's not like he's focused purely on the Heat and Magic.
