I think our younger guys will get their chance to develop regardless. They are going to get their minutes as we have very little choice than to play them. Maybe in April they will throw in the towel and sit LMA, Batum, and Wes like last year, but I doubt Paul will sit behind the basket to watch us get blown out every night. I get that we are not very good. But my point is depending on the injury bug, we could easily battle for the 11th or 12th spot. Again I just wouldn't count on the 6-7th pick just yet.
Turn those 4 OT wins into coin flips and what is this team's record? Even at full strength this team either wins by a nose hair or they tend to get blown out and our strength of schedule has been pretty soft so far. This does not appear to be a team battling for a fringe playoff spot.
Wouldn't say our strength of schedule is soft by any stretch. OKC, Houston x2, Dallas, Clippers, SAS, Atlanta, Chicago, Brooklyn, and Indiana are all winning ballclubs. They had the longest road trip just recently to top it off. They have 12 road games to 9 home. I'm not saying they are playoff bound or anything; but they have played a pretty touch quarter season so far.
No that's because Cleveland (.227), Washington (0.167) and Toronto (0.182) are terrible records. Take them out and it's much tougher. That is only 3 games out of 21 games (14.28%). That accounts for at least 10% deduction of the overall %.
In the end we may not be battling for a playoff spot. That's why I said 11th or 12th pick in the lottery, and not 13th or 14th. I can see 1-2 teams in the west barely missing the playoffs yet still having separation from the rest of the pack below them.
Absolutely remembered. That still doesn't make the scedule any easier. We still faced teams with those same records. And I am not arguing that we will be the end record as you claim. I am just debating on your take of it being soft.
Portland has had the 4th easiest schedule so far according to this http://espn.go.com/nba/stats/rpi/_/sort/SOS We are however 2 wins ahead of where we should be
Here is another one that has us very low as well http://www.teamrankings.com/nba/ranking/strength-of-schedule-by-team
He certainly can but he is not showing it. Wesley Matthews has exactly the same amount of 20 point games this year as Tyreke Evans does.
I'm just having a really hard time working up the enthusiasm to play this game for the umpteenth time. The way I see it, to be competetive the Blazers need an All-Star caliber wing player and a center who can instill a defensive presence in the middle. Slide Wesley to the 6th man spot and Hickson to the backup PF position, sign an aging vet or two in the off-season, and the bench looks fine. I don't give a rat's ass whether the Blazers get those needs through the draft, via free agency or by fleecing some other GM. Whether the rebuild is long or slow depends on how quickly they can make those moves happen.
Which would be awesome coming off the bench. If we had Evans we could start him or not depending on the matchups as well.
