Not seeing it, we are still a poor defensive team, our bench is not very good and we rely too much on jumpers. A repeat of last season seems about as good as can be expected.
So, in the pessimistic scenario (typically your domain), we're a few wins worse than last year. Let's look at the best-case scenario (ie, Mags-land): Kaman thrives in Stotts' offense and under Stackpole's healthcare, returning to near all-star form, giving us one of the league's best three-big rotations; Blake's pass-first nature allows the other reserves to thrive rather than stagnate; a full training camp and preseason allows CJ to become a legit contributor; more than half the players are in contract years and likely to be even more highly motivated to perform--especially defensively; Lillard makes another jump this year, being only his 3rd in the league; the bench is so significantly improved that last year's 7th man (DWright) is the 7th reserve off the bench (behind Blake, CJ, Barton, TRob, Leonard, and Kaman); The improved depth allows for much more energy to be expended on the defensive end without significantly hindering offensive performance. Clearly, we're going to challenge for the #1 seed.
No. Well, as someone else said, "dark horse". Our two best players are our two worst defenders. I think someone like Pops or Phil could probably take us to the Finals, and maybe even beat LBJ, but I don't think Stotts can even get us to the WCF.
Two things from last year will be tough to replicate: Health - 4 starters played in all 82 games. That is very rare. Hot start - I don't think anyone believes they will duplicate the start they had. That said, I like their depth a little more this year and think the will play better in the 2nd half of the season to make up for not being ridiculously hot at the beginning. My worry is still on the defensive end. They just don't have a lot of lateral quickness to be elite defensively and I don't see a defensive scheme like what Thibs has had everywhere he as gone to help make up for that. On the offensive end, I think they still need one more creator. If that is Nic finally being consistently aggressive or someone else beside Dame all the time, that is needed. Too much reliance on the '3' just doesn't bode well historically even if it did happen once with the Mavs. They need to be better this year to advance because the type of shot Dame hit to advance them last year....well, that was historically epic!
It seems most people think a team is only a "contender" if they win the WCF. I don't look at it that way. This early in the season (it hasn't started yet), I look at it like, which 8 or so teams, if healthy, have a shot to make it through the playoffs. Portland is one of those teams. Even if one of those 8 or so teams ends up losing in the first round, say to the eventual champ, it doesn't mean they weren't a contender, IOW, that they weren't one of the top 8 teams with a shot to get there. Any of those teams could catch fire, catch some breaks, and get to the finals. Or not. Still, all are contenders.
There are enough Negative Nancys around here, but the honest answer is... If you have to ask, then you're not one. When we are a championship contender, we'll all know. That being said, things will change through the season, and our outlook come spring might be very different.
I think people over play the "Weak Defense" card. I get that all teams need defense, but even more important than that is having more points on the board than your opponent. If you look at the team they ranked 16th for Opponent Points per 100 Possessions, basically average. Their + / - was in the top 8. This year the defense should be better as Blake is a better Defender than Mo and Kaman is a better defender than what we had rolling last year, in addition young guys tend to get better on D. Also our bench offense should be vastly improved. SO the combination of being slightly better on D and slightly more offense from the bench we should actually move up pretty well in the + / - category. BTW all this talk of needing defensive guys... If you get a Defensive guy that plays enough Offense you are looking at ALL NBA team type guys. Giving Terry a "Defensive" specialist is like giving Nate McMillan a PG.
A healthy Oden, Roy, and LaMarus were legit championship contenders. Today LaMarcus = LaMarcus Lilliard = Roy _____ = Oden We are still one significant player away from that conversation.
I think the "hot start" last year gets thrown around like it was some weird kind of fluke. The fact is the schedule was heavily weighted at the start of last season with lower tier teams. There were some quality wins in there too, but basically, the Blazers won the games they should have won. They don't make the schedule and, if you want to contend, you want to beat up on the sub-.500 teams whenever you play them. The flip-side of the scheduling equation also gets misused, IMO. The Blazers schedule at the end of last season was weighted with playoff teams and yet people throw the fact that the Blazers didn't keep up the early pace (against better teams and at a time when our roster was banged up) as some sort of indication that they weren't really as good as their record indicated. This year's schedule looks to me to be more evenly balanced with good teams and crummy teams than last year. Also, the crummy teams aren't as crummy this year as last. I don't see the Blazers getting off to the "hot start" that they did last year, but I bet at the end of the season they will have beaten the lower-tier teams as consistently or more-so than last year.
Lopez is way batter than we give him credit for, I think. Not 24 PER good, obviously, but he does a lot of great little things. An 18 PER Lopez and an 18 PER Matthews might equal a 24 PER Oden... ish. Apropos of nothing, I had a nightmare last night that Lopez got traded and I had to buy a Samsung phone.
What team are you referring to that struggled to play .500 ball? After the ultra hot 22-4 start, the Blazers were 32 - 24, 8 games over .500 with a winning percentage of .571. That's not struggling to play .500 ball, that's on pace for a 47-35 record. And there were two extenuating factors that contributed to those struggles. For the first time in the 43-year history of the team, they had two 5-game road trips in the same month. Something that's not likely to happen again any time soon. And, during the toughest part of the schedule, their best player was injured. Aldridge missed a total of 13 games, including 7 during those two 5-game road trips. Injuries are part of the game and cannot be predicted, but to loose your best player during the toughest part of the schedule would be hard for any team to overcome. The fact that they lost Aldridge during the toughest part of the schedule and still managed to win 54 games is a testament to how good this team was last year. And, with a better bench and a year of improvement, they should be even better this year. By comparison, OKC is losing their best player during a very easy portion of their schedule and the Vegas odds makers have dropped their over/under on wins from 58.5 to 54. BNM
I'm not agreeing with OMG's point, but there was a time from Jan 18-April 6 where we were 19-19 over 38 games (we were 31-9 over the previous 38 games).
Yep, and that time period included the two 5-game road trips in March (plus a 4-game road trip in late January and another in February) and Aldridge missing 12 games. If we're going to discount the easiest part of the schedule when the team had the most success, we should also equally discount the hardest part of the schedule where the team had their least amount of success. The fact remains it's an 82 game schedule and a real grind. Every team will struggle at some point, but at the end of the year, it all evens out. The Blazers won 54 games and won a playoff series in 6 games without HCA. That's not the mark of a very good team. Not a title contender, but closer than they've been in 14 years. BNM
If only we could convince Memphis to trade us Conley for Lillard. Think they would go for it? Aldridge is a bad defender? Since when? But we probably won't have the February/March collapse that nearly cost us the playoffs either. A healthy Roy/Aldridge/Oden got bounced in the first round. We finished the year 9-1 so in between the first 40 games and the last 10, we went 14-18. That's sub .500 for like 40% of the season. On pace for a 36-46 record. Nearly cost us the playoffs.
It didn't "nearly cost us the playoffs" We finished 6 games ahead of 9th seeded Phoenix. They held the tie breaker, so we could have lost 5 more games (9-23 during that 32 game stretch) and still made the playoffs. We were without our leading scorer and rebounder for 12 of those games. Go back and look at the schedule over those 32 games. I have never seen a more difficult schedule for any team, ever. We had two 5-game road trips during the same month for the first time in team history. Most of those 18 losses were on the road against playoff teams. Half of them (9 of 18 losses) were against the top 6 teams (top 4 West and top 2 East) in the league, mostly on the road. 4 more of those losses were to teams that won 50+ games in the West. And, all while missing out best player for 12 games. There isn't a team in the league that would have posted a winning record with a schedule like that without their best player for 12 of those games. People talk about the 22-4 start and say it will never happen again. Well, if that's true those same people need to also realize we will never have a schedule as tough as we did in February and March ever again, either. We went 42 years and never had two 5-game road trips in the same month (and two more 4-game road trips in late January and February). Why are the results of that brutal schedule stretch now help up as some kind of benchmark by the see-I-told-you-we-weren't-that-good-we're-lucky-we-made-the-playoffs crowd? To me, that's every bit as ridiculous as saying we went 22-4 to start the season and 9-1 to end it, (that's a combined 31-5, on pace to win 71 games) therefore we were clearly the best team in the entire history of the NBA last year. Truth is, we won 54 games in spite of our best player missing 13 games and having no bench. Doesn't matter how many of the wins came in November and April, they all count the same at the end of the season. We won when the schedule was favorable and lost when it was brutal. It happens to all teams over the course of an 82-game schedule. The only difference was our strength-of-schedule swung from one extreme to the other more than any other team. BNM
