They will find the one player to bash. Right now my money is on CJ. Everything will fall on CJ for pretty much every loss. Dark Horse is Nurkic.
I think with the ill conceived three guard lineup and the fact that the Dame/CJ foundation has proven to be faulty, Chauncey gets way more time than just this season to prove if he can or can't be an elite coach. Billups himself can put a spin on it that the Blazers lack of size won't have an effect on regular season wins but if every team that can, comes in game planned to overwhelm us with height and size, then we're going to have some real problems, especially when trying to implement new systems on both ends... and dealing with the early schedule we have. If we're over .500 at the end of the year Chauncey will really have done something special.
I'm notorious "20 games in then see where we are at" person, but it'll be a touch longer this time around because of the new coach. Which is sort of ironic, given I haven't felt hope before a season in about 6 years.
.500?...really? that's setting the bar incredibly low for "special". Blazers won the equivalent of 48 games last season and were 12 games over .500. And that's with CJ and Nurkic missing lots of time. And I've been told repeatedly here that Portland significantly upgraded the roster this off-season. I've also been told, repeatedly, about Portland's net rating after Powell joined the starting lineup...how great it was and what that portends I'd set the expectations to at least the '48' wins of last season and I don't think 'special' shows up until Portland hits the 50 win plateau. That's what I'm expecting at least
If we beat the teams we're above in ESPN's power rankings and lose to the teams we're below then we'll be 9-11. Obviously we'll win some and lose some that we shouldn't but I think it will even out to us being very close to .500 or a little under. We've got a tough early schedule, an unbalanced roster and will be implementing a whole new system on both ends of the court. The bigger problem is that the schedule gets even tougher before we get to the new year and we are likely to have just lost four straight and be at 16-20 on Jan. 1. I think if a big trade hasn't been made by then Dame will be having a come to Jesus meeting with Neil right after the new year and asking for big changes to the roster. You should go through and count the games you think we win and the ones we lose if everyone is healthy besides Kawhi but that's still a really tough team without him.
Yeah, the schedule gets much more manageable but when I count that out, with this roster I just don't think we get past 46 wins but that won't be an indictment on Chauncey, it will be a conviction of Olshey. If CJ hasn't been moved, which he sounds ready to be, then Olshey has failed again. I think the power rankings have it about right and we're either 7th in the West or Memphis could have taken a big leap forward and we're 8th. Either way, as it stands I think we'll win the first play in game and then lose in the first round in 4 or 5 games. However because of the tough early schedule if a move isn't made early, I do think one will be made between New Year and the deadline. I hope that will put us up around 50 wins or even higher.
