http://scorecasting.com/ Definitely worth any sports fans time reading. Of note as a Blazer fan: Chapter 1 : Whistle swallowing Notes that it is common among all sports for the refs to swallow the whistle late in games since it is perceived as better to miss a call than to make the right one. They are inclined to keep stars in games and let them decide the outcome of the game. Are our stars bright enough to get this advantage? Chapter 5 : Offense wins championships too Nice breakdown, but they highlighted other sports more than the NBA. Highlights that the saying "Defense wins championships" should really say "You have to be proficient at both ends of the court, but since offense is given so much credit, lets come up with a great catch phrase that players can take to heart". Chapter 6 : The value of a Blocked Shot This chapter slams D Howard pretty hard. I do not think Houston will be worse with his signing, but thinking he is a Superman due to his stats might be proved wrong. While I think we are limited if LMA is our best player, I would rather have him compared to D12. Chapter 9 : Comforts of home This chapter talked a lot about why home teams get calls. What they found is that the home team got the call more often when attendance was high. With the Rose Garden routinely selling out, this can be seen as a plus. Once the playoffs start though this advantage is usually negated since both teams will have sellout crowds. Chapter 10 What drives home field advantage Says basically we are screwed due to geography. The officiating discrepancy noted in Chapter nine and the rigors of travel are shown as the biggest reason for NBA road teams struggling. Sorry to anyone that thought yelling "you suck" at games was the reason. Chapter 11 There is no I in Team The Heat have won two of the last three championships, losing in the finals the first year of bringing talents to South Beach. If you did not understand what the big deal was with the lockout, read this chapter and you will. A team with no starting all-star has an 0.9% chance of winning a championship. The more starting All-stars you have, your percentage gets higher. Do we have an All-Star starter on our roster? Final Chapter Are the Cubs cursed? Shows where the Cubs attendance is affected more by beer price than it is with wins and loses. With less incentive to win, is it a curse or just management being lazy? Applying this to the Blazers, we still had pretty good attendance last year despite having a below .500 record. I think we should support the team no matter. However, do you think management would have had a different mentality going into this offseason if it knew fans were not going to show up without winning? I like our summer moves, but we could have seen an entirely different mindset if last year the RG looked like it did during the Miles/Patterson/Z Bo days.
Good post. I have often thought the primary reason for the home team advantage in the NBA is the travel, the away team often has back to backs, or a long road trip or a late night with little sleep. Additionally a team in a remote area like the Pacific NW would have a larger home/away discrepancy since they have more travel on away trips than other NBA teams. Opponents have more travel time when coming into town for the Blazer home games. It seems in the playoffs the road team wins a lot more of the time since both teams are equally rested and playing an identical schedule.
