Other factors were 1) Mo was so much more experienced than Nolan and 2) some teams tanked for the great draft but we had no pick.
I would fire any coach or trade any player who thinks 54 wins and 2nd round of the playoffs is overachieving. They are paid to win and win it all. Wes said it as did other players. Just making the playoffs isn't the goal, the goal is to win a championship. I don't know if the thread was meant to comfort doubters but being defeatist about a competitive sport? We have beat all the great teams in the league...what's to overachieve? They won two more games than I predicted before the season started and made the second round which I hoped for. Enjoy the achievement. The team earned it. It was no fluke from what I saw
It's about attempting objective analysis. We're not playing the games, we can dial down emotion and will-to-win and believe-in-yourselves a bit with no adverse effects.
In my earlier post here I stated "no" I don't think we overachieved. I don't think anything needs to be dialed down when it comes to competitive confidence. What the whole question of the thread is, is a dialing down of what makes a team championship quality. It's not objective to say that we were just lucky shots fell and we won 54 games or teams were tanking so we'd win. To me this is simple objectivity. Optimistic yes, but I'm in the minority here
Why is early dominance unsustainable? Why are 50 wins any more realistic than 54? I think we'll be better too but I don't water down the great season we had for any reason. If anything changed the early dominance it was Freelands injury and Mo's post season injury. We were I believe 29-5 when Freeland was backing up Rolo. After that, we had trouble protecting a lead with bench bigs until the end of the regular season.Mo was hobbled in the post season and that had a huge impact on our abilty to generate offense off the bench DWright has to play better this season, I agree. All the returning bench players do.
I hate threads like this where the implication is that the Blazers were lucky to win as many games as they did. It belittles the hard work and guts they displayed in getting to where they did. I say it's bull to say they overachieved. For every game you can point to where they caught a break, you can find another where they got screwed. For every win over a "better" team than them, you can find head-scratcher losses to teams like Philly, Sacramento, and the Suns. The Blazers with a bit more attention to those "lesser" teams might have pushed 60 wins. The Blazers earned the record they achieved.
It's not that "early dominance" is unsustainable in general, it's that the Blazers specifically were winning at a rate far above their talent level in the first third of the season or so, in my opinion. The wins count, no one's going to take them away and it helped them get a better seed, but do I think they're going to match that blistering pace again? No. If the Blazers hadn't upgraded their roster, I'd have predicted significantly fewer wins. As it is, since they made some meaningful upgrades (yes, Kaman and Blake aren't great, but they're good enough to help prevent meltdowns when key players sit), I'm predicting some regression, but mild regression.
Fair enough, I'm going with they're going to pretty much replicate the 54 and get to the Western Conference finals for the bump. I also think we'll win our division this season.
One could say they overachieved in that the starters achieved great success in spite of no bench support. And even more-so, the way the Blazers came out in the playoffs and played beyond their collective years/playoff experience and stunned the Rockets in their house to open the series, then finished them off at home. That was a great series that hardly anyone expected the Blazers to win, least of all the manner in which they won it. Maybe overachieved isn't the right word, but they did exceed most people's expectations. Go Blazers!
According to basketball reference, our pythagorean expected W-L was 52-30, 8th in the league. Since we actually finished 54-28, tied for fifth in the league, I guess that metric suggests that we did overachieve.
Not that I think they don't always play hard and with heart but if you don't think that Role and Wes aren't going to have that it is a contract year in the back of their mind you are crazy. So I believe we are going to get the best of their best this year and it is going to make us that much better. It could be what gets us over that hump along with an improved bench. I also believe that Rolo is going to take another step forward anyway. He is coming into his prime.
I agree with your take on the two. I also agree with you that Rolo will continue to establish himself further. Do you think what you said above will have an effect on LA as well? I personally think LA made a huge step forward last year showing us things I didn't think he had. In the Houston series he showed glimpses of this before easing off the pedal (IMO) quite a bit. I also wonder if the management and ownership showed their hand a lil too early with their extension offer. "We feel what you have given us worthy of the max". I think he has shown signs of being in a Max player. Case in point in games one and two of the Houston series. And then I see signs that he is the same LA that we have seen for a lot longer. (Almost passive and it doesn't matter one way or the other) I hope Portland goes out and wins it all so it can give each of these guys what they deserve. LA one of them if it's indeed the case.
