Yeah I think the hope is we become the Phoenix Suns of two years ago. We have a Plumlee as they did. We have dynamic guards in Dame and CJ that can play in the back court as they had Bledsoe and Dragic. We have a dead eye shooting big in Meyers as they had Frye. If we have a few other players break out with unexpected improvements and no injuries maybe there's a chance. But that's a huge long shot scenario and highly unlikely in my opinion. Much more likely we end up tanking for Simmons.
I see two problems with your theory. One Wright has not been made an offer. Olshey may let him go in favor of someone cheaper. Two, Dame and C.J. are not good defenders. the bigs will have to move twice as fast to cover.
But these bigs CAN move twice as fast. Aminu at the three will be able to help the guard rotation on opposing P&R and. Wright is not essential ot any of this Just including him because if not him I think we will replace with someone similiar. I think we can come up with 42 wins, not make the playoffs, retain our pick and have tons of cap space to fill the gaps by next offseason. If we gel quick, maybe we pull some trade deadline moves to speed up the retooling even more.
Actually, looking at the first 20 games will probably be the absolute least instructive games to use in any evaluation. This a brand new group of players in an offensive system that has a lot of moving parts and will take some time to master (as well as figuring each other out) not to mention it's going to take the coaches awhile to figure out rotations and who can actually play. My guess is that Blazers will start very, very slow in the beginning (like 4-16 slow), probably pick up the win total a little bit during the middle, then taper off at the end as other teams that are in the playoffs hunt ratchet up their effort. My scientific-wild-assed-guess by quarters-of-a-season are that they will be post something like 4 wins, 6 wins, 7 wins, 4 wins, (depends on how the schedule is written too I guess).
I think that depends more on the system you implement. If we are swarming defense and playing attack the basket, that's something youngsters do Farley well. I think that will taper off as the season progresses. My first 20 games are more for CJ and Leonard. I'm curious if the playoffs were some fluke or have they really turned the corner?
I think I'm being pretty optimistic with my belief that the Blazers will have 36 wins this upcoming season. But I don't know shit!
I doubt any of us realistically know what we can expect from our team losing 4 starters and bringing in a ton of new players. A lot of changes may still be on the horizon. PA will need to review the performance of Olshey and Stotts. He will need to see if they are a good fit for this young team going forward. It'll be interesting to see how they build a foundation for our up and coming team over the next 2 to 3 seasons.
We won't know until September what our team looks like, but yeah, there's a HUGE range, anywhere from 24-48 they could win. The West managed to get worse through entropy, good players no longer clumping... OKC, GSW, and SAS are going to dominate, but the rest of the teams are all kind of in this stewpot of who-the-fuck-knows.
