If there are no major trades, How many wins do you expect the Blazers to get this upcoming season. I expect the team to be more skilled this year just based on learning cure, but then again I think the Blazers overachieved last season to their win total was inflated. I think a lot will depend on the growth of Oden and Bayless. If both show great improvement, the skies the limit with this team. If Only Oden shows great improvement, then that alone should be good for a few more wins. If only Bayless shows great improvement, I will be depressed because I think this team needs Oden. I am not that worried about the SF position because I think Batum will improve, and a combo of Batum, Outlaw, Webster and Rudy should be enough to get the job done. As far as BU PF, I just hope something works out with the fresh meat or we make a minor signing to shore up that spot. Last year - 54 wins This season - 57 wins Post season - second round
I agree almost across the board. However, if Oden comes out dominant and we stay healthy I pencil us in for 60.
If no trades, I'd drop us down to about 50 wins. There's no way we beat San Antonio three times again this year, the L*kers have a chance to steal a game in Portland, and I could see some of the lower-tier teams who have improved (Wolves, Clippers, Warriors, Kings) getting over on us once or twice more this next year.
If nothing else happens for any team, and no one gets seriously injured on any team.... 51 wins 6th seed. (LA, SA, UT, DEN, DAL, POR, PHO, HOU First round loss
Why do you feel their win total was inflated? They weren't especially lucky with close games...their point differential was second-best in the West and fifth-best in the NBA. I think those are reasonable projections. Every marginal win is harder to get, so a 3 win improvement would actually a signify a significantly better team. I think second round is the low end of reasonable expectation and WCF is the high end of reasonable expectation. Anything beyond WCF is a bit unrealistic, though not impossible.
54-55 wins again would make me happy. That's not a bad record by any means. I do expect us to win a couple more road games against Western Conference playoff teams.. we were what, 1-11 last year? If we go 4-8 or something if those games, we're at 57 wins but I expect things to balance out and put us back at 54-55. And anything less than reaching the second round of the playoffs would be very disappointing.
It pretty much depends on Oden, though if Roy and LA's contract situations are up in the air next year that could be a big distraction. So, if everything goes well I would guess 56 wins with a second round exit from the playoffs. If everything goes wrong I would say 44 wins, no playoff birth and Nate is not retained as the coach. Also, the still growing Blazermania movement will die on the vine. Here to hoping everything goes well.
Assuming contract negotiations done properly and sealed before the season (don't repeat the Chicago mistakes with Deng/Gordon from a couple of years back) and Oden does what I expect him next year - 59 wins and at least the Western conference finals.
I think 6 of the 8 playoff teams in the West will win less games. Lakers and Spurs being the two that will stay the same or win more. I think the last two years of having to win 50 to make the playoffs will get back to the norm. I see us right around 50-52
51 wins. Nothing has changed yet, Roy is carrying most of the load still. The Blazers will not surprise anybody this year, and I would be highly surprised if other teams had the health issues they had last year, not the Blazers. The amount of injuries on other teams we took advantage of was huge last year. I don't see that happening 2 years in a row.
So will the Blazers also not have their injuries (to Oden, Blake and Roy) taken advantage of? I'm okay with other teams not losing players to injury if the Blazers also don't.
Actually I will be surprised if we come through as unscathed as we did last year. Who cares if Blake gets hurt, we didn't miss a step with him out. In fact, if you go back and look, you will note that Sergio and Bayless actually averaged less turnovers than he did by quite a bit while he was out. So they did what he did, without the outside shooting. The Blazers injury issues came no where near close to what other teams experienced last year, and the Blazers took advantage of many of those injuries to get W's. Between Utah, San Antonio and New Orleans, they pretty much were completely decimated by injuries through out very large portions of the year. Boston too with KG. I view the Blazers injury issues as insignificant compared to losing Derron Williams, Boozer, and Milsap for large portions of the season. The same with losing Manu Ginobili for almost all the season, and the playoffs. The same with New Orleans being beat up from top to bottom, with Tyson Chandler being a part time player, Chris Paul beat all to hell, and David West was no where near the same player he was even though he played through it. Throw in Peja's back issues, and I don't think we have anything to bitch about. Whats next? Going to bring up what a huge loss Martell Webster was through the year? That is surely on the same level as the injuries I just mentioned
58 wins, WCF. Aldridge will continue to improve. So will Roy and Rudy and Batum. If Oden can avoid foul trouble even a bit better (give us 5-10 minutes more per game) then it will be a much better team that last year. 60 wins is a stretch, and we got lucky in a lot of squeakers last year. But I see 58. iWatas
Losing a really good center like Oden is far from "unscathed." Roy isn't a bad player, neither. Outside shooting matters. I was encouraged by the flashes Bayless showed while Blake was out, but the team definitely was worse offensively and defensively at the position when Blake was hurt. Blake is no great shakes, but Bayless right now is significantly worse. And Roy wasn't "beat all to hell?" I agree Utah and San Antonio had more injury problems. That's two teams. It's a stretch to say New Orleans was hit harder because their players were "beat up." That happens to all teams. Two Western playoff teams had more injury problems. The implication that Portland was fortunate based on relative injuries is pretty off-base, IMO. Portland had more injury concerns than some, less than two other teams. And no, you'll notice I did not mention Webster in my original post. I don't consider him consequential.
This is a very good question as I don't have a real good answer, that is just based mostly on gut feeling. It really might be perception on my part because when I see the Blazers, I see a ton of youth with lots of room to grow, so I assume that a team of players that is 60% of what they are capable of becoming can't possibly win 54 wins without overachieving. I guess I still look at our Blazers as a team with a ton of potential and but not there yet. If I accept that they won 54 games without overachieving, then I will expect them to win 60+ games this season with a little bit of natural growth, and anything less will be disappointing. So as not to become bummed, I choose to think that last year was a semi-fluke so as not to get my hopes up. I know you did not ask that question looking for me to become introspective and take a seat on the iCouch, but that's what you got.
Last year I went with 55 if they were lucky with health. They weren't, but they weren't snakebitten either... so if anything the 54 wins exceeded my prediction. This is a very solid young club. Same * added this year, but I'll bump my prediction up to 60 wins. They got better as the season went along last year often blowing out good teams down the stretch. Next year I expect them to enter the elite team conversation. A WCF appearance is not far fetched. STOMP
