Is it too soon to talk about defensive rating?

Anyone actually watching has to admit you are right on this. Yes personnel made a huge difference but there are the intangibles as well to consider. Scheme and just overall effort at times have improved. Billups might not be as rigid in his rotations. I liked that he tried things that "Might" work. I like that he stayed the course through some tough outings.
I agree with your "Process" conclusion. Players have roles and they need to continue to stay in those roles.

 

I agree with you on this. Zach has all the things this team needs except the injury history.

 

We can live with 17th!

 

How can you attribute the marginal uptick in defensive rating to a "process" when the roster itself improved from a defensive standpoint?

You have made me realize my assumption that you would be open to changing your stance was foolish on my part.

 

--> phrases you never find in a song

(maybe a Weird Al challenge?)

 

How can one know?

The beauty of moving away from data and citing "process" is that it is vague enough, you can always be right. You've seen both Danny Marang and Bones defend their opposite thesis by citing "process".

 

So let me gets this right....we bring in better defensive players and we get better on D? #FireStotts

 

RoCo and Norm were supposed to be better defensive players too

 

I've said this before but think it's worth reiterating.

We currently rank 23rd in DRTG allowing 113.5 points per 100 possessions.

The 10th ranked Toronto Raptors allow 111.5 points per 100 possessions.




That gap of 2 points per 100 possessions can be made up fairly easily with GP2 playing ~20 mins while taking away minutes from some of our weaker defenders. Sure there might be a slight decline in the offense if he mostly replaces Dame/Ant, but we currently score 114.3 points per 100 possessions and are ranked 7. If we score 2 fewer points, we would be 13th still...giving us both a top 15 offense and top 15 defense, which is also a recipe for 45-50 win team.

That said, I also don't think the drop would be as big offensively as the potential gain defensively with just GP's addition.

I think we're on the right track here.

 

He's gonna help the bench for sure. Our bench is very green right now, with the exception of Winslow. That's how you lose leads.

 

So the fact that Chauncey didn't throw in the towel defensively and just try to outscore teams like Stotts did isn't a good thing in your mind?


Is the roster that much improved? Is Josh Hart, Jerami Grant, and Anfernee Simons that much better than Derrick Jones Jr, Robert Covington and CJ McCollum defensively?

It's funny how we used to be a bottom 3 defense when healthy and you'd make excuse after excuse but now that we've improved to 21st after an injury-plagued season where guys have been clearly gassed due to having to play too many minutes, you have no credit to give.

 

So let me gets this right....we bring in a better coach and we get better on D? #FireOlshey

 

That's the thing..... Stotts had defenders. Guys who had a long reputation of being solid defensively around the league. RoCo, DJJ, Norm..... so why couldn't he make it work?

 

What's Stotts doing these days? I've seen him linked to a number of coaching positions but didn't get hired.

 

Maybe he’ll get Nate’s job pretty quick?
Wouldn’t that be kinda funny.

 

1) I like Billups - I think we're doing some very good things.
2) I disagree with your assumption that Billups is trying harder (or less) than Stotts. Nothing to back that up.
3) I feel the versatility of the roster (defensively) is better 1-10 than it has been for a while, but see #4
4) Comparing defensive rating 30 games in (this year) to a full season result would be unwise. The further we get from one roster to another, the more difficult it is to compare. We did have a defensive rating from last year (first 30 games before all the injuries) to best compare with the defensive rating of the 2020-21 season, of which had similar rosters. Both were horrible.

 

It's pretty obvious Chauncey is a better defensive coach and Terry offensive. Don't know how anyone can argue that right now.

 

seems logical

however, I just checked and this year's team has an offensive rating of 115.1. That's better than 8 of 9 Stotts teams. The only one that eclipsed that mark was the 2020-21 Blazer team that posted a 117.8. But that season was the high water mark for offenses around the NBA. That Blazer team also had Dame for 93% of the games. The current team has only had him for 57% of the games. That 20-21 team also had Enes Kanter or all 72 games and he was an offensive rating superstar. Dame's ORating was 125; Kanter's was 133. So it may be a little premature giving the nod to Stotts on offense

that's probably an incomplete gauge though. Likely be better to look at where the Blazer offense ranked each year rather than their raw ratings numbers because each NBA season is different

 

Correct. Comparing raw offensive or defensive ratings would probably not be the best measure.

For example, in Billups two years the defensive ratings have been (113.5 and 116.3) which would be the worst and 4th worst defensive rating for Portland in the last 10+years.

Currently, we're ranked 10th in the NBA if offensive rating. We were 27th last year. In the previous 8 seasons, we finished top 6, five different times. I do expect us to finish inside top 10 this year though.