Outlaw Derision

++1

 

i always hoped he would start taking it hard to the rim every time and throwing down monster dunks.

oh well, he was an average-ish player, they come they go.

7 years!

 

He's definitely a Zach Randolph or Allen Iverson kind of player, where every night after the game is over you have to think carefully about whether he hurt you more than helped you that night. And it really varied from game to game.

I'll cast my lot in with Batum, Cunningham and Howard. The kind of role players who may not win you games, but at least won't lose them.

 

There is one type of player I do not like in the NBA. They are the type of player that makes the game deliberately harder to play. Unfortunately Travis was one of those players. He would pass up open looks and layins in order to turn them into a jab step fade away jumper.

That being said, he was quite a character, and one of the good guys that helped take away the jailblazer image that was here, and provided a lot of excitement in his time here, and I appreciate that.

 

He was slightly over 15 PER for 6 out of his 7 years as a Blazer (talk about consistent). That's average for a starter in the league - something Outlaw really was not, nor was he paid like one. That's an above average production for a backup role player. We were lucky to have him.

 

i can see him scoring 20 ppg easy if he gets a green light next year.

 

That's the problem though isn't it? His PER looks solid, but it is a mix of really good and really bad efforts. The consistency offered by Batum and Cunningham should help the team substantially.

 

There you go again, quoting PER . Travis was exactly the opposite. He either had a hot night, or he had off nights. More off nights than on nights. Hot game followed by several bad games. That was Travis to a tee. You will note that by having one hot game every several games, a PER score averages out pretty well. It does not make him a consistent player.

Consistent players show up every night. That is part of why Portland is not a good team yet. The parts do not run like a machine. Good teams the players show up every night, and get what their role requires.

 

Dick move, Ed.

j/k. Anyway, I'll miss him. He was a nice luxury off the bench...a guy who could create his own shot. It's not easy to find that. Portland, though, had Bayless also, so I'm not too torn up. Bayless is inconsistent, but so is the Trav. Bayless, though, has a much higher upside.

I think Outlaw will carve out a nice career for himself as an off-the-bench scorer.

 

That's exactly like the vast majority of players in the league. That's why he was a role player, not a super star - and that's why he was paid like one. But, at the end of the day, he was paid like an average backup role player but gave you production like an average starter in the league.

Backup role players that are consistent? These are the ones that give you crap every night. Outlaw was paid like an average backup role player, and half the time he played like one, but the other half - he played like a fantastic starter. That's why it was such a great thing we got him. His return on investment was great.

Here is a list of game scores by a player this year:

11.8
23.8
8.2
7
15.4
15
6.6
8.3
8.2
10
8.4
7.2
1
5.2
18.9
22.4
10.7
21.5
21.8
19.2
9.8
10.6
13.1
19
14.3
18.3
5.6
17.7
1.2
7.4
14.9
18.3
10.5
15.2
6.7
8.5
0.6
7.3
22.3
13.7
4.7
15.7
3.8
-0.8
16.9
2.2
16.8
14.4
8.5
13.3
6.9

Wildly inconsistent, night to night. This player makes more than twice what Outlaw makes this year. And next time he is putting on a jersey he is very likely to start for his new team.

There are two kinds of consistent players in the NBA - consistently bad (most of them), consistently good (the stars). Outlaw was paid like a consistently bad player but gave you better than consistently bad performance.

 

Yeah, I tend to be a dick about being nice. Sorry.

I think that's taking the concept of cost certainty a bit far. If all else is equal, I'd rather have consistency from role-players...but I'd rather have higher average value over lower variance. In the regular season, it evens out (the highs will win you more than the lows will lose you, if the average value is above league average) and in the playoffs, with tightened rotations, you have the luxury of just pulling him for the rest of the game if it's one of his bad nights.

In the end, I think you just have to take the best players and take your chances.

 

Yeah, I can see how that makes sense if you're a top-end team, where your (usual) range of game outcomes is "close loss" to "blowout win."

For a team who's usual range of outcomes is "solid loss" to "solid win," I don't think variance from role-players is a net negative, in terms of game leverage. And that's been the sort of mid-level team Portland has been the past few years, including this one.

Hopefully, starting next year Portland will be that top-end team that would be better served with consistency from its role-players even if slightly less talent!

 

Glad to see him AND Blake gone

 

Glad to see him gone.

Although I was glad to see him injured for the same reasons but the team performed marketably worse...