At the start of the season, who thought that Portland would win 50 without Greg Oden living up to the hype? My guess is no one. Well, we're about to finish the season and likely to win 50 or more and Greg has not even lived up to the hype yet. All I can say is W T F aka Wow That's Fantastic! Now let's imagine this same Blazers team with Oden living up to the hype. I'd be scared if I were some team else.
If you go back in the forum to the start of the season (end of Oct/beginning of Nov), you'll find a thread where a buttload of fans predicted 50 and more. I don't recall anyone conditioning their choice with GO living up to the hype. Greg could leap tall buildings with a single bound and still not live up to the pre-draft hype.
I thought BrianInWA was crazy for predicting 55 wins. The team likely won't get there, but 50 is a cinch at this point. Weird because even posters who predicted at his high level complained repeatedly about the team this season.
To be fair, I think it was 58, b/c I expected much more Webster and Oden. I didn't have Batum being as good on D. There have been many less complaints on my part since Blake started playing like Blake again in the last few weeks and Travis started expanding on the designated gunner role, and cut down on the mental mistakes. You've noticed, right, that even though he's shooting 41%FG and 31%3pt over the last month, I've been praising his D and rebounding and aggressiveness? And in a quick aside (asking a question, not a challenge), what's changed in the last 2 weeks that we're stuffing people on D and lighting them up on offense? Is it as simple as Oden coming back? Did someone have a closed-door meeting that we don't know about. Did it take 70 games for the light bulb to go on in their heads about what Nate wants? Did he change gameplans around? Looking at the schedule left, 53 sounds about right. Personally, the way we're playing, i think we can run the table. I'm not worried about us vs. SAS as much as I was 2 weeks ago. HOU didn't look fluid today, but maybe that was b/c it was the L*kers. I'd love the DEN finale to mean something, but I think that w/their easy schedule they'll have clinched the division and #2 by then.
