We're 10 games in, and they've been a more exciting 10 games than most anyone could have anticipated. But it's not just the Blazers; seems the entire NBA is topsy turvy. "Tanking" Jazz at the top of the conference, defending champs near the bottom, Heat and Sixers below .500, Hawks and Cavs in the top 4--everything is up for re-evaluation. So having seen what we've seen so far, who wants to revise their prediction for the season? C'mon, don't be shy. And if you do change your prediction--post the old one in here too.
For me personally, I didn't predict a win-loss total, but I thought they'd be difficult to watch, with a lot of growing pains coming along with learning how Billups wants them to play. It's clear to me ten games in that this team is going to be fun, regardless of whether or not they can keep up their current win percentage.
There's a reason the poll includes "no I haven't changed my mind" options. I'm sure people could be much more accurate with their predictions if we waited until the all-star break to revise them, but the whole point of a "pre"diction is to guess before things actually happen.
Fair enough. I will say that my prior prediction of 35 wins is looking low, but the team is still too reliant on players with bad track records injury wise for me to jump all the way to talking about HCA and such.
Which, honestly, is a completely reasonable position to take, even at 7-3. Personally, I'm more concerned about the fact that we're seemingly pulling out every close game (Memphis excepted), and there's just no way that's sustainable over a full season.
Yes it has but I fall into the sweet spot of now I think this team can challenge for a 5 or 6 seed and avoid the play in games but still not have HCA in the opening round. Sorry but a +.9 point differential just doesn't have me thinking this is a top 4 team in the west. They've won a number of close games, and that's encouraging but also when playing that close to fire, going to get burnt a few times too. I had them in 8-10 range coming into the season, so I guess call me mildly surprised with the start.
I didn’t make a prediction but I thought they’d be around a playin team with an outside shot at being better than that. Now I’d say the have a good shot at challenging for top 4 but still could wind up as a playin team. Our point differential is not a top 4 team. I don’t think our record is sustainable without significant improvement.
I believe I predicted 47/48 wins, but thought they would be closer to 500 for their first 10 games. Im thinking 48/50 wins now and maybe 6/7 seed.
I originally thought they’d be a play-in team and am thrilled with how they’ve performed so far, but I think a 5-6 seed is more likely than top-4. I’d love to be wrong though. In addition to enjoying the Blazers and Jazz outperforming the “experts” preseason prognostications, the extra enjoyment of watching so many of the preseason darling teams fall flat on their faces has made this one of my favorite starts to a season ever. That said, the notions of small sample size and regression to mean keep running through my brain.
I predicted the Blazers would go 80-2 on the season. It's sad that my prediction was ruined so early in the season.
Don't you think it is probable that we as Blazer fans dissect our player's injury history a little more than we do for all the other teams when it comes to predicting wins and losses? Yes, our players will get injured but so will the players on the other teams that we all assumed would end up higher than us. You just never know. My prediction was in the 46-48 range. I may be a little low as well.
I can't remember what I predicted....it may have been in the 'optimistic' 45-46 win range. Portland is playing a better, more entertaining type of BB than I thought they would. But as the platypus said, they've been winning close games at a seemingly unsustainable rate. I was thinking they were 5-0 in close games but I had forgot about the Memphis game. meaning they are 5-1 in close games two things about that are worrying: one is that that's a historically unsustainable rate. The other is that having 6 close games out of 10 could mean they could have too much 'close-game exposure' the rest of the season and the law of averages will erode their record so I might revise my 'bit optimistic-may-be-closer-to-forty' 45-46 wins to a 'bit-pessimistic-may-be-closer-to-fifty' 46-47 wins
i predicted 39 wins during preseason. i will respond the same way Dame did when asked to elaborate on how special this feels, "I don't want to jinx it or nothing like that, but it feels special."
I expect them to compete to win most games. I expect them to make the playoffs. I'm interested in seeing how well they do in the playoffs. None of that has changed.
One the race to tank starts that could skew wins. Out of 30 teams I could see 6-12 teams tanking for a shot.
