https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/POR/2022.html Thought I'd make a thread that would be worth bumping throughout the season based on overall stats for the team. The most surprising thing to me after 5 games is that Nas is 4th on the team in MPG. Last season he was 12th. I was expecting an uptick, but nothing like that. Another interesting thing so far is overall MPG. Only 2 guys over 31 mpg, and 9 guys getting 18 minutes or more. Some of that is probably just the blowouts, but I do get the sense that Billups is more comfortable going deep in his bench than Stotts was. We rode Dame (40 minutes) and CJ (35) pretty hard in game 1, but after that they went for around 32 or less mostly. It'd be awesome if we could enter the post-season with some real load management for once.
Also interesting that although Dame is in an undeniable shooting rut, the rest of his stats are mostly typical for what he normally does: The one exception is the charity stripe. He's taken a major dive in FTA's. James Harden is too--he's down to 6 FTA's a game. I hadn't realized he's also had a major shooting slump this year: So probably the two biggest foul hunters in the league are in shooting slumps as the league discourages foul hunting.
Talking of the new rules affecting players: what happened to Luka Doncic? In pre-season it looked like he was a likely MVP contender, but since? Does the joke about Jason Kidd being the only guy able to contain him have something to it or is he affected by the new rules too?
Back to the Blazers: one of our best foul-receivers is also our best foul-deliverer: Cody. I love this guy! How on earth were we able to get him for so little?
I’m liking Billups’ sub patterns. Seems he encourages maximum effort by playing guys in shorter bursts. Reminds me of how they do it in hockey (or at least how I think they do it, I don’t actually watch that sport hah) It’s most evident with Nurk. If I had to nitpick, Nance should be getting way more than 18 mpg. Roco doesn’t need 28 minutes.
Doesn’t Nance have a history of missing games? Think of this as load management to keep him available.
Not to get off track, but look at Dallas: 1. Love to see Doncic struggle (relatively - but look at the +/-!) 2. Always thought we should've drafted Brunson! (But right now Ant is looking pretty good) 3. THANK CHRIST we didn't end up with Jason Kidd as coach. 4. I think we can safely say New York won the Porzingis trade, can't we? And that's with Smith Jr. on the Blazers' bench now.
Doncic is a ball hog, look at how many times he's shooting compared to others. Sure, he should get majority I guess but does he make players better around him? Thats the roll of a pg. Kidd knows that. Dame will get fewer shots per game under Billups but he will be making players around him more productive.
Well, if your defense consistently causes teams to shoot a low percentage, you're going to have more defensive rebounding opportunity than your opponents. Seems overly simplistic, but the correlation is pretty strong. Offensive rebounding differential, however, is a different story. Correlates much more to extra possessions, and thus, winning. I wouldn't be surprised if we're improved there too. Size is much less relevant to rebounding when you actually box out.
Little 2nd (tied) on the team in reboundig has to be a HUGE surprise regardless of the small sample size.
Objectively speaking, this year Dame has been our worst guard who gets regular minutes. If Anfernee weren't tearing it up we could easily be 2-5. Dame has been so good for so long. He's been through so much for this to just be the yips. I just have to believe he's got some injury he's not talking about.
defensive rating & ranking has dropped from 102.1 (6th) to 109.4 (21st) net rating has dropped from a high of +6.8 to +1.9 road games can have a big impact on team stats
