It's only a pattern if you have enough statistics to support your conclusion which we don't have. 60% of those losses were to one very very hot team. The other four were to another single team.
I've studied stats and know a thing or two about them. Your small sample size is simply near meaningless. You've gotta come up with some other facts to examine rather then that flimsy excuse.
So similar to your small sample size of the 13 game win streak you use to declare the season a success... when the fact is we were 36-37 outside of that streak... a below .500 record in a 73 game sample size. The win streak is more of an outlier than playoff games you have time to plan for and adjust to
Oh come on man. We are here to discuss the blazers in all aspects. Not just the ones you feel should be or shouldnt be discussed. Thats fine if you dont want to discuss ideas, thoughts, rights, wrongs and how to improve this team, but some of us like to discuss the possible scenarios. The coulda woulda shoulda’s. You dont need to be condescending to those of us that do just because you dont. Just move on.
10 and 13 are both rather small sample sizes. So should we look at the wildly inconsistent larger sample size, then?
Ok I went for Stotts. Not that I think that he is the total problem he is just not the coach for this roster. It looks like we are pretty much stuck with the roster we have minus a few we cant keep do to the bloated contract of Turner which would not be a problem if he was worth his pay. So that poses a problem we either gut the team to lose all our bad contracts and stars which still would be hard given Turners contract or go with another coach to play these guys differently less hero ball etc. Personally I think we should take a style from Popovich's playbook and bring CJ off the bench much the way Manu was used. To be honest we only have 3 starters on this team the rest is bench material unless someone emerges. Aminu and Hark are borderline, when they are on they are good, but they are off more then on. Anyways those are my 2 cents
It wasn't meant as condescending as I was simply saying I don't really get into it as much as others do. There are just way too many variables to me. Some like to make win loss predictions as well while others don't. No big deal one way or the other.
Boring answer, but it's a combination of talent, management and coaching. Team lacks shooting and decision making from it's ancillary pieces which is why sending doubles at Dame and CJ have worked so well, particularly in the playoffs. Dame and CJ aren't always the best decision makers versus pressure either. Meyers and Evan Turner's contract hamstrung the team, but when you consider the market AND the available talent pool, it may be costing us 2-4 wins max. Sure, having the full MLE would've helped, but I don't think we're a big enough draw for the type of guys that can make a big difference at that rate. Another part of it is Dame and CJ are too good not to pay and hard to trade for better present value. Essentially, you're capping the potential of you're team if you hitch your franchise to them as you're top 2. This problem isn't unique, and it also doesn't mean you're destined to be in the middle forever. You just have to be near perfect from a draft, trade and roster construction perspective to overcome it. Olshey has had some clear hits, but also some big misses here which is why we are where we are. To be clear though, I don't think perfect equals championship contention. More like a consistent HCA type team. As far as the playoffs go. Ten losses in a row sucks, but GS is really good and although there is no excuses for how the guys performed against the Pels, this team limped to the playoffs from both a health and confidence standpoint and ran into a bad matchup playing really good basketball. We all would've liked to see more fight from our guys, but we didn't and we're all left with a bad taste in our mouth. There's some positives that can come out of it though. Could force both staff and players to look more critically at things that need to be done to improve plus urge management to make SMART changes. Where do we go from here? I don't know. I respect the arguments made for big changes, and a part of me would like to see it from a pure entertainment standpoint. It'd be fun to watch some new players and maybe a new coach who runs different stuff. Would it makes us any better? Who knows. But another part of me wants to see what this group can achieve w/smart tweaks and further development. Some may say that'd be postponing the inevitable, but it's going to be a long time--if ever--that we see the next truly great Blazer team so I'm fine waiting a couple more years before pulling the plug on this thing.
Why do you think everyone is condescending when they don’t agree with you? Do you read your own posts? Those of us who hold the opinion of “I’m not an NBA GM or coach or player so maybe I don’t know all the answers” are condescending but those who think they’ve got it all figured out aren’t? Huh?
Let me add to my post that I'm not against examining whether Stotts should be retained or not. I'm just saying that we need other metrics besides an insignificant sample size.
I agree. There is not "one" problem. A few things happened on the way to the playoffs. We starting losing games to teams we could have beat. That Texas road trip was a debacle. The Pelicans destroyed us inside and we had no clear answer for AD, Holliday and Rondo and to mention others. Dame had bad Karma in all four games. We constantly made mistakes on both sides of the court. I admit, Stotts tried to stop the bleeding but could not.
6 of those losses were to the warriors... Who swept nearly everyone they played in that stretch. But that's what you get when you're the 8 seed who loses a starter (and probably should have missed the playoffs). Then we drew our worst match up possible this year even though we had home court advantage. That's just bad luck.
