Deep chart & rotations

[JasonVincent]

I think Blazers roster is set and i think is a pretty balanced one. We probably do not have certain kind of players but considering the addition of 2 proven NBA veteran and the natural evolution of our young projects we overall upgraded the team. I do not think we should worry about decline in athleticism as veterans (Blake, Kaman and Wright) did not rely on athleticism in their careers and Aldridge might be consider in his prime. Barring injuries, considering we had a rare healty year, Portland will enter the season have the same starting 5 and this arguably this deep chart:
*There are more minutes than 48 per position, considering missing games for players and Leonard/Crabbe are not going to have a guaranteed playing time, but will find some minutes here and there and crack the rotation if they perform well in practice.

Startin fiveg
Lillard 35 minutes per game
Matthews 30 mpg (less minutes for him same level of intensity)
Batum 35 mpg (probably a little less for earlier games to condition better)
Aldridge 35 mpg (resting him in later season a little)
Lopez 30 mpg (bigs should always rest more)
Bench - Backcourt
Blake 15 at PG
McCollum 5 PG and 10 SG
Burton 8 SG and couple of minutes with starting 5 as heat check guy
Bench - Frontcourt
Wright 15 SF
Claver 8 SF
Robinson 15 PF
Freeland 5 PF 10 C
Kaman 15 C

Stotts has played our bench with at least one starter in last year (except garbage time) and i presume it will be the same. All bench roles will be determinated by the starter they share court-time with.
I think are involved with our bench in good dynamics:
Blake is a pass first play but needs a creator in case something is not working. McCollum has yet to prove his ability to create but has an excellent shot. Burton has his own offensive rhytm to go isolation but lacks consistency on his jumpshot.
Wright will stretch the floor as useal while instead Claver is better suitable in Batum role helping the team on defense and offense.
Considering opponents, Robinson will be our athletic power forward for rebounds and hustle, but not reliable to get shots and still lacking of mid range game. Freeland will bounce between roles of PF a C providing good size and a crafty altough at the cost of less rim protection and intensity. Kaman has size and ability to compete against every backup centers.
Summertalk

[Wizenheimer]

so...

SG:

Matthews 30
McCollum 10
Barton 8

that's the 48 SG minutes

and you have

Blake 15
McCollum 8

there are 23 minutes for PG's, leaving only 25 minutes, yet Lillard has 35 minutes total

there's a discrepancy there.

IMO, Lillard WILL get some SG minutes, and he''ll take those from CJ and Barton. Also, I believe Blake will average more then 15 minutes. My guess would be around 20

I'd think to start the season, Lillard will average 36-37 minutes, Matthews 32-34 minutes, Blake 18-21 minutes. Not accounting for injuries, that leaves 4-10 minutes a game for the other guards....and Batum will log a little time at SG this year, like he always does. CJ and Barton will have limited opportunities to prove themselves and a bad game or 2 will knock them out of the rotation. In any event, I think Barton will be ahead of CJ in those deep rotation minutes...until he screws up
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Claver will rarely see the floor unless it's a blow-out.

Kaman will get all the backup C minutes unless he's injured or in foul trouble. That knocks Freeland out of the loop unless he steals some of TRob's minutes. And Wright may get a few minutes as a stretch-4, further putting a squeeze on those backup PF minutes

[a_sensei]

so...

SG:

Matthews 30
McCollum 10
Barton 8

that's the 48 SG minutes

and you have

Blake 15
McCollum 8

there are 23 minutes for PG's, leaving only 25 minutes, yet Lillard has 35 minutes total

there's a discrepancy there.

*There are more minutes than 48 per position, considering missing games for players and Leonard/Crabbe are not going to have a guaranteed playing time, but will find some minutes here and there and crack the rotation if they perform well in practice.

[ebott]

so...

SG:

Matthews 30
McCollum 10
Barton 8

that's the 48 SG minutes

and you have

Blake 15
McCollum 8

there are 23 minutes for PG's, leaving only 25 minutes, yet Lillard has 35 minutes total

there's a discrepancy there.

*There are more minutes than 48 per position, considering missing games for players and Leonard/Crabbe are not going to have a guaranteed playing time, but will find some minutes here and there and crack the rotation if they perform well in practice.

I don't get it. I would like it explained to me.

Is the idea that in most games Blake will get all the backup point guard minutes and in the games he doesn't play CJ will only play 8 minutes and Lillard will play 40 minutes?

[Village Idiot]

I would expect to see McCollum get more minutes to build up his trade value for Durant

PG: Lillard 38, Blake 10
SG: Matthews 33, McCollum 15
SF: Batum 37, Wright 8, Matthews 3,
PF: Aldrdige 36, Robinson 12
C: Lopez 26, Kaman 22

with nothing for Barton, Freeland, Leonard or Claver, barring injury.

[bob2]

*There are more minutes than 48 per position, considering missing games for players

I don't get it. I would like it explained to me.

I'll try to make it simple.

A NBA season consists of 82 games of 48 minutes (even a bit more with a couple OT).
Total minutes at each position 82*48 = 3936 (make it 4000 if Portland plays 13 OT during the season).

Now assume that Lillard plays 35 mpg but in only 75 games (because of minor injuries). That's a total of 75*35=2625 minutes.

There are 1375 minutes left for the backup PGs. That's approximately 17 mpg over 82 games. And, once again, if you assume that the backups only play 70 games, it's close to 20 mpg at backup PG.

As a result, at the end of the year, you will get approximately 55mpg at each position when you sum the mpg of all the players on the roster. But, of course, on every single game (with no OT), the total will be only 48 minutes at each spot

[Fitz303]

Lillard (36), Blake (11)
Matthews (33), Blake (10), Barton/McCollum (5)
Batum (36), Wright (12)
Aldridge (36), Robinson (12)
Lopez (29), Kaman (19)

Game rotation. Those numbers will be a little higher for the season average, due to injury time gained from players missing games, but I think this will be a pretty close version of Stotts' minute breakdown

[JasonVincent]

I don't get it. I would like it explained to me.

Is the idea that in most games Blake will get all the backup point guard minutes and in the games he doesn't play CJ will only play 8 minutes and Lillard will play 40 minutes?

Not really. I think Blake will probably get almost the whole PG when Lillard is on the floor, but considering injuries and coach options' CJ will see stints as a PG. It's not measurable in mpg, i put a generic 5 minutes. Some games he will play more at PG (if Blake is not available) other games he will not play PG at all.
There are more minutes for position than 48, due to players missing games. Last year Claver and Leonard played almost the same mpg with Leonard playing almost double total minutes.
Claver will have few occasions to play, unless something bad happen to Batum or Wright. But i think he has a different skillset, more conservative. If buried on the bench i expect him to be traded before deadline.
I am confident Freeland instead will find niches to play. Of course Freeland and Robinson at the same time it's not going to work, but i think Joel is a better complement with Lopez than Robinson. Kaman will have most C minutes, but bigs rest more and occurr in foul trouble more frequently. Freeland is valuable in our rotation

[Wizenheimer]

building in "injury minutes" into guesses about rotation numbers kind of makes the entire discussion pretty vague, no?

suppose Lillard averages 36 and Matthews averages 34 and both play in all 82 games (very reasonable)

then say Blake averages 18 and plays in 78 games (yeah, I know his recent history)

That would leave a total of 728 other minutes...all season...at the guard position

then say Batum logs 128 minutes at SG. It's now 600 minutes left

that's 7.3 minutes a game left for all the other guards to fight for. Even if Blake misses 20 more games, that would only bump the total extra minutes number up to around 11.

last season, CJ "averaged" 12.5 minutes. But he only played in 38 games. He actually averaged 5.8 of the teams total minutes. And Barton averaged 4.7

I wonder about a forecast of minutes for players at the back-end of the rotation...and IMO that would be guys after the top-7....you need to assign total games played. In this case, for CJ, Barton, Claver, Wright, Freeland, TRob, the averages total is 86 minutes/game. For chrissakes that's 36% of all minutes...on a team where the lower 8 players on the roster only logged 15% of all minutes last season. Either those rotation estimates include a hell of a lot of DNP-CD's or the Blazers would have a ton of injuries.

[JasonStern]

Lillard (28) / Blake (20)
Matthews (34) / Lillard (8) / Barton (6)
Batum (36) / Wright (12)
Aldridge (36) / Robinson (12)
Lopez (31) / Kaman (17)

DNP - CD: McCollum, Freeland
DNP - IR: Crabbe, Claver
DNP - Leonard: Leonard

[Malfa]

DNP - Leonard: Leonard

Logged in just for this

[a_sensei]

Lillard (28) / Blake (20)
Matthews (34) / Lillard (8) / Barton (6)
Batum (36) / Wright (12)
Aldridge (36) / Robinson (12)
Lopez (31) / Kaman (17)

DNP - CD: McCollum, Freeland
DNP - IR: Crabbe, Claver
DNP - Leonard: Leonard

I think this looks about right. I hope that Barton or McCollum develop to the point where the coach has to play him. I hope Robinson develops to the point where he is getting more minutes than Kaman. I can't imagine the Blazers having a run of health like they did last year so I imagine there will be some opportunities for other guys.

[DaVoiceMaster]

Starters
Lillard (38)
Matthews (35)
Batum (36)
Aldridge (38)
Lopez (30)

Bench
Blake (16)
Barton/McCollum (9)
Wright (10)
Robinson (10)
Kaman (18)

Cheerleaders
Barton/McCollum (0)
Crabbe (0)
Claver (0)
Freeland (0)
Leonard (0)

[JasonVincent]

building in "injury minutes" into guesses about rotation numbers kind of makes the entire discussion pretty vague, no?

Not in my opinion. It's not really about injury minutes, it's about game played. Particularly regarding bench players, they are not supposed to play 82 games obviously, so they split games and minutes. Last season Barton and McCollum shared reserve SG duties for about 10 minutes per game, but rarely they played together.
The whole point of giving minutes to both or Claver or Freeland is to show how on certain situations they will see playing time, although not in every games (it's impossible to predict games for starter or bench)

[ebott]

building in "injury minutes" into guesses about rotation numbers kind of makes the entire discussion pretty vague, no?

I agree, seems like cheating to me. If you're gonna call your shot, call your shot. Say how many games each player is going to play and how many minutes they will average in those games.

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[DaddyBigD]

pg Lillard .....

im and then I started thinking about blake and more don't even want to make a depth chart. I mean just cause he doesn't make a ton of mistakes doesn't make him a good nba player sigh....I guess he's not MUCH worse than mo, usually.


PG Lillard 36 Blake14
SG Wes 34 cj 14 Lillard 0
SF nic 38 Wright 4 Barton 6
PF la 36 freeland 12 Robinson 0 Wright 0
C. Lopez 30 kaman 18 la

I think freeland complements Kaman better, but maybe not athletic enough to work out. might need the youth and hustle of Robinson in the second unit.

anyone think nic could play full time at sg? ball handle would be severely lacking compared other SG's (but wes isn't exactly the best ball handler either lol) size defense passing iq nic. I wonder if he's dedicated to posting up consistently if he played sg... I don't know why, but I've never liked wes.


id swap wes for almost any comparable wing talent

[DaVoiceMaster]

DBD - You got Batum playing 38 minutes, but Lillard and Aldridge only getting 36 minutes? That just doesn't seem right. It'd be great if they only have to play 36 minutes, but I think it's the other way around. Those two will log the most minutes with Batum next in line,then Matthews, then Lopez, and then there's a significant drop and we'll see who gets what off the bench.

Batum could definitely play SG, but I'm a Matthews fan, as well. Every team needs a guy like Matthews on the roster. I'm not lookin to move him at this point.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

DBD - You got Batum playing 38 minutes, but Lillard and Aldridge only getting 36 minutes? That just doesn't seem right. It'd be great if they only have to play 36 minutes, but I think it's the other way around. Those two will log the most minutes with Batum next in line,then Matthews, then Lopez, and then there's a significant drop and we'll see who gets what off the bench.

Batum could definitely play SG, but I'm a Matthews fan, as well. Every team needs a guy like Matthews on the roster. I'm not lookin to move him at this point.

Agreed about Matthews. On offense, I have always considered Matthews more of a SF and Batum more of SG.


Now, I do think a legitimate debate surrounds how much Matthews should get paid. He has been an important part of our team, but as we have to manage our salaries while also taking the next step, we cannot afford to overpay Matthews simply as gesture of goodwill. It could very well happen that Matthews gets an offer more than we can spend, which causes a tough decision for us. We don't really have a player who could step into his role with this team, so in some ways we cannot afford to let him go.

[DaddyBigD]

imo wing players are the easiest to replace.

and I've got batum playing 38 minutes because his versatility and lack of competent backup.

freeland isn't bad and that little rascal blake can handle 14 minutes or more

I wonder what a McCollum batum backcourt would look like. probably a disaster lol.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

imo wing players are the easiest to replace.

and I've got batum playing 38 minutes because his versatility and lack of competent backup.

freeland isn't bad and that little rascal blake can handle 14 minutes or more

I wonder what a McCollum batum backcourt would look like. probably a disaster lol.

Starting quality wing players are not easy to replace...

Please enlighten me if you can, but consider also that we would only have the MLE or trades available to us if we let Matthews walk.