dckingsfan wrote:Nice writeup in general. But I am going to take the devils' advocate take on this one. I think that locked on Blazers pointed out that a top 10 defensive team in the league most often qualifies for the play-in. That is where I think Portland will be at the end of the season. Best case scenario - 9-10. Worst case scenario 13-14. Most likely scenario 11-12. This is an opinion but I am really meh on Phoenix, Utah, Sacramento, New Orleans.
Last year both San Antonio and Dallas hit the lottery. I think the new lottery system doesn't reward absolute tanking but teams that are on the cusp and then get lucky.
If you get a lottery pick in next year's draft along with our additional pick, we will be fine. Will that happen
Looking forward to how the season unfolds.
Unproven top defensive team, end of LY they had a good run overall & defensively, however, how many of those teams were decimated by injuries or flat out playing not to win? A lot...
...and they lost to playoff teams who were actively resting star\key players as well, so a little bit of a mirage there IMO. As Hollinger states in that article, the per game scoring margin is a little bit of a red flag, and I don't necessarily see that improving with this year's squad. There is a lot, too much, riding on consistent scoring from Deni & Sharpe primarily and then hoping on a bunch of things: That Jrue reverses his offensive trends, that Grant can excel with reduced usage, that Scoot comes back early and explodes, that Clingan suddenly becomes a sudden offensive threat or that Camara develops into more than a complemetary player on offense, IMO all of those are longshots to occur and even if 1-2 did, it won't be nearly enough.
Here is another ranking, from ESPN, ranking top trios in the NBA, POR ranks in the bottom group under Rebuilding.
There are few teams harder to parse in terms of their direction than Portland. The Blazers have a roster full of interesting young talents, such as Clingan, Sharpe, Scoot Henderson and Yang Hansen. But then they went out this offseason and traded for Jrue Holiday and re-signed Lillard, who won't play all season. Will Jerami Grant start? Will Henderson when he comes back from a hamstring injury? Where does Deni Advija, who was arguably the team's best player last year, fit in the starting five - or does he? There's just so much noise here that it's hard to know exactly what Portland's goals are -- which will make for a very fascinating season.
even if you replace DC with Deni, I don't think it improves their standing that much, especially considering they don't have a consensus Top 50 player on the roster, maybe not even a Top 75 player...
Since the rest of the argument falls from this - I will take on that point.
First, they have one of the best young defensive Cs in the league (sans injury) he is going to be that much better this season. Second, Jrue is most definitely a defensive upgrade. Third, meaningful minutes from Thybulle will only help their D.
Worst case (sans injury of course), I think this is a top 10 defensive team.
Like ESPN says - going to be fascinating. I am very much looking forward to the season.
You could be right, but as I said, I view then end of LY as a fool's gold, POR front office viewed it as a sign and seemingly doubled down on it, at the expense of their offensive capability, I might add, which already ranked near the bottom of the league.
Can't win consistently in the NBA if you cannot score...
Walton1one wrote:You could be right, but as I said, I view then end of LY as a fool's gold, POR front office viewed it as a sign and seemingly doubled down on it, at the expense of their offensive capability, I might add, which already ranked near the bottom of the league.
Can't win consistently in the NBA if you cannot score...
I can't disagree with that - especially if you by consistently you mean playing over .500 in the west.
I don't have a problem with their doubling down on the strength of the team (defense). What I do have a problem with is on the development end of this roster build - senseless.
