Tim Lehrbach wrote:To whomever said this team is definitely much worse than the 2005-2006 Blazers, let's not go too far. That was one of the worst teams in the last ten years of NBA basketball. It doesn't get much worse than that. How many games did Ha start again? Charles Smith? Sergei Monia? The Theo-Przybilla duo?
*shudder*
Let's compare, because I think it's really, really close:
PG:
2005-06 Blazers: Steve Blake/Sebastian Telfair/Jarrett Jack
2007-08 TWolves: Sebastian Telfair/Randy Foye
I'd call that a tie.
SG:
2005-06 Blazers: Juan Dixon/Martell Webster/Charles Smith/Sergei Monya
2007-08 TWolves: Marko Jaric/Rashard McCants/Gerald Green
Boy, I don't know. I know you hate Dixon, but he actually scored more than Jaric and McCants. Certainly in the future I expect more from the Wolves combo than the Blazers 2005-06 combo, but that's only because Martell is the only one of the four I expect to contribute anything meaningful to the league from that Blazers foursome.
SF:
2005-06 Blazers: Darius Miles/Ruben Patterson/Vashon Lenard/Viktor Khryapa
2007-08 TWolves: Ryan Gomes/Corey Brewer/Greg Buckner
For pure talent (not dealing with off-court issues or image), Portland's combo would eat the Wolves combo for lunch. Clear Portland advantage in terms of experience, scoring and defense.
PF:
2005-06 Blazers: Zach Randolph/Brian Skinner/Travis Outlaw
2007-08 TWolves: Al Jefferson/Craig Smith/Antoine Walker/Mark Madsen
Randolph and Jefferson pretty much cancel each other out, and Skinner/Walker cancel each other out. At that point in his career, Outlaw was still out in the weeds, so I'll give a slight advantage to the Wolves for Craig Smith. With his bulk, though, it's perplexing that he has such a low rebounding rate.
C:
2005-06 Blazers: Joel Przybilla/Theo Ratliff/Ha Seung-Jin
2007-08 TWolves: Michael Doleac/Theo Ratliff/Chris Richard
Przybilla played 24 minutes per game and was still 7th in the league in block per. Despite your denegration, center was actually considered a strength of that team by most of us at the time (given how crappy we were in the backcourt, perhaps it was comparative). 2005-06 was also the season where Joel put up several monster games like the 17/15/6 blocks he contributed at Washington, where he put up 3 or more blocks in half the games he played in, and put up 5 or more in more than 10% of his games (including tying Walton for the all-time Blazers single game block mark of 9 against the Sonics). Also, I'd rather have a Theo that can play some games than this years version who will be lucky to play 25 games this year with his knee surgery. Big Portland advantage here, which explains why the Wolves play Jefferson at C so much. Of course, if we move Jefferson to C, then the Wolves have a big advantage, but Zach's advantage over what they would have left at PF would then be huge, so I'll leave the depth chart like it is.
So Portland has a clear advantage at SF and C, and the rest kind of balance out. On the whole, I think it's fair to say that this year's TWolves are worse than we were in 2005-06, at least from a contemporary talent comparison. From a chemistry perspective, that Portland team was totally disfunctional, so maybe that closes the gap and gives Minny the edge, but with your comments on starting lineups (by the way--Smith only started four games, as did Ha. Brian Skinner started more games, and he only got a third of a season with us, so even though it is inexcuseable to have those guys starting, it's not like their "era" was a major part of the season. Monya, on the other hand, inexplicably got 15 starts for reasons beyond me now) I'm guessing that's not what you were judging on.