Portland attention

[Charlie78]

Is it bothering anyone else how little attention the blazers good start has gotten. It seems like every conversation after a good performance is focused on the team we beat. Everyone was killing us all off season with basically every podcast or analyst picking us to drop out of the playoffs. We have a great point differential dame is killing it and we are top ten in defensive and offensive rating yet we get zero love. I know the playoff sweep is part of it but man I just want a little love after an offseason of hate


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[Matt800]

I thought it was interesting how the Nuggets have been getting a lot of respect. I don't follow the Nuggets closely but it seemed like they got some sort of massive increase in respect over the offseason and I don't know what happened to deserve that. They've got a good record right now though so I guess their hype is as fair as anything.

POR has played decent but they lost a few games that they probably should have won, and still look largely dependent on Lillard. The bench is better than last year so that helps and takes some weight off Lillard. But still I think they have some large weaknesses. A healthy Harkless would definitely help bring some more consistency. And POR hasn't had that for a while.

So yeah to your point POR doesn't seem to get respect for their accomplishments, but maybe people are skeptical that POR can really maintain this. Maybe if POR keeps up decent play we'll see some more respect.

[Fitz303]

It's too early for national recognition.. Maybe if they hadn't given that game away to Washington, they'd be getting a little more attention, as they'd be 6-1 at this point and right alongside GSW at the top of the standings. However, right now, they have the same amount of losses at the Spurs and the Grizzliers. They have only 1 less loss than the Kings, Jazz, Pelicans, and Clippers. They're not supposed to do anything special this year, so until they start to separate themselves from that pack, they're not likely going to get a lot of attention.

[dunlop212]

If they go 6-0 or 5-1 on this home stand they will get lots of attention.

[Wizenheimer]

Portland got quite a bit of attention last season when they went on their hot streak while Dame was in superstar mode. And they got attention by finishing on top of the pack of 2-9 teams in the west and securing the 3rd seed. They were favored over the Pelicans entering the playoffs and they had HCA

then they fizzled and got swept; and they looked pretty pathetic doing so

so I'd think this is a 'fool-me-once-but-not-twice' situation; especially considering their only 'signature' win so far was @ Indiana, a middle of the pack Eastern team

the 6 game home stand offers opportunity for attention:

New Orleans Pelicans
Los Angeles Lakers
Minnesota Timberwolves
Milwaukee Bucks
Los Angeles Clippers
Boston Celtics

there's not a single pushover in the 6. Portland does well thru the Boston game and they'll get noticed

of course, right after that home stand they have a 6 game road trip:

@ Los Angeles Lakers
@ Minnesota Timberwolves
@ Washington Wizards
@ New York Knicks
@ Milwaukee Bucks
@ Golden State Warriors

so, a dozen games and the only "easy" one would be at the Knicks. Blazers go 9-3, or better...they'll get attention. 7-5, not so much

[Matt800]

Portland got quite a bit of attention last season when they went on their hot streak while Dame was in superstar mode. And they got attention by finishing on top of the pack of 2-9 teams in the west and securing the 3rd seed. They were favored over the Pelicans entering the playoffs and they had HCA

I was seeing a lot of projections of POR losing that series. I thought it was interesting at the time considering POR did have HCA and a better record, even if only slightly. But having a lot of losses to end the season probably factored into that.

I think it is like you said, if POR has some win streaks against tough opponents then they will get attention. But unless POR proves that their past weaknesses aren't there anymore, I think people will largely be skeptical of their ability to win much in the playoffs. We've all seen it so far, the passing looks great and could solve some of the problems POR had in the playoffs. But it is mostly the bench unit that is passing, and Lillard and CJ still tend toward iso plays, especially when things aren't going well. The other obvious thing is the turnovers. I think POR could do better in the regular season this year by getting more bench production and more opportunity to rest their starters. But I don't think there is much of an indication yet for how they'll be better in the playoffs.

[Wizenheimer]

I think it is like you said, if POR has some win streaks against tough opponents then they will get attention. But unless POR proves that their past weaknesses aren't there anymore, I think people will largely be skeptical of their ability to win much in the playoffs. We've all seen it so far, the passing looks great and could solve some of the problems POR had in the playoffs. But it is mostly the bench unit that is passing, and Lillard and CJ still tend toward iso plays, especially when things aren't going well. The other obvious thing is the turnovers. I think POR could do better in the regular season this year by getting more bench production and more opportunity to rest their starters. But I don't think there is much of an indication yet for how they'll be better in the playoffs.

so far, Stauskas, Collins, and Curry have combined for 48.2% shooting on three's...that's probably been the biggest factor (other than Dame), and that's almost certainly not a sustainable conversion rate. Those three also combine for an assisted FG rate of at least 70%, much higher on three's, so that also tends to skew assist and passing numbers

you mentioned it appeared the team was 'passing better'. I wondered about that because I was thinking it looked like more of the same ....so, I looked up the numbers:

last season, as we all know, Portland was dead last in the league in assists per game at 19.5. That was even worse than the iso-heavy Roy/Nate team in 2008-09.

Portland has only improved to 20.1 assists/game from last year's 19.5, and that's a function of a higher pace rather than a more fluid offense. Last season, Portland's assisted FG rate was 49.6%; this season, it has dropped to 47.9%. That's not good. CJ's rate has increased a little, Dame's has dropped a little, and Turner's rate has dropped to less than half what it was last season, and he's shooting more

you're right that the bench appears to be passing well. Last season, the Blazer bench averaged 5.2 assists/game with an assisted FG rate of 49.1%. This season, the bench is averaging 10 assists/ game with an assisted FG rate of 63.7%. But again, those numbers appear skewed by the hot starts of Collins and Stauskas

but that just goes to highlight the issues in the starters. Last season, extrapolating from the bench numbers, they averaged 14.3 assists/game. This season, my gawd, that is down to 10.1 assists/game and Lillard is accounting for 6 of those

the trends for this team are a worry. Sure, they are 5-2, but those vulnerabilities that were exposed last season don't appear to be fixed...at all. And while the bench may offer better support than last year, it wasn't really the Blazer bench that failed in the playoffs last season. It was the starting lineup

[monopoman]

Our bench is massively improved from last season the stats back this up heavily (**** we have won games this season where both CJ+Lillard are having rough games and last season that was basically an impossibility if both of our main options were having bad nights), I think the starting unit is roughly the same so teams with the right personal can still bother Lillard+CJ. With improved Collins+Improved Bench I think overall we did get better, but who knows how that manifest in the playoffs where matchups are by far the most important thing, unless said team is stacked to the brim with very very talented players.

[Matt800]

I think it is like you said, if POR has some win streaks against tough opponents then they will get attention. But unless POR proves that their past weaknesses aren't there anymore, I think people will largely be skeptical of their ability to win much in the playoffs. We've all seen it so far, the passing looks great and could solve some of the problems POR had in the playoffs. But it is mostly the bench unit that is passing, and Lillard and CJ still tend toward iso plays, especially when things aren't going well. The other obvious thing is the turnovers. I think POR could do better in the regular season this year by getting more bench production and more opportunity to rest their starters. But I don't think there is much of an indication yet for how they'll be better in the playoffs.

Spoiler:

so far, Stauskas, Collins, and Curry have combined for 48.2% shooting on three's...that's probably been the biggest factor (other than Dame), and that's almost certainly not a sustainable conversion rate. Those three also combine for an assisted FG rate of at least 70%, much higher on three's, so that also tends to skew assist and passing numbers

you mentioned it appeared the team was 'passing better'. I wondered about that because I was thinking it looked like more of the same ....so, I looked up the numbers:

last season, as we all know, Portland was dead last in the league in assists per game at 19.5. That was even worse than the iso-heavy Roy/Nate team in 2008-09.

Portland has only improved to 20.1 assists/game from last year's 19.5, and that's a function of a higher pace rather than a more fluid offense. Last season, Portland's assisted FG rate was 49.6%; this season, it has dropped to 47.9%. That's not good. CJ's rate has increased a little, Dame's has dropped a little, and Turner's rate has dropped to less than half what it was last season, and he's shooting more

you're right that the bench appears to be passing well. Last season, the Blazer bench averaged 5.2 assists/game with an assisted FG rate of 49.1%. This season, the bench is averaging 10 assists/ game with an assisted FG rate of 63.7%. But again, those numbers appear skewed by the hot starts of Collins and Stauskas

but that just goes to highlight the issues in the starters. Last season, extrapolating from the bench numbers, they averaged 14.3 assists/game. This season, my gawd, that is down to 10.1 assists/game and Lillard is accounting for 6 of those

the trends for this team are a worry. Sure, they are 5-2, but those vulnerabilities that were exposed last season don't appear to be fixed...at all. And while the bench may offer better support than last year, it wasn't really the Blazer bench that failed in the playoffs last season. It was the starting lineup

Yeah that is what it looked like to me, the starters continuing their lack of passing while the bench has a few lineups that have moved the ball well. I also think POR as a team is not very disciplined when things get tough. They are decent, but too often their execution becomes sloppy when they need to be locked in. Lillard sometimes hero balls the way out of issues, but that isn't always going to work.

[Wizenheimer]

Yeah that is what it looked like to me, the starters continuing their lack of passing while the bench has a few lineups that have moved the ball well. I also think POR as a team is not very disciplined when things get tough. They are decent, but too often their execution becomes sloppy when they need to be locked in. Lillard sometimes hero balls the way out of issues, but that isn't always going to work.

Portland relies on 1-on-1 basketball. Dame-CJ-Turner (and last season, Napier was in the mix). Dame is probably on the edge of elite in terms of that, but he's not as elite as Lebron or Durant, or even Curry.

and, unless the player(s) going 1-on-1 are truly elite, it's an easier offense to game-plan against. If Portland had 3 players on Dame's level going iso, maybe they'd be close enough to unstoppable to succeed that way. But CJ is nowhere near the zip-code of elite and Turner is much worse than that. And they are both ball-stoppers. All the Pelicans had to do last off-season was tilt their defense completely toward Dame and Portland was lost. Sure, CJ had a good series, numbers-wise, but he can't carry the team to wins like Dame can. not close

now, it's not just the heavy iso offense at fault. it's also that Portland is so lacking in facilitators. Dame is by far the best at running the offense, and he's not great as a PG. CJ can make plays for himself, sometimes, but he lacks the vision to involve teammates consistently and he burns thru shot clocks. And no defense will concern themselves with Turner. In fact, teams would probably welcome Turner dribbling a bunch and launching those turn-around two's often, even if he's shooting well on them. Turner isn't going to beat any team

it's simply too easy an offense to defend when a team has the time to game-plan for it. Much are issues of personnel, but some is structure. But it looks like nothing really was done during the off-season to address what was exposed in the playoffs. Stauskas and Curry for Napier and Connaughton may be an upgrade, but that isn't going to gain much ground for Portland

[zzaj]

Yeah that is what it looked like to me, the starters continuing their lack of passing while the bench has a few lineups that have moved the ball well. I also think POR as a team is not very disciplined when things get tough. They are decent, but too often their execution becomes sloppy when they need to be locked in. Lillard sometimes hero balls the way out of issues, but that isn't always going to work.

Portland relies on 1-on-1 basketball. Dame-CJ-Turner (and last season, Napier was in the mix). Dame is probably on the edge of elite in terms of that, but he's not as elite as Lebron or Durant, or even Curry.

and, unless the player(s) going 1-on-1 are truly elite, it's an easier offense to game-plan against. If Portland had 3 players on Dame's level going iso, maybe they'd be close enough to unstoppable to succeed that way. But CJ is nowhere near the zip-code of elite and Turner is much worse than that. And they are both ball-stoppers. All the Pelicans had to do last off-season was tilt their defense completely toward Dame and Portland was lost. Sure, CJ had a good series, numbers-wise, but he can't carry the team to wins like Dame can. not close

now, it's not just the heavy iso offense at fault. it's also that Portland is so lacking in facilitators. Dame is by far the best at running the offense, and he's not great as a PG. CJ can make plays for himself, sometimes, but he lacks the vision to involve teammates consistently and he burns thru shot clocks. And no defense will concern themselves with Turner. In fact, teams would probably welcome Turner dribbling a bunch and launching those turn-around two's often, even if he's shooting well on them. Turner isn't going to beat any team

it's simply too easy an offense to defend when a team has the time to game-plan for it. Much are issues of personnel, but some is structure. But it looks like nothing really was done during the off-season to address what was exposed in the playoffs. Stauskas and Curry for Napier and Connaughton may be an upgrade, but that isn't going to gain much ground for Portland

IMO, the jury is still a bit out on the second half of that sentence. From what I've seen Stauskas especially has the quickness to take players off the dribble and seems to find seams for inside passes that both Napier and Pat never saw. You played basketball, you will recall those guys that would drive to the basket and were a threat to pass up until the last instant. Stauskas seems to have a bit of that in his game...unlike Napier or Pat, who seemed to move into solely focusing on finishing at the rim a bit earlier, aka hooplock. CJ has that pretty dang bad.

Tonight will be interesting. I'll be curious to see if Stotts uses a 3 guard, Lillard/CJ/Stauskas/Aminu/Collins lineup at all. I mentioned it in the game thread, but having Stauskas as the 3rd pass out of a Lillard trap instead of Aminu or Turner might make a big difference if Stauskas can hit shots and take New Orleans players off the dribble when they rotate.

[d-train]

The only way the Blazers are better this year is if Lillard, CJ, and Nurkic are better. Of course Collins is better, but he needs to prove he can help an NBA team win.

[Norm2953]

I've been disinterested in the NBA and likely will not get more interested until January for the end
of the MLB season, NFL and the political season has my attention.

[Wizenheimer]

Spoiler:

Yeah that is what it looked like to me, the starters continuing their lack of passing while the bench has a few lineups that have moved the ball well. I also think POR as a team is not very disciplined when things get tough. They are decent, but too often their execution becomes sloppy when they need to be locked in. Lillard sometimes hero balls the way out of issues, but that isn't always going to work.

Portland relies on 1-on-1 basketball. Dame-CJ-Turner (and last season, Napier was in the mix). Dame is probably on the edge of elite in terms of that, but he's not as elite as Lebron or Durant, or even Curry.

and, unless the player(s) going 1-on-1 are truly elite, it's an easier offense to game-plan against. If Portland had 3 players on Dame's level going iso, maybe they'd be close enough to unstoppable to succeed that way. But CJ is nowhere near the zip-code of elite and Turner is much worse than that. And they are both ball-stoppers. All the Pelicans had to do last off-season was tilt their defense completely toward Dame and Portland was lost. Sure, CJ had a good series, numbers-wise, but he can't carry the team to wins like Dame can. not close

now, it's not just the heavy iso offense at fault. it's also that Portland is so lacking in facilitators. Dame is by far the best at running the offense, and he's not great as a PG. CJ can make plays for himself, sometimes, but he lacks the vision to involve teammates consistently and he burns thru shot clocks. And no defense will concern themselves with Turner. In fact, teams would probably welcome Turner dribbling a bunch and launching those turn-around two's often, even if he's shooting well on them. Turner isn't going to beat any team

it's simply too easy an offense to defend when a team has the time to game-plan for it. Much are issues of personnel, but some is structure. But it looks like nothing really was done during the off-season to address what was exposed in the playoffs

. Stauskas and Curry for Napier and Connaughton may be an upgrade, but that isn't going to gain much ground for Portland

IMO, the jury is still a bit out on the second half of that sentence. From what I've seen Stauskas especially has the quickness to take players off the dribble and seems to find seams for inside passes that both Napier and Pat never saw.

but it's a numbers game zzaj, and it's numbers for backups. Look at winshare/48 numbers for the 4 players, last year and this year:

Nik Stauskas .151
Shabazz Napier .101
Pat Connaughton .080
Seth Curry .029

last year, Napier and Connaughton combined for 5.7 winshares. Even if Stauskas stayed that high in his winshare/48 rate, he and Curry would combine for 7 winshares. And there's every reason to believe those rates will fall. The best Stauskas has ever done is a winshare/48 of .031 and his career mark is .027, less than 1/5th of what he's currently posting. Now, he's played on terrible teams so of course his winshare numbers will be anemic. But let's be real...he isn't going to maintain that rate, it just seems unsustainable.

further, that number is skewed because Portland is on a pace to win 59 games. That's not sustainable either

the point being, at least based on winshares, that the most realistic 'optimistic' projection would have Stauskas/Curry posting about 1 win more than Napier/Connaughton...which goes to my point about them not being enough of an upgrade to gain much ground on last year

[zzaj]

Spoiler:

Portland relies on 1-on-1 basketball. Dame-CJ-Turner (and last season, Napier was in the mix). Dame is probably on the edge of elite in terms of that, but he's not as elite as Lebron or Durant, or even Curry.

and, unless the player(s) going 1-on-1 are truly elite, it's an easier offense to game-plan against. If Portland had 3 players on Dame's level going iso, maybe they'd be close enough to unstoppable to succeed that way. But CJ is nowhere near the zip-code of elite and Turner is much worse than that. And they are both ball-stoppers. All the Pelicans had to do last off-season was tilt their defense completely toward Dame and Portland was lost. Sure, CJ had a good series, numbers-wise, but he can't carry the team to wins like Dame can. not close

now, it's not just the heavy iso offense at fault. it's also that Portland is so lacking in facilitators. Dame is by far the best at running the offense, and he's not great as a PG. CJ can make plays for himself, sometimes, but he lacks the vision to involve teammates consistently and he burns thru shot clocks. And no defense will concern themselves with Turner. In fact, teams would probably welcome Turner dribbling a bunch and launching those turn-around two's often, even if he's shooting well on them. Turner isn't going to beat any team

it's simply too easy an offense to defend when a team has the time to game-plan for it. Much are issues of personnel, but some is structure. But it looks like nothing really was done during the off-season to address what was exposed in the playoffs

. Stauskas and Curry for Napier and Connaughton may be an upgrade, but that isn't going to gain much ground for Portland

IMO, the jury is still a bit out on the second half of that sentence. From what I've seen Stauskas especially has the quickness to take players off the dribble and seems to find seams for inside passes that both Napier and Pat never saw.

but it's a numbers game zzaj, and it's numbers for backups. Look at winshare/48 numbers for the 4 players, last year and this year:

Nik Stauskas .151
Shabazz Napier .101
Pat Connaughton .080
Seth Curry .029

last year, Napier and Connaughton combined for 5.7 winshares. Even if Stauskas stayed that high in his winshare/48 rate, he and Curry would combine for 7 winshares. And there's every reason to believe those rates will fall. The best Stauskas has ever done is a winshare/48 of .031 and his career mark is .027, less than 1/5th of what he's currently posting. Now, he's played on terrible teams so of course his winshare numbers will be anemic. But let's be real...he isn't going to maintain that rate, it just seems unsustainable.

further, that number is skewed because Portland is on a pace to win 59 games. That's not sustainable either

the point being, at least based on winshares, that the most realistic 'optimistic' projection would have Stauskas/Curry posting about 1 win more than Napier/Connaughton...which goes to my point about them not being enough of an upgrade to gain much ground on last year

Yeah, I get all that. But IMO, this may be an example where your advanced stats aren't necessarily telling the whole picture. For one, it's still really early this year. 7 games vs. 82 games is bound to have some skew, some of which you accounted for. But for all we know Stauskas' winshares could actually go up as the season progresses and he could have a career year. Fit, system and coaching can make a big difference sometimes. We saw that tonight with Mirotic. I don't think anybody would have guessed his game was going to blossom like it has in NO.

But again, I'm owning that I could be way off base here. I could simply be my own biases WANTING to see some improvement somewhere. To me, on the surface it looks like Curry and Stauskas' ability to stretch the floor consistently has and will have a kind of trickle down effect on how the Blazer offense runs and how defenses are going to react to having two strong shooters and players that they have to respect off the dribble.

[Wizenheimer]

Spoiler:

IMO, the jury is still a bit out on the second half of that sentence. From what I've seen Stauskas especially has the quickness to take players off the dribble and seems to find seams for inside passes that both Napier and Pat never saw.

but it's a numbers game zzaj, and it's numbers for backups. Look at winshare/48 numbers for the 4 players, last year and this year:

Nik Stauskas .151
Shabazz Napier .101
Pat Connaughton .080
Seth Curry .029

last year, Napier and Connaughton combined for 5.7 winshares. Even if Stauskas stayed that high in his winshare/48 rate, he and Curry would combine for 7 winshares. And there's every reason to believe those rates will fall. The best Stauskas has ever done is a winshare/48 of .031 and his career mark is .027, less than 1/5th of what he's currently posting. Now, he's played on terrible teams so of course his winshare numbers will be anemic. But let's be real...he isn't going to maintain that rate, it just seems unsustainable.

further, that number is skewed because Portland is on a pace to win 59 games. That's not sustainable either

the point being, at least based on winshares, that the most realistic 'optimistic' projection would have Stauskas/Curry posting about 1 win more than Napier/Connaughton...which goes to my point about them not being enough of an upgrade to gain much ground on last year

But again, I'm owning that I could be way off base here. I could simply be my own biases WANTING to see some improvement somewhere. To me, on the surface it looks like Curry and Stauskas' ability to stretch the floor consistently has and will have a kind of trickle down effect on how the Blazer offense runs and how defenses are going to react to having two strong shooters and players that they have to respect off the dribble.

and you may be right

going into the season, I was thinking that Stauskas may have been a bit of an upgrade over Connaughton. It wasn't certain. But, after 8 games it seems really obvious he's a considerable upgrade. He's still a role player but he has high BBIQ. Further then that, he's proven unexpectedly good at passing and facilitating. After 8 games with Portland he's better at that than CJ after 380 games with Portland

now, mitigating all this is the probability that the entire bench is playing out of their heads right now. Staukas-Curry-Collins are a combined 34-67 on three's. That's 51%. Add Layman to that and its 41-81 on three's, still over 50%. Collins is shooting 61% on FG's when he shot 40% last season; Stauskas is shooting 47% when his career mark is 39%; Layman is shooting 57% when he entered the season shooting 29%. Even Turner...he's shooting 51% when he's never shot above 46% for a season and his career mark is 43%

all these guys are lights out right now, to their credit, but it just doesn't seem sustainable. They will regress and when they do, it will be interesting to see how the bench performs when the opponent is rebounding missed shots instead of taking the ball out of the net

[Matt800]

all these guys are lights out right now, to their credit, but it just doesn't seem sustainable. They will regress and when they do, it will be interesting to see how the bench performs when the opponent is rebounding missed shots instead of taking the ball out of the net

I think part of it is they are getting a lot of wide open shots. Aminu hit a pretty good percentage last year and isn't exactly a good shooter. I think that is because he is generally wide open. But with Curry and Stauskas especially they actually can shoot, so if they are also wide open they could shoot a high percentage.

I don't think they will maintain their current percentage but they might have career highs if they continue getting a lot of open shots.

[monopoman]

Most teams dare Aminu to shoot from 3 point range and usually it works out pretty well for them, Aminu is a streaky shooter though and he has nights where he will hit like 3 or 4 three pointers out of 5 or 6 attempts. He might be one of the most streakiest shooters in the NBA since it seems like he either can't hit a 3 to save his life or he can't possibly miss a 3.

[Sinobas]

now, mitigating all this is the probability that the entire bench is playing out of their heads right now. Staukas-Curry-Collins are a combined 34-67 on three's. That's 51%. Add Layman to that and its 41-81 on three's, still over 50%. Collins is shooting 61% on FG's when he shot 40% last season; Stauskas is shooting 47% when his career mark is 39%; Layman is shooting 57% when he entered the season shooting 29%. Even Turner...he's shooting 51% when he's never shot above 46% for a season and his career mark is 43%

all these guys are lights out right now, to their credit, but it just doesn't seem sustainable. They will regress and when they do, it will be interesting to see how the bench performs when the opponent is rebounding missed shots instead of taking the ball out of the net

But CJ and Aminu have been shooting below their average, so hopefully that will balance it out some. And I think Collin's low FG% from last year was due to youth/inexperience. He's actually a good shooter and has a good touch around the basket. He won't stay this high all year, but I think he'll continue to contribute.

[HoopsFanAZ]

1. Leaving Stauskas, Curry, and Collins open for 3’s is not a good option for other teams. The Aminu moon ball is, and will continue to be, streaky.
2. What’s missing is the Harkless stroke ... one that looks good and is surprisingly good. Layman? I want to buy-in as I was a fan of him as a draft pick and early on. He seems stuck between being beta and an alpha. A bit of quiet grit not yet there? Boxing with Lillard might help.
3. The bench shooting percentages will come down, but it’s a better bench. Eye tests from college, workouts and preseason can mislead or have me seeing what I hope to see. From time with other teams can be a picture in a different language. This Blazers bench is an early snapshot, but it’s clear to my eyes. Stauskas and Curry are a heckuva good fit. Turner has to be Boston Turner — not pair him with McCollum Turner.