RealGM

The schedule came out today.

https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/2019/08/see-the-complete-portland-trail-blazers-2019-20-schedule.html

Brutal schedule to start.

Court design for the 50th anniversary season:

13 of the 1st 18 games on the road. The 1st home game against Nuggets will almost certainly be a loss. The Nuggets have had a long summer to mentally prepare for their revenge match.

It might be a rough start of the season.

Well if you think this team will be weaker without Nurkic prob best to have a tough schedule to start the season. Then Nurk comes back and makes a big impact and we rise in the standings.

If this team can play .500 ball before Nurkic comes back or better we will be in pretty good shape. We also had quite a bit of roster turnover so it will take a while for the pieces of this team to start working together, meaning that the first 20ish games should be tougher to win due to that.

Shem wrote:Count design for the 50th anniversary season:

That’s slick.

The acquisition of Whiteside diminishes greatly the value of Nurkic. We have 1a and 1b centers now. There is no clear 1 and it will take some time to figure out who is "a" and who is "b".

Do you guys have any clue of when the tickets sale start?

I'll probably realize my dream of traveling from Brazil to Portland in the exact week of our season debut, and I'm refreshing the tickets page on an hourly basis to guarantee my tickets. But got nothing so far.

I can't lose this opportunity.

I'm usually a fan of having the "tough" part of the schedule early. Everybody is fresher, things haven't been as deeply scouted, sometimes you can catch teams off guard and out of sync...in this case, early this year may especially be favorable to the Blazers in that regard, as I'm sure they are going to have to tweak things slightly with such a turnover in the roster. The previous 4 years of scouting reports are slightly out the window...

Easy games are easier at the end of the season when the losers know they are losers.

the Dame-CJ teams have been notorious for poor starts to the seasons:

2015-16.....11-20 (44 wins)
2016-17.....13-18 & 18-27 (41 wins)
2017-18.....13-13 & 22-21(49 wins)

2018-19.....12-5 & 24-17 at half-way (53 wins and by far the easiest opening schedule of the 4 seasons)

the first 28 games of next season's schedule are just brutal. Then, factor in Nurkic being out, Portland running with 3 new starters, and that 8 rotation players (counting Meyers) are gone from last year's squad. The only rotation players returning are Dame-CJ-Hood-Zach. That's a lot of uncertainty and if Zach and Hood are starters, they could easily struggle adjusting to new roles.

sure, if Portland comes thru the first 30 games at .500, they could be set up for another 2nd half of season surge. But the Blazers could easily struggle because of all the new players and all the new roles. The last time they had that much turnover, they were 11-20 at the 31 game mark. If they repeat that, they'd have to go 39-12 (63 win pace) over the remaining season just to hit the 50 win mark.

still, what matters most is how they are playing to close the season. Even if they don't have HCA in the opening round, if they are healthy and playing well that wouldn't matter

Lillard and CJ have been notorious strong finishers. Didn't help them while losing those big leads against the Warriors in the semifinals.

I think we are finally going to have a good start. Our new supporting players are going to be energized by their new more favorable situation. And, Lillard and CJ are going to be better than ever.

acidfrehley wrote:Do you guys have any clue of when the tickets sale start?

I'll probably realize my dream of traveling from Brazil to Portland in the exact week of our season debut, and I'm refreshing the tickets page on an hourly basis to guarantee my tickets. But got nothing so far.

I can't lose this opportunity.

There is a 100% chance you can get tickets the day of the game through the blazers resale site. You will pay the market price, which could be higher or lower than the face value. But if you can afford it you will be able to get Tix. Opening night will probably be on the expensive side.

I have a hunch opening night will be better for Nuggets fans than Blazers fans. I will be satisfied if Blazers make it a good game. We have 81 other games.