Jazzfan1971 and FloppyMoose's Season Preview - The Blazers
Posted: Thu Oct 2, 2014 2:35 am
Portland Trailblazers
Projected Roster
---------------------------------
PG - Damian Lillard, Steve Blake, C.J. McCollum
SG - Wesley Matthews, Will Barton, Allen Crabbe
SF - Nicolas Batum, Dorell Wright, Victor Claver
PF - LaMarcus Aldridge, Thomas Robinson, Joel Freeland
C - Robin Lopez, Chris Kaman, Meyers Leonard
Trading Block: I don't see much on the trading block. Portland seems content to stick with their guys and whatever help they can get via draft and free agency.
Position Battle: Steve Blake vs. C.J. McCollum. If C.J. can work on his ball handling and vision a bit he could easily move into the backup PG role. But, with so few ball handlers on the team I find it more likely that Blake will hang onto the position out of necessity.
Mystery Man: Thomas Robinson. I remember thinking that Thomas Robinson had a tremendous floor if not much of a ceiling coming into the league. I thought the things he did well in college were bound to translate to the pros. So far, he's proven me wrong. But he does have moments where he steps up and you can see why he was drafted so highly. Maybe he'll find those moments more consistently this season.
Floppymusings: 48 wins. Seems a little low given the excellence last season. As of this writing I've got 3 wins I need to assign by hand (roundoff error in the model). Maybe Portland gets one of them. Jazzfan steals my thunder below - I agree with his comments on health and luck and hitting the ground running. If you look at last years expected win-loss (based on scoring differential), the Blazers were supposed to be 3 notches lower, behind GSW, IND, and MIA.
Jazzfanramblings: I had Portland 10th in the West last season. They exceeded my prediction by a fair amount. I think most of that was I had them too low. I think when you just looked at their talent on the court they surpassed where they should have finished. And that was due to two major factors. Health and continuity.
Good teams often have a lot of continuity. I should know this as a Jazz fan. The Jazz went to the playoffs like 20 straight times with basically the same roster and front office. Year after year changing very little and staying pretty healthy with excellent results. There is a lot to be said for continuity. When you come into training camp you don't have to re-invent the wheel every year, guys all ready know the offense and their roles and can instead work on finer points. That gives you an advantage especially early in the season as your team hits the ground running at near 100% efficiency where teams with new coaches and major parts are still trying to gel.
Portland started the season 25-5.
Health was the other factor in them surpassing expectations. Four of their five starters played all 82 games. The one starter who did miss games was LaMarcus Aldridge. He missed 13 games. But even that slight blemish to health was not as bad as it could have been as 8 of the 13 games were against teams with losing records and according to RealGM poster Wizenheimer all 13 games were played at home.
That level of health will be difficult to replicate.
I don't think Portland did much in the offseason to improve their team and unless they have the same level of health again this year will likely drop a few more games this year.
Projected Record - 48/34
Projected Roster
---------------------------------
PG - Damian Lillard, Steve Blake, C.J. McCollum
SG - Wesley Matthews, Will Barton, Allen Crabbe
SF - Nicolas Batum, Dorell Wright, Victor Claver
PF - LaMarcus Aldridge, Thomas Robinson, Joel Freeland
C - Robin Lopez, Chris Kaman, Meyers Leonard
Trading Block: I don't see much on the trading block. Portland seems content to stick with their guys and whatever help they can get via draft and free agency.
Position Battle: Steve Blake vs. C.J. McCollum. If C.J. can work on his ball handling and vision a bit he could easily move into the backup PG role. But, with so few ball handlers on the team I find it more likely that Blake will hang onto the position out of necessity.
Mystery Man: Thomas Robinson. I remember thinking that Thomas Robinson had a tremendous floor if not much of a ceiling coming into the league. I thought the things he did well in college were bound to translate to the pros. So far, he's proven me wrong. But he does have moments where he steps up and you can see why he was drafted so highly. Maybe he'll find those moments more consistently this season.
Floppymusings: 48 wins. Seems a little low given the excellence last season. As of this writing I've got 3 wins I need to assign by hand (roundoff error in the model). Maybe Portland gets one of them. Jazzfan steals my thunder below - I agree with his comments on health and luck and hitting the ground running. If you look at last years expected win-loss (based on scoring differential), the Blazers were supposed to be 3 notches lower, behind GSW, IND, and MIA.
Jazzfanramblings: I had Portland 10th in the West last season. They exceeded my prediction by a fair amount. I think most of that was I had them too low. I think when you just looked at their talent on the court they surpassed where they should have finished. And that was due to two major factors. Health and continuity.
Good teams often have a lot of continuity. I should know this as a Jazz fan. The Jazz went to the playoffs like 20 straight times with basically the same roster and front office. Year after year changing very little and staying pretty healthy with excellent results. There is a lot to be said for continuity. When you come into training camp you don't have to re-invent the wheel every year, guys all ready know the offense and their roles and can instead work on finer points. That gives you an advantage especially early in the season as your team hits the ground running at near 100% efficiency where teams with new coaches and major parts are still trying to gel.
Portland started the season 25-5.
Health was the other factor in them surpassing expectations. Four of their five starters played all 82 games. The one starter who did miss games was LaMarcus Aldridge. He missed 13 games. But even that slight blemish to health was not as bad as it could have been as 8 of the 13 games were against teams with losing records and according to RealGM poster Wizenheimer all 13 games were played at home.
That level of health will be difficult to replicate.
I don't think Portland did much in the offseason to improve their team and unless they have the same level of health again this year will likely drop a few more games this year.
Projected Record - 48/34
