Blazers 2025-26 West predictions

[SharpesTriumph]

Now that all the NBA off-season dates have passed and we likely have the Blazers roster rotational players finalized what is your prediction of where the Blazers will finish in the West?

 

[SharpesTriumph]

Haslem had a pretty good ranking of top5 teams on NBA today.... 4/5 are in the West

5 Minny
4 Cavs
3 Nuggets
2 Rockets
1 Thunder

Tim Legler agreed but flipped 2/3

West will be brutal next season.

 

[BigGameDamian]

I think the Nuggets got a lot better!

 

[GoZers]

Lottery. If all goes well for Cronin right near the end of the lottery.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

We've traded our best guard and agreed to a buyout for our best center.

I have no problems with either move.

But this team is not making the playoffs.

Any Flaggs in next year's draft?

 

[Five Second Violation]

We've traded our best guard and agreed to a buyout for our best center.

I have no problems with either move.

But this team is not making the playoffs.

Any Flaggs in next year's draft?

I agree, but on the flip side you could argue that:

1. Holiday even with his injuries was clearly still a better/more impactful player than Simons last year and likely will still be better this season as well.
2. We were 19-23 without Ayton last year... and 17-23 with him. Addition by subtraction perhaps?

I do think the West continues to get better and better, so I don't see us moving up in the standings.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

I agree, but on the flip side you could argue that:

1. Holiday even with his injuries was clearly still a better/more impactful player than Simons last year and likely will still be better this season as well.
2. We were 19-23 without Ayton last year... and 17-23 with him. Addition by subtraction perhaps?

I do think the West continues to get better and better, so I don't see us moving up in the standings.

Next season won't be boring, that's for sure.

 

[THE HCP]

I agree, but on the flip side you could argue that:

1. Holiday even with his injuries was clearly still a better/more impactful player than Simons last year and likely will still be better this season as well.
2. We were 19-23 without Ayton last year... and 17-23 with him. Addition by subtraction perhaps?

I do think the West continues to get better and better, so I don't see us moving up in the standings.

Confused when people always do the, “wins with him and wins without him” thing. Was our roster exactly the same in both situations? And what was the strength of schedule. Missing 3 starters playing at OKC with him would be a loss. Missing just him and us playing against Utah at home would be a win……. Never liked that “stat”.

 

[THE HCP]

As of right now….we are definitely NOT better than last season.

 

[Chris Craig]

We've traded our best guard and agreed to a buyout for our best center.

I have no problems with either move.

But this team is not making the playoffs.

Any Flaggs in next year's draft?

Yeah, some red flags

 

[SlyPokerDog]

As of right now….we are definitely NOT better than last season.

Not with that attitude we're not.

What if half the league tears their Achilles? We could be in the right place at the right time.

 

[blazerkor]

Last season the 9th seed in the west was 2 games under .500. We need both Scoot and Shaedon to pop big time along with Clingan and Yang to both be serviceable bigs by the trade deadline. If that all happens we can win 44 games and that should be enough to be the 8th or 9th seed. We need to get into the playoffs this sesaon both as a gauge for how our young core is doing and to be able to move on from Olshey's last gift to the team.

I think we end up in the ninth seed, we win both play-in games and we win two games in the first round to take our first steps toward contention. The core needs to be Scoot, Shaedon, Tou, Deni, Clingan, Yang and some guys that we don't have yet hopefully three and D guys.

 

[Five Second Violation]

Confused when people always do the, “wins with him and wins without him” thing. Was our roster exactly the same in both situations? And what was the strength of schedule. Missing 3 starters playing at OKC with him would be a loss. Missing just him and us playing against Utah at home would be a win……. Never liked that “stat”.

I think at the very least it implies that he didn't have a big, tangible impact on our performance last season. 42 games is a significant sample size without him.

 

[GoZers]

We've traded our best guard and agreed to a buyout for our best center.

I have no problems with either move.

But this team is not making the playoffs.

Any Flaggs in next year's draft?

Next year has some very good players. Probably 3 who stand out above the rest. Joe is hoping we can nab one of them at 11

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Next year has some very good players. Probably 3 who stand out above the rest. Joe is hoping we can nab one of them at 11

Any of them a center?

 

[GoZers]

Any of them a center?

No. But Joe knows things that no one else knows so hold on to your shorts it’s gonna be interesting

 

[Cugel]

In the west, LAL LAC SAS and GSW could all be strong too. The teams with lots of issues/unknowns are NOP, SAC, UTA, MEM, and POR. I assume Utah is tanking and the Pels could be a mess. If Zion is healthy, though, he could be an easy all star. POR would have to maintain their strong defense they ended the season with AND have MIP type seasons from Scoot or Shae AND Deni as a borderline all star caliber guy.

 

[inconceivable]

As of right now….we are definitely NOT better than last season.

you sound like you believe we're not done making moves

 

[wizenheimer]

In the west, LAL LAC SAS and GSW could all be strong too. The teams with lots of issues/unknowns are NOP, SAC, UTA, MEM, and POR. I assume Utah is tanking and the Pels could be a mess. If Zion is healthy, though, he could be an easy all star. POR would have to maintain their strong defense they ended the season with AND have MIP type seasons from Scoot or Shae AND Deni as a borderline all star caliber guy.

I really don't believe Memphis got worse and they won 48 games last season. In fact, they essentially traded Bane for KCP, Ty Jerome, and Cole Anthony. If Ja doesn't combust Memphis could be pretty good

Kings? If Sabonis-LaVine-Derozan-Monk can develop some synergy, they might be better, and they were 4 wins better than Portland last year

 

[SharpesTriumph]

Crazy that we were 14th in the West betting odds.

Teams I think are clearly better than us;
1 OKC
2 Houston
3 Denver
4 Wolves
5 Warriors

Teams I expect to be better than us but wouldn't be surprised if we we're better than;
6 Spurs
7 Mavs
8 Clippers
9 Lakers
10 Grizz

Teams I think are worse than us
12 Suns
13 Kings
14 Pels
15 Jazz

My guess is one team in the top 5 has injuries or some other issue. I think we will try pretty hard all season and pickup wins especially late in the year when half the league stops trying. I'll go with 8th

 

[SharpesTriumph]

Kind of surprised most Blazers fans are picking 9th or worse. That would make paying $105 million to Jrue a fail IMO.

 

[wizenheimer]

Kind of surprised most Blazers fans are picking 9th or worse. That would make paying $105 million to Jrue a fail IMO.

well, if you boil it down to winshares = wins, so far, the Blazers have lost:

Anfernee Simons 4.2
Deandre Ayton 2.8
Jabari Walker 2.0
Dalano Banton 0.8

9.8 winshares. From 36 wins to 26? Very unlikely that Jrue, at 35, & Yang can make all that up; might not even get halfway there. So it will have to come from growth of the rest of the roster. You'd expect a chunk of it will come from Thybulle playing more than 15 games. Maybe Sharpe will step up; maybe Avdija will play well all year. Clingan was 3rd on the team in winshares/48 and won't be stuck behind Ayton

a .500 record would have been good for 9th last season. 8th seed had 48 wins and that's an extremely high bar for this Blazer team. Below 48 wins = 9th, 10th, or the lottery. Pretty logical to land on that projection

 

[SharpeScooterShooter]

well, if you boil it down to winshares = wins, so far, the Blazers have lost:

Anfernee Simons 4.2
Deandre Ayton 2.8
Jabari Walker 2.0
Dalano Banton 0.8

9.8 winshares. From 36 wins to 26? Very unlikely that Jrue, at 35, & Yang can make all that up; might not even get halfway there. So it will have to come from growth of the rest of the roster. You'd expect a chunk of it will come from Thybulle playing more than 15 games. Maybe Sharpe will step up; maybe Avdija will play well all year. Clingan was 3rd on the team in winshares/48 and won't be stuck behind Ayton

a .500 record would have been good for 9th last season. 8th seed had 48 wins and that's an extremely high bar for this Blazer team. Below 48 wins = 9th, 10th, or the lottery. Pretty logical to land on that projection

This win-share stat confuses me. Didn't Clingan have a better winshare? So having him start instead of Ayton should theoretically improve our wins?

 

[wizenheimer]

This win-share stat confuses me. Didn't Clingan have a better winshare? So having him start instead of Ayton should theoretically improve our wins?

I noted that

but it's just math. Clingan's winshare/48 was .144; Ayton's was .113. That's a .031/48 differential which isn't much. Say he plays 700 more minutes next season than last season when he played 1324 minutes. So, 1324+700/48 X .144. That would bump Clingan's winshares from 4.0 to 6.1. But that 2.1 winshare increases doesn't fully offset Ayton's 2.8 winshares

now, if Clingan gets better next season, for example .155 winshares rather than .144, he'd generate 6.5 winshares. Still not quite a full offset from Ayton. You also have to account for the rest of the non-starter C minutes. Last season the non-Ayton C's produced 6.3 winshares (Clingan 4.0; Timelord 1.3; Reath 1.0). Taking Clingan out of that group means that Timelord/Yang/Reath will have to generate 6.3 to break even. Even accounting for Clingan possibly generating around 6, the backups would have to generate at least 3.0 for Portland to break even with last season

Obviously, winshares are an estimation of a player's share of what the team did and that isn't necessarily equivalent to impact or actual wins. Advanced stats tend to favor bigs a little too much, IMO

 

[SharpeScooterShooter]

I noted that

but it's just math. Clingan's winshare/48 was .144; Ayton's was .113. That's a .031/48 differential which isn't much. Say he plays 700 more minutes next season than last season when he played 1324 minutes. So, 1324+700/48 X .144. That would bump Clingan's winshares from 4.0 to 6.1. But that 2.1 winshare increases doesn't fully offset Ayton's 2.8 winshares

now, if Clingan gets better next season, for example .155 winshares rather than .144, he'd generate 6.5 winshares. Still not quite a full offset from Ayton. You also have to account for the rest of the non-starter C minutes. Last season the non-Ayton C's produced 6.3 winshares (Clingan 4.0; Timelord 1.3; Reath 1.0). Taking Clingan out of that group means that Timelord/Yang/Reath will have to generate 6.3 to break even. Even accounting for Clingan possibly generating around 6, the backups would have to generate at least 3.0 for Portland to break even with last season

Obviously, winshares are an estimation of a player's share of what the team did and that isn't necessarily equivalent to impact or actual wins. Advanced stats tend to favor bigs a little too much, IMO

Do you think Clingan/Scoot and Sharpe will continue ti improv this year?

this is the context i think continually gets overlooked. Your math is based on last years numbers, comparing a vet to a rookie.
I think its safe to assume the rookie improves?

I think the improvement alone would offset the winshares. Or i hope it will at least. Do you think that isnt realistic?

 

[wizenheimer]

Do you think Clingan/Scoot and Sharpe will continue ti improv this year?

this is the context i think continually gets overlooked. Your math is based on last years numbers, comparing a vet to a rookie.
I think its safe to assume the rookie improves?

I think the improvement alone would offset the winshares. Or i hope it will at least. Do you think that isnt realistic?

did you really read what I posted? I was accounting for all that

 

[e_blazer]

Barring any more moves by the Blazers, I'd say they end up in the lottery again. Probably 2nd or 3rd worst in the West, maybe 8th or 9th worst overall when the LEast is factored in. OTOH, when you consider injuries to star players like we've seen around the league, anything could happen.

 

[SharpeScooterShooter]

did you really read what I posted? I was accounting for all that

did you read my question and then read what you wrote? You did not address scoot or sharpe.
Please quote where you addressed scoot snd sharpe potentially improving?

You addressed the center position only…..

 

[SharpeScooterShooter]

well, if you boil it down to winshares = wins, so far, the Blazers have lost:

Anfernee Simons 4.2
Deandre Ayton 2.8
Jabari Walker 2.0
Dalano Banton 0.8

9.8 winshares. From 36 wins to 26? Very unlikely that Jrue, at 35, & Yang can make all that up; might not even get halfway there. So it will have to come from growth of the rest of the roster. You'd expect a chunk of it will come from Thybulle playing more than 15 games. Maybe Sharpe will step up; maybe Avdija will play well all year. Clingan was 3rd on the team in winshares/48 and won't be stuck behind Ayton

a .500 record would have been good for 9th last season. 8th seed had 48 wins and that's an extremely high bar for this Blazer team. Below 48 wins = 9th, 10th, or the lottery. Pretty logical to land on that projection

I noted that

but it's just math. Clingan's winshare/48 was .144; Ayton's was .113. That's a .031/48 differential which isn't much. Say he plays 700 more minutes next season than last season when he played 1324 minutes. So, 1324+700/48 X .144. That would bump Clingan's winshares from 4.0 to 6.1. But that 2.1 winshare increases doesn't fully offset Ayton's 2.8 winshares

now, if Clingan gets better next season, for example .155 winshares rather than .144, he'd generate 6.5 winshares. Still not quite a full offset from Ayton. You also have to account for the rest of the non-starter C minutes. Last season the non-Ayton C's produced 6.3 winshares (Clingan 4.0; Timelord 1.3; Reath 1.0). Taking Clingan out of that group means that Timelord/Yang/Reath will have to generate 6.3 to break even. Even accounting for Clingan possibly generating around 6, the backups would have to generate at least 3.0 for Portland to break even with last season

Obviously, winshares are an estimation of a player's share of what the team did and that isn't necessarily equivalent to impact or actual wins. Advanced stats tend to favor bigs a little too much, IMO

I read nothing discussing potential improvement of scoot and Sharpe offsetting winshares…..other than Sharpe may step up?


My question is we have 3-5 young plYers who are expected to improve. Will that not offset the win-shares and possibly even make is better than last year if they improve enough?


Sometimes addition by subtraction adds up to more.
To me, these moves make us better. Not worse like many think, obviously as long as the youth continue to improv.

 

[wizenheimer]

did you read my question and then read what you wrote? You did not address scoot or sharpe.
Please quote where you addressed scoot snd sharpe potentially improving?

You addressed the center position only…..

.
that's not true....I said:

well, if you boil it down to winshares = wins, so far, the Blazers have lost:

Anfernee Simons 4.2
Deandre Ayton 2.8
Jabari Walker 2.0
Dalano Banton 0.8

9.8 winshares. From 36 wins to 26? Very unlikely that Jrue, at 35, & Yang can make all that up; might not even get halfway there. So it will have to come from growth of the rest of the roster. You'd expect a chunk of it will come from Thybulle playing more than 15 games. Maybe Sharpe will step up; maybe Avdija will play well all year. Clingan was 3rd on the team in winshares/48 and won't be stuck behind Ayton

a .500 record would have been good for 9th last season. 8th seed had 48 wins and that's an extremely high bar for this Blazer team. Below 48 wins = 9th, 10th, or the lottery. Pretty logical to land on that projection

notice I mentioned Simons, Walker, Banton, Jrue, Thybulle, Sharpe, and Avdija. Are all 7 of those guys C's?

I was simply replying to the question of why most posters have predicted 9th seed, or lower for next season using winshares last season as an explanation.

enough with you asking me to justify my prediction. How about you justifying why you have the most homerific prediction of anybody: 6th seed. Last season it would have taken 49-50 wins to reach 6th seed

using last season and winshares again, Blazers had 36 wins and 10 of those, according to winshares were from the 4 departing Blazers. So, a rough starting point of 26 wins meaning new additions and exiting player improvement have to generate 23-24 wins to reach 6th seed. That's an extremely tall order

or, put it another way using last season:



which 3 of those 8 teams will the Blazers be better than this year?