How Good Are A Healthy Blazers? (CBS.com)

[ABM]

http://nba-facts-and-rumors.blogs.c.../entry/22748484/24598383?source=rss_blogs_NBA

Posted by Royce Young

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell ... The NBA season is right around the corner, and NBA training camp starts in just a few short weeks. To get you ready for the NBA season, we've put together 25 pop quizzes. Pencils ready? We continue our Pop Quizzes with this question...

If the Blazers can get (and stay) healthy, how good can they be?

Pretty darn good. Next question.

(What's that? I need to take 800 or so more words to explain why? OK then.)

Last season's trials for the Blazers are well documented. Greg Oden , Joel Pryzbilla , Rudy Fernandez, Brandon Roy, Nic Batum - they all missed a significant amount of time. That's like, the whole team right there.

Yet they still won 50 games and finished seventh in the West. When you start looking at old box scores from last season and some of the lineups Portland played 20, 25 and even 30 minutes a night with, it really shows you what a remarkable job Nate McMillan did last season holding it all together.

Now imagine them all healthy, all clicking for a full 82..........................

 

[THE HCP]

Props for Nate. Well deserved!

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

http://nba-facts-and-rumors.blogs.c.../entry/22748484/24598383?source=rss_blogs_NBA

Gotta admit, even when people are giving us props, they still tend to be statistical idiots.

First he mentions just how good this team was with Oden healthy (giving up 90 ppg with Oden) compared to the 96 ppg we gave up in the 62 games that Oden didn't major minutes in. So that is really one of the greatest indicators of the difference if "healthy" and Oden plays 70-80 games, we're talking about cutting 6 pts off of opponent scores.

So let's to a little high school level math here. Portland wins 41 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge and having them become the core that we run the offense through. We get Oden into the lineup for 60 games and add that to an improving Roy and Aldridge and go from 41 wins to 54 wins. We then take a small step backwards because we only get Oden for 20 games (not to mention lose Batum and Roy for a handful of games as well).

So 41 to 54 to a broken down 50. But if you read in there, he mentions that he thinks a healthy Portland might be good enough to win 50 games? Are you kidding me? Did he even do any homework? Like I said, I don't want to trash the guy for writing a positive piece on Portland, but come on. If we have a healthy Batum, Roy and Oden (along with other guys like Camby and Miller) then we would have to lose a lot of close games and OT games to only get to 55. We're easily 58-60 if healthy. The question is whether we're going to be 100% healthy between all starters, that's the reason many aren't sure we'll win 60. But when you put the "if" out there, it isn't really a question when you simply run the numbers.

 

[MARIS61]

Obviously, we'll never know.

 

[oldmangrouch]

Obviously, we'll never know.

Bingo. This belongs with the "how good would the Blazers be if they had drafted Durant/Jordan?" threads.

 

[BGrantFan]

So let's to a little high school level math here. Portland wins 41 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge and having them become the core that we run the offense through. .

Portland won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge, and running the offense through Roy and Zach Randolph, then won 41 games when running the offense through Roy and Aldridge after getting rid of Randolph. Then, 54 wins the next year, as LA and Roy improve their games, with Oden chips in with a PER of 18.1.

What was your point again? You left out an entire season.

 

[Ed O]

Portland won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge, and running the offense through Roy and Zach Randolph, then won 41 games when running the offense through Roy and Aldridge after getting rid of Randolph.

What was your point again?

That it makes no sense that the team would win the same number of games whether the team is fully healthy or as injured as they were last year.

Ed O.

 

[Ed O]

Obviously, we'll never know.

What else is going to happen? Other, I mean, than the Blazers never being healthy.

I'm interested to hear more of your insights into the unknowable.

Ed O.

 

[BGrantFan]

That it makes no sense that the team would win the same number of games whether the team is fully healthy or as injured as they were last year.

Ed O.

That's a hypothetical, though. Hypotheticals make no factual sense. The fact is the Blazers won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge. Am I wrong?

 

[The Professional Fan]

All I hope is that Nate has figured out how to appropriately navigate a full Blazers roster. The early stages of last season were quite painful.

 

[Ed O]

That's a hypothetical, though. Hypotheticals make no factual sense. The fact is the Blazers won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge. Am I wrong?

Who cares if you're wrong? We are capable of looking on the Web to see how many games we won several years ago.

This thread is about a healthy Blazers team. espn_hall_of_famer was demonstrating internal inconsistency in the CBS article.

You raised an obvious fact and then asked a question and I answered it. Whether you're wrong or not doesn't matter.

Ed O.

 

[BGrantFan]

Who cares if you're wrong? We are capable of looking on the Web to see how many games we won several years ago.



Ed O.

Apparently, not all of us are capable of doing it. Also, I still don't even understand your reply to me. You are defending an incorrect "fact". If you want to start your own thread, based on actual facts, I'll be happy to reply to it. I find this strawman tactic of yours tiresome, though, in this thread. HOF made no sense in his post; that's not my fault, is it?

 

[ABM]

That's a hypothetical, though. Hypotheticals make no factual sense. The fact is the Blazers won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge. Am I wrong?

No, but there's a difference between your core being rookies and entering into their early primes.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

That's a hypothetical, though. Hypotheticals make no factual sense. The fact is the Blazers won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge. Am I wrong?

That wasn't the point. The point was doing math with core players. As you mention, Z-bo was here in 06/07 (not to mention Jack as the PG and Roy injured half the season). So that wasn't really my starting point.

So my POINT was that we can really use 08/09 as our baseline statistically for a healthy team because we had a large number of our guys healthy that season. You take out last year because it was that random anamoly year that we DID have significant injuries that you would hope would never happen again. So now we add the current 10/11 roster improvements to that statistical baseline that we set as a healthy core team of Roy, Aldridge, Batum and Oden and you now have improved backups of Camby and Matthews to add in and how many wins would that equate to (again using the premise of the article that the Blazers DON'T suffer injuries since that is that this entire thread and the article was about)?

 

[BGrantFan]

That wasn't the point. The point was doing math with core players. As you mention, Z-bo was here in 06/07 (not to mention Jack as the PG and Roy injured half the season). So that wasn't really my starting point.

So my POINT was that we can really use 08/09 as our baseline statistically for a healthy team because we had a large number of our guys healthy that season. You take out last year because it was that random anamoly year that we DID have significant injuries that you would hope would never happen again. So now we add the current 10/11 roster improvements to that statistical baseline that we set as a healthy core team of Roy, Aldridge, Batum and Oden and you now have improved backups of Camby and Matthews to add in and how many wins would that equate to (again using the premise of the article that the Blazers DON'T suffer injuries since that is that this entire thread and the article was about)?

Thank you for clarifying your post. I appreciate it. It's still subjective, but it does make a bit more sense now.

 

[LOTBfan]

That's a hypothetical, though. Hypotheticals make no factual sense. The fact is the Blazers won 32 games after drafting Roy and Aldridge. Am I wrong?

They also won 41 games after drafting them, and it didn't in fact say in the year they were drafted... so argue something else for a bit, you are no more right than he is.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

They also won 41 games after drafting them, and it didn't in fact say in the year they were drafted... so argue something else for a bit, you are no more right than he is.

I clarified and we're good now.

It was meant as after they got drafted AND the offense was primarily ran through both of them (and not the stale offense Nate ran through Roy and Z-Bo during LMA's rookie year).

 

[Ed O]

I clarified and we're good now.

It was meant as after they got drafted AND the offense was primarily ran through both of them (and not the stale offense Nate ran through Roy and Z-Bo during LMA's rookie year).

Haha. That's what you typed the first time.

Ed O.

 

[Ed O]

Apparently, not all of us are capable of doing it. Also, I still don't even understand your reply to me. You are defending an incorrect "fact". If you want to start your own thread, based on actual facts, I'll be happy to reply to it. I find this strawman tactic of yours tiresome, though, in this thread. HOF made no sense in his post; that's not my fault, is it?

Do you want to repeat your "HOF made no sense" comment?

Or do you want to apologize for blaming me for your inability to comprehend his post?

Ed O.

 

[LOTBfan]

I clarified and we're good now.

It was meant as after they got drafted AND the offense was primarily ran through both of them (and not the stale offense Nate ran through Roy and Z-Bo during LMA's rookie year).

simultaneous posts ftw

 

[THE HCP]

If Nic and Greg play 70 + games and our core stays healthy...... we win 58-60 games!

 

[Mediocre Man]

The two things we know to be true is that this team has never proven it can stay healthy, and Nate has never proven he can coach a full roster.

 

[Nikolokolus]

The two things we know to be true is that this team has never proven it can stay healthy, and Nate has never proven he can coach a full roster.

Scrappy!

 

[blazerboy30]

The two things we know to be true is that this team has never proven it can stay healthy, and Nate has never proven he can coach a full roster.

That wasn't the question.