If there are no major trades, How many wins?

[Further]

If there are no major trades, How many wins do you expect the Blazers to get this upcoming season. I expect the team to be more skilled this year just based on learning cure, but then again I think the Blazers overachieved last season to their win total was inflated.

I think a lot will depend on the growth of Oden and Bayless. If both show great improvement, the skies the limit with this team. If Only Oden shows great improvement, then that alone should be good for a few more wins. If only Bayless shows great improvement, I will be depressed because I think this team needs Oden. I am not that worried about the SF position because I think Batum will improve, and a combo of Batum, Outlaw, Webster and Rudy should be enough to get the job done. As far as BU PF, I just hope something works out with the fresh meat or we make a minor signing to shore up that spot.

Last year - 54 wins
This season - 57 wins
Post season - second round

 

[Idog1976]

If there are no major trades, How many wins do you expect the Blazers to get this upcoming season. I expect the team to be more skilled this year just based on learning cure, but then again I think the Blazers overachieved last season to their win total was inflated.

I think a lot will depend on the growth of Oden and Bayless. If both show great improvement, the skies the limit with this team. If Only Oden shows great improvement, then that alone should be good for a few more wins. If only Bayless shows great improvement, I will be depressed because I think this team needs Oden. I am not that worried about the SF position because I think Batum will improve, and a combo of Batum, Outlaw, Webster and Rudy should be enough to get the job done. As far as BU PF, I just hope something works out with the fresh meat or we make a minor signing to shore up that spot.

Last year - 54 wins
This season - 57 wins
Post season - second round

I agree almost across the board. However, if Oden comes out dominant and we stay healthy I pencil us in for 60.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

Last year - 54 wins
This season - 57 wins
Post season - second round

I agree!

 

[SodaPopinski]

If no trades, I'd drop us down to about 50 wins. There's no way we beat San Antonio three times again this year, the L*kers have a chance to steal a game in Portland, and I could see some of the lower-tier teams who have improved (Wolves, Clippers, Warriors, Kings) getting over on us once or twice more this next year.

 

[Tyler_Hansbrough]

I agree almost across the board. However, if Oden comes out dominant and we stay healthy I pencil us in for 60.

I agree with this.

 

[Mediocre Man]

If nothing else happens for any team, and no one gets seriously injured on any team....

51 wins

6th seed. (LA, SA, UT, DEN, DAL, POR, PHO, HOU

First round loss

 

[Minstrel]

If there are no major trades, How many wins do you expect the Blazers to get this upcoming season. I expect the team to be more skilled this year just based on learning cure, but then again I think the Blazers overachieved last season to their win total was inflated.

Why do you feel their win total was inflated? They weren't especially lucky with close games...their point differential was second-best in the West and fifth-best in the NBA.

Last year - 54 wins
This season - 57 wins
Post season - second round

I think those are reasonable projections. Every marginal win is harder to get, so a 3 win improvement would actually a signify a significantly better team. I think second round is the low end of reasonable expectation and WCF is the high end of reasonable expectation.

Anything beyond WCF is a bit unrealistic, though not impossible.

 

[alex42083]

54-55 wins again would make me happy. That's not a bad record by any means. I do expect us to win a couple more road games against Western Conference playoff teams.. we were what, 1-11 last year? If we go 4-8 or something if those games, we're at 57 wins but I expect things to balance out and put us back at 54-55.

And anything less than reaching the second round of the playoffs would be very disappointing.

 

[LittleAlex]

It pretty much depends on Oden, though if Roy and LA's contract situations are up in the air next year that could be a big distraction.

So, if everything goes well I would guess 56 wins with a second round exit from the playoffs.

If everything goes wrong I would say 44 wins, no playoff birth and Nate is not retained as the coach. Also, the still growing Blazermania movement will die on the vine.

Here to hoping everything goes well.

 

[andalusian]

Assuming contract negotiations done properly and sealed before the season (don't repeat the Chicago mistakes with Deng/Gordon from a couple of years back) and Oden does what I expect him next year - 59 wins and at least the Western conference finals.

 

[Pinwheel1]

I think 6 of the 8 playoff teams in the West will win less games. Lakers and Spurs being the two that will stay the same or win more. I think the last two years of having to win 50 to make the playoffs will get back to the norm. I see us right around 50-52

 

[Crimson the Cat]

59 wins. WCF.

 

[hasoos]

51 wins. Nothing has changed yet, Roy is carrying most of the load still. The Blazers will not surprise anybody this year, and I would be highly surprised if other teams had the health issues they had last year, not the Blazers. The amount of injuries on other teams we took advantage of was huge last year. I don't see that happening 2 years in a row.

 

[Minstrel]

51 wins. Nothing has changed yet, Roy is carrying most of the load still. The Blazers will not surprise anybody this year, and I would be highly surprised if other teams had the health issues they had last year, not the Blazers. The amount of injuries on other teams we took advantage of was huge last year. I don't see that happening 2 years in a row.

So will the Blazers also not have their injuries (to Oden, Blake and Roy) taken advantage of?

I'm okay with other teams not losing players to injury if the Blazers also don't.

 

[hasoos]

So will the Blazers also not have their injuries (to Oden, Blake and Roy) taken advantage of?

I'm okay with other teams not losing players to injury if the Blazers also don't.

Actually I will be surprised if we come through as unscathed as we did last year.

Who cares if Blake gets hurt, we didn't miss a step with him out. In fact, if you go back and look, you will note that Sergio and Bayless actually averaged less turnovers than he did by quite a bit while he was out. So they did what he did, without the outside shooting.

The Blazers injury issues came no where near close to what other teams experienced last year, and the Blazers took advantage of many of those injuries to get W's. Between Utah, San Antonio and New Orleans, they pretty much were completely decimated by injuries through out very large portions of the year. Boston too with KG. I view the Blazers injury issues as insignificant compared to losing Derron Williams, Boozer, and Milsap for large portions of the season. The same with losing Manu Ginobili for almost all the season, and the playoffs. The same with New Orleans being beat up from top to bottom, with Tyson Chandler being a part time player, Chris Paul beat all to hell, and David West was no where near the same player he was even though he played through it. Throw in Peja's back issues, and I don't think we have anything to bitch about. Whats next? Going to bring up what a huge loss Martell Webster was through the year? That is surely on the same level as the injuries I just mentioned

 

[Iwatas]

58 wins, WCF.

Aldridge will continue to improve. So will Roy and Rudy and Batum. If Oden can avoid foul trouble even a bit better (give us 5-10 minutes more per game) then it will be a much better team that last year.

60 wins is a stretch, and we got lucky in a lot of squeakers last year. But I see 58.

iWatas

 

[Minstrel]

Actually I will be surprised if we come through as unscathed as we did last year.

Losing a really good center like Oden is far from "unscathed." Roy isn't a bad player, neither.

Who cares if Blake gets hurt, we didn't miss a step with him out. In fact, if you go back and look, you will note that Sergio and Bayless actually averaged less turnovers than he did by quite a bit while he was out. So they did what he did, without the outside shooting.

Outside shooting matters. I was encouraged by the flashes Bayless showed while Blake was out, but the team definitely was worse offensively and defensively at the position when Blake was hurt. Blake is no great shakes, but Bayless right now is significantly worse.

I view the Blazers injury issues as insignificant compared to losing Derron Williams, Boozer, and Milsap for large portions of the season. The same with losing Manu Ginobili for almost all the season, and the playoffs. The same with New Orleans being beat up from top to bottom, with Tyson Chandler being a part time player, Chris Paul beat all to hell, and David West was no where near the same player he was even though he played through it.

And Roy wasn't "beat all to hell?" I agree Utah and San Antonio had more injury problems. That's two teams. It's a stretch to say New Orleans was hit harder because their players were "beat up." That happens to all teams. Two Western playoff teams had more injury problems. The implication that Portland was fortunate based on relative injuries is pretty off-base, IMO. Portland had more injury concerns than some, less than two other teams.

And no, you'll notice I did not mention Webster in my original post. I don't consider him consequential.

 

[Ed O]

I'd be happy with 52-54 wins.

Ed O.

 

[Further]

Why do you feel their win total was inflated? They weren't especially lucky with close games...their point differential was second-best in the West and fifth-best in the NBA.

This is a very good question as I don't have a real good answer, that is just based mostly on gut feeling. It really might be perception on my part because when I see the Blazers, I see a ton of youth with lots of room to grow, so I assume that a team of players that is 60% of what they are capable of becoming can't possibly win 54 wins without overachieving. I guess I still look at our Blazers as a team with a ton of potential and but not there yet. If I accept that they won 54 games without overachieving, then I will expect them to win 60+ games this season with a little bit of natural growth, and anything less will be disappointing. So as not to become bummed, I choose to think that last year was a semi-fluke so as not to get my hopes up. I know you did not ask that question looking for me to become introspective and take a seat on the iCouch, but that's what you got.

 

[STOMP]

Last year I went with 55 if they were lucky with health. They weren't, but they weren't snakebitten either... so if anything the 54 wins exceeded my prediction. This is a very solid young club.

Same * added this year, but I'll bump my prediction up to 60 wins. They got better as the season went along last year often blowing out good teams down the stretch. Next year I expect them to enter the elite team conversation. A WCF appearance is not far fetched.

STOMP

 

[hasoos]

Losing a really good center like Oden is far from "unscathed." Roy isn't a bad player, neither.



Outside shooting matters. I was encouraged by the flashes Bayless showed while Blake was out, but the team definitely was worse offensively and defensively at the position when Blake was hurt. Blake is no great shakes, but Bayless right now is significantly worse.



And Roy wasn't "beat all to hell?" I agree Utah and San Antonio had more injury problems. That's two teams. It's a stretch to say New Orleans was hit harder because their players were "beat up." That happens to all teams. Two Western playoff teams had more injury problems. The implication that Portland was fortunate based on relative injuries is pretty off-base, IMO. Portland had more injury concerns than some, less than two other teams.

And no, you'll notice I did not mention Webster in my original post. I don't consider him consequential.

You can try and compare Greg Odens loss to those if you want, but I don't think that it makes the same impact with the playing time problems he had last year due to foul trouble. I will agree though that I thought Greg was turning things around when it interrupted him, and that did hurt.

You comparing Roy's beat to hell vs Chris Pauls is a joke. I know Roy was beat up, he is my favorite player in the league. But when I watched Chris Paul play, it was way more than obvious he was having a hard time going at all. He wasn't just beat up. He had got beat up and lost his crew backing him and was carrying way too much of the load through the season. Argue all you want. Go back and watch the tape of Chris Paul playing for New Orleans against Denver in the playoffs, and then tell me he wasn't way more than beat up. You can throw all the stats, arguments you want. Go watch the tape, and you will see.

Then you still go on to ignore the fact that Deron Williams played with a severe injury through out the year, and never got up to full game speed all year long. He missed 14 games. He is Utah's equivelent of Roy. Boozer missed 45 games. He is their Aldridge in the scheme of things.

Peja Stojacovich missed 21 games. Tyson Chandler missed 38 games. Yep the Blazers sure had a lot of injuries compared to that.

How about compared to losing KG for half the season and playoffs. The Blazer injuries sure do come close to having that kind of impact.

Even the Nuggets lost Carmello for 16 games, although a few of them were actually for being suspended due to technicals.

What happened to Portland, well we lost Roy for 3 games. Wow that sure is a big hit on the team compared to what is listed above. Oh and Steve Blake, that hit from him being out really compares too. The only thing that comes remotely close was Oden, and he was a backup at the time he got hurt, so how much effect did it really have?

Portland will not be so fortunate to have other teams hurt so much next year. If they do, they got lucky.

 

[Minstrel]

You can try and compare Greg Odens loss to those if you want
...
Then you still go on to ignore the fact that Deron Williams played with a severe injury through out the year, and never got up to full game speed all year long. He missed 14 games. He is Utah's equivelent of Roy. Boozer missed 45 games. He is their Aldridge in the scheme of things.

If you'd bother to read before posting a response, you'd have realized that I said Utah and San Antonio had more injury problems than Portland.

You comparing Roy's beat to hell vs Chris Pauls is a joke. I know Roy was beat up, he is my favorite player in the league. But when I watched Chris Paul play, it was way more than obvious he was having a hard time going at all. He wasn't just beat up. He had got beat up and lost his crew backing him and was carrying way too much of the load through the season. Argue all you want. Go back and watch the tape of Chris Paul playing for New Orleans against Denver in the playoffs, and then tell me he wasn't way more than beat up. You can throw all the stats, arguments you want. Go watch the tape, and you will see.

I didn't "throw" a single stat. Are you even responding to me? You don't seem to have read a word of my post.

And yes, I watched lots of Paul. He's among my favourite non-Blazers to watch. He played through injuries, but Roy did too and both had similar responsibility in terms of carrying the offensive load and running the offense. You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't think there was much difference between Paul and Roy being "beaten up."

Peja Stojakovic is hardly an impact player. He's declining and last year he was comparable to Martell Webster. Remember, the guy you didn't even want to hear about? You're just throwing out anything you can, hoping something sticks.

And what's the relevance of bringing up Garnett? Do the Celtics play in the West (as I expressly limited my comments to the West) or did you forget that Garnett is no longer on the Timberwolves? If we widen this to the whole NBA, it actually looks better for the Blazers. Yes, the Celtics had more injury problems than Portland, but the Magic and Cavs didn't. So, three teams among the contenders and semi-contenders had more injury problems than Portland (San Antonio, Utah and Boston) and the rest had comparable or fewer than Portland.

Portland, at worst, was about average in terms of injury. I don't think they were particularly "fortunate" in terms of injuries, relative to other contenders/semi-contenders.

 

[Wizard Mentor]

You can try and compare Greg Odens loss to those if you want, but I don't think that it makes the same impact with the playing time problems he had last year due to foul trouble. I will agree though that I thought Greg was turning things around when it interrupted him, and that did hurt.

You comparing Roy's beat to hell vs Chris Pauls is a joke. I know Roy was beat up, he is my favorite player in the league. But when I watched Chris Paul play, it was way more than obvious he was having a hard time going at all. He wasn't just beat up. He had got beat up and lost his crew backing him and was carrying way too much of the load through the season. Argue all you want. Go back and watch the tape of Chris Paul playing for New Orleans against Denver in the playoffs, and then tell me he wasn't way more than beat up. You can throw all the stats, arguments you want. Go watch the tape, and you will see.

Then you still go on to ignore the fact that Deron Williams played with a severe injury through out the year, and never got up to full game speed all year long. He missed 14 games. He is Utah's equivelent of Roy. Boozer missed 45 games. He is their Aldridge in the scheme of things.

Peja Stojacovich missed 21 games. Tyson Chandler missed 38 games. Yep the Blazers sure had a lot of injuries compared to that.

How about compared to losing KG for half the season and playoffs. The Blazer injuries sure do come close to having that kind of impact.

Even the Nuggets lost Carmello for 16 games, although a few of them were actually for being suspended due to technicals.

What happened to Portland, well we lost Roy for 3 games. Wow that sure is a big hit on the team compared to what is listed above. Oh and Steve Blake, that hit from him being out really compares too. The only thing that comes remotely close was Oden, and he was a backup at the time he got hurt, so how much effect did it really have?

Portland will not be so fortunate to have other teams hurt so much next year. If they do, they got lucky.

I'm not going to comment on whether Roy or Paul got beat up more. However, later you ignore the fact that our starting SF was injured the entire year.

As for the missing games Yes, Boston losing KG hurt them a lot. However, the big 3 is getting up there and Allen has a history of injury. It would be surprising if one of them didn't get injured for a fair amount of time.

Some other teams were hurt more by injuries than we were, but we won 54 games when we had THREE rookies in the rotation.

 

[STOMP]

What happened to Portland, well we lost Roy for 3 games. Wow that sure is a big hit on the team compared to what is listed above. Oh and Steve Blake, that hit from him being out really compares too. The only thing that comes remotely close was Oden, and he was a backup at the time he got hurt, so how much effect did it really have?

no he wasn't... he'd been the starter for some time when he banged knees with Maggette and he'd gone 19-26 from the field in the previous 3 games.

how much effect this had on Greg and the Blazers success is only something we can speculate on, but getting the facts straight helps

STOMP

 

[mook]

hasoos- I don't really see how you can claim Portland was relatively unscathed by injury. Aside from the examples cited, our starting franchise center spent the entire season getting back into shape from microfracture surgery. The guy couldn't lift with his legs, he didn't have any time in the summer to really get up to speed--he was just happy to get on the court for opening night.

The microfracture surgery was a huge setback for the Blazers. Just because it happened prior to this last season doesn't mean the injury had little impact on how we played last year.

With Oden finally 100% and a full summer to practice without having the repaired knee constantly in the back of his mind, we should see a significant improvement in his game. Guys like Amare slogged through their first year upon returning before exploding in the second year, and if Oden can show as much improvement in his second year after surgery as Amare did, it'll be enormous.

Anyway, I had us at 55 wins last year at this time. I was optimistic by 1 game.

I'm going with 60 wins this year, and a pretty bad stomping in the WCF by the Lakers (assuming they get Odom back). I'm predicting that Aldridge and Rudy show a 20% improvement in overall game, Oden is able to play 30 mpg, and Batum advances to a 30 mpg role player who firmly cements his role as team defensive stopper and designated three point shooter. I think Bayless will continue to disappoint, although he might have a few games where he explodes like Sergio and Webster have in the past.

For the third straight year I'm predicting Roy levels off, but I won't be shocked if he proves me wrong yet again.

 

[malarky]

59 and WCF. We had the second best differential last year with 4 rookies. With each of the rookies improving incrementally we should pick up a few more wins. People are freaking out over our lack of moves this off season but we have only lost Sergio and Frye from our rotation. They were the last 2 in the rotation and we can replace them with Bayless and Webster so we shouldn't lose anything.

 

[bobf]

No major injuries.... 61 wins. WCF

 

[anonymous gambler]

I'd say we could win anywhere from 52 to 58 games- we'll be better this year, but so will the Lakers (if they keep Odom), Denver (will have gained confidence), San Antonio (Ginobli back, Jefferson addition), and Utah.

On the minus side, teams will have figured out the Roy-centric offense a little bit- so there will be some losses as we try to work in an expanded game for Rudy and Bayless.

 

[STOMP]

I'm going with 60 wins this year, and a pretty bad stomping in the WCF by the Lakers (assuming they get Odom back).

for the 3rd straight year you and I have the same prediction on Blazer wins of 50 55 and now 60...

STOMP

 

[Luther]

58 Wins

Oden 15/11/2