NBA.com offseason grade

[Fez Hammersticks]

Wesley Matthews, Jerryd Bayless, Jeff Pendergraph, Dante Cunningham and rookie Luke Babbitt are dripping with potential. Could use another veteran presence.

- B+

For all of the positives going on in Portland, several nagging situations need to be resolved. Top of the list for new general manager Rich Cho is the next move with Rudy Fernandez. His once-promising career has been sidetracked by a battle of wills between the organization and the Spanish star. Fernandez, unhappy with his role, has talked about sitting out if he's not traded.

The recoveries of Greg Oden and his backup Joel Przybilla loom over the team. Oden is supposed to be on schedule, though the former No. 1 overall pick and the team are keeping that timetable under wraps. While depth at center is a concern, the Blazers did beef up in other areas. Signing away Matthews from Utah adds punch to the second team if the former undrafted free agent follows up on a surprising rookie campaign.

Whatever character questions arose from a questionable video appearance by Roy should be long forgotten by camp. Roy showed what he was made of and his commitment to the franchise by coming back from a knee injury during the playoffs

Overall grade: B

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[Rhal]

I agree with that. We didn't do anything staggering this off season and their are a bunch of question marks out their (mainly whats happening with rudy, health of some players ect).

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Bayless, Pendy & Babbitt "dripping with potential"? What does this guy smoke?

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

If you just look at it as a "net asset" point-of-view and think what did we lose and what did we gain. Then factor in what players were over 10 years of experience and likely on the decline in productivity and what players are under 4 years in experience and still on the rise every year. You've got a pretty good net position to the team:

Adds:
Matthews
Babbitt (Lottery)
Elliot Williams
Armon Johnson

(less losses):
Juwan Howard
Patty Mills
Travis Diener

So that is a great start to net upgrades.

Over 10 years and on the decline:
Miller
Camby
Joel

Under 4 years and still getting better:
Oden
Batum
Bayless
Cunningham
Pendergraph
Matthews
(I won't include the draft picks since they haven't played yet to even have a baseline to get better from).

So our off-season was pretty impressive to have better adds than losses, and to have a significant amount of guys still in the prime of the years when their productivity spikes compared to guys who are starting to trail off. Has to be a good grade when you're simply that much better than you looked this time last year.

 

[e_blazer]

You need to add Webster to your list of losses.

The Blazers didn't make any splashy moves, but the addition of Mathews should be a big improvement over what Rudy was able to supply off the bench last year. Still, the biggest improvement for the Blazers will only come with the health and potential further development of our core group of guys.

 

[THE HCP]

Ya, I think we will miss Marty this year.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

You need to add Webster to your list of losses.

The Blazers didn't make any splashy moves, but the addition of Mathews should be a big improvement over what Rudy was able to supply off the bench last year. Still, the biggest improvement for the Blazers will only come with the health and potential further development of our core group of guys.

I was looking at thet "offseason" grade. So thinking of it in terms of improvements from the end of the playoffs to the beginning of the next season.

I'd still say Camby for Outlaw and Blake and Webster is still an overall upgrade over last season's start.

 

[mgb]

You need to add Webster to your list of losses.

The Blazers didn't make any splashy moves, but the addition of Mathews should be a big improvement over what Rudy was able to supply off the bench last year. Still, the biggest improvement for the Blazers will only come with the health and potential further development of our core group of guys.

Didn't lose Webster during the off season so can't include him when grading the offseason.

 

[Draco]

Didn't lose Webster during the off season so can't include him when grading the offseason.

We traded away Webster during the season?

 

[Natebishop3]

We traded away Webster during the season?

Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't the offseason officially start after the draft?

 

[Draco]

Over 10 years and on the decline:
Miller
Camby
Joel

Under 4 years and still getting better:
Oden
Batum
Bayless
Cunningham
Pendergraph
Matthews
(I won't include the draft picks since they haven't played yet to even have a baseline to get better from).

I like your analytical thought process.

However I would argue the players declining are Miller and Camby
The players with projected improvements are Oden, Batum, and Bayless

I wouldn't include Joel since I believe his career is over. I wouldn't include Dante or Pendy since I believe they will always be end of the bench players and irrelevant to the performance of the team. I wouldn't include Matthews since his rookie year was such a massive improvement over his projected performance; he overachieved so projecting an improvement beyond that overachievement should not be the expectation.

But still having two main rotation players declining but three improving is a net benefit. Yet the performance of this team ultimately comes down to luck of injuries in my eyes, Roy being my biggest concern while Oden being the most visible to the public. If we can get lucky with no major injuries this team will be an outside contender.

 

[e_blazer]

Didn't lose Webster during the off season so can't include him when grading the offseason.

Hmmm...we traded him for the rights to the pick that gave us Babbitt, so I guess by that logic you shouldn't count Luke as a gain.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

I like your analytical thought process.

However I would argue the players declining are Miller and Camby
The players with projected improvements are Oden, Batum, and Bayless

I wouldn't include Joel since I believe his career is over. I wouldn't include Dante or Pendy since I believe they will always be end of the bench players and irrelevant to the performance of the team. I wouldn't include Matthews since his rookie year was such a massive improvement over his projected performance; he overachieved so projecting an improvement beyond that overachievement should not be the expectation.

But still having two main rotation players declining but three improving is a net benefit. Yet the performance of this team ultimately comes down to luck of injuries in my eyes, Roy being my biggest concern while Oden being the most visible to the public. If we can get lucky with no major injuries this team will be an outside contender.

I'd agree to an extent on most of this.

I did apply a general "rule of thumb" analysis to include guys like Miller and Camby, and I suppose anyone could make the arguments on a one-by-one basis as to whether they are really faultering noticably from last year to the next.

I was wondering myself whether to include Pendy and Matthews for reasons you mention. But I do think Cunningham has a place to play some decent (10-15) minutes, and he's going directly into that Soph season where guys with his amount of college and pro experience tend to surge ahead in production, so I can't just discount this statistical probability - even though admittedly it could all of an increase from 4 pts / 2.5 reb to 6 pts / 4 reb or something like that given his small minutes.

Agree Matthews is tough because again, you look at the history of a player given his four years at Marquette and then his rookie season and would think this upcoming season will be statistically his increase in productivity given the fact he is learning the game and getting better with every adjustment he makes to the game. But will he be less productive playing for the Blazers than he had as a rookie on a Jazz team that didn't have the depth as this Blazer team. I chose to still include Matthews because I think the fact that he won't get worse as far as PER or statistical Per minute stats as he's only going to learn more and rise given more NBA minutes. His overacheivment from expectation doesn't matter. Ginobili overachieved after he was drafted as well and it doesn't mean he got worse becuase suddenly that overachieving had to regress into the worse player everyone exected. He's still the same guy as played that rookie season with the Jazz, only getting better now that he's adjusting four years of college ball into the NBA game.

 

[hasoos]

So we are supposedly going to miss a shooter who couldn't shoot? Martell's jumper was pretty. Too bad it hardly ever went in when you needed it to. He also had no ability to put the ball on the floor and if he put all of his ability in defending, was an average defender.

Miss him? Not really. In fact, I look at him moving on as a closing the door on a bad era of Blazer basketball.

 

[mgb]

We traded away Webster during the season?

My mistake.