Report: Blazers will have the worst starting 5 in the Western Conference

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Blazer509 said:
I think people are underestimating this team. We honestly won't be that bad. If we're lucky we might fight for an 8th seed.
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Remember when we got Lopez and everyone said we'd be lucky to be 9-10 best in the west?! Yeah, these cats don't know what they are talking about
 
We just need some new rumors....something!
 
I'm late to the CJ debate but I'm 90% positive he won't start. Whoever the starting SG is wI'll give you 30 min, Dame will give you 36, and CJ will backup both, getting 18min at SG and 12min at PG for 30 total. Im leaning more towards Vonleh as a starting 4 and Meyers as the starting 5, with Hendo and Aminu starting. That gives you 3 shooters in the starting lineup. You have Crabbe as your backup SF to give you another shooter off the bench.
 
We still need a legit backup PG. Frazier isn't the answer and I'm not convinced CJ can run it for more than spot minutes.
 
LuckyShot said:
Well I'm not saying he can't... it's just that he's looked like shit in the minutes I've seen him play PG.
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that was back when his whole game wasn't much. He's developed. I think he'd be fine
 
LuckyShot said:
When did he learn to play PG? This summer?
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he has the skills necessary to play PG, he just needs to get comfortable.. it's not like we're trying to turn Pat Connaughton or Allen Crabbe into a PG
 
Stevenson said:
Per Bleacher Report.

And please, don't let me hear you cry about Bleacher Report. Stick to the point being made. Personally, I can't really disagree with their take, and it sure as hell bums me out.
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Bottom Line Up Front for the Tl;dr folks: I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.

For the full meal deal:

It's another example of why so many say "Bleacher Report, lol...", because there's plenty in this little ditty to disagree with. I'll just go in order:

1)
Losing Nicolas Batum was always going to hurt, and Rip City traded him to the Charlotte Hornets early in the offseason.
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I don't know why losing Batum was "always going to hurt"...he was a useful, limited role player for the last few years (last year above 15 PER was 2010-11), and last year not only had a counting number line of 9ppg/6rpg (to go with a really good 5apg) and PER of 13, but was limited by injury for much more than the 11 games he missed. His 3pt shooting was 32%. If you say that the return for Batum was Henderson, Vonleh and the space for Aminu's contract to replace him, I don't see how that "hurt" the Blazers at all. And I'll go into it more later, but if you're going to complain that Wes and Robin and LMA "left for nothing", then it seems disingenuous (or, "Bleacher Report-level writing") to not bring that part up because it blows up your premise from the jump.

2)
That's four missing members of last year's impressive starting lineup, and the replacements simply aren't on the same level.
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As has been hashed out here over multiple hundreds of pages, yes, POR lost 4/5 of its starting lineup. But even assuming that Mr. Fromal's lineup is correct (and as has been stated, I'm not sure it is), here's how that "precipitous drop" ends up**:

Dame 2014-15 v. Dame: worst shooting season of his career (40% 3pt before hurting his back in MIA, 24% 3pt over the next month, 35% over rest of season ) still ended up with the highest PER (21) and ORtg (112) of his career, even with increased usage rate (27%). Obviously, I don’t expect his skills to get worse—he should probably get back to the 39% or so 3pt shooting range, but if he’s doubled/trapped/gameplanned for more this year, he has the ability to have a bunch of “rollers” in the frontcourt to either get easy rim shots or pull defenders away to give Dame open 3’s. But Dame, I’m sure, was not one of Mr. Fromal’s “precipitous drops” prognostications.

The same can be said for Al-Farouq Aminu and Batum, as the former is far more limited on offense.
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While Aminu may “be more limited”, hard-core Blazers fans know about the difficulties in unlocking that unlimited offense that Batum supposedly possesses. Let’s just compare last year, shall we? I’ll just drop this link right here… http://bkref.com/tiny/UUcQ0
Higher PER, higher FG%, lower 3pt% (32% to 27%), much higher Rebounding rates, much lower assist rates, much higher steal and block rates, lower turnover rates, higher foul rate, higher ORtg. While Aminu may be “more limited”, he’s producing as (if not more) efficiently as limited-by-himself Batum in every category except 3pt% and assists. And he’s 2 years younger. Since he didn’t, I won’t, but that’s not even counting defense or play in pressure situations.

3)
Ed Davis and Mason Plumlee (or Meyers Leonard, if the young big man works his way into the starting five) are quality players with upside, but neither comes close to touching Lopez or Aldridge. Frankly, it's not even remotely close.
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Wanna bet? LMA is an all-star, and when he chooses to be LaMonster (as HOU found out for 2 games) he is awesome. Like Batum, he chose often to not unlock that level of his game. And because of that, it gets “remotely close”, especially when you figure that the calling card of P/D/L is “high percentage shots or pass”. The counting numbers you miss will not be the “good” shots DivaStar took---you’ll see a dropoff in the number of 18’ers at 41%.
Tool #12/Lopez vs. Leonard/Davis/Plumlee:
Group A: 4150 minutes played, 932 shots in paint, 931 shots 10-23 feet, 116 3pt.
Group B: 4430 minutes played, 1029 shots in paint, 74 shots 10-23 feet, 128 3pt.
Yes, you’ll see a dropoff. Our PF will not get 23/10. However, you’ll have much better efficiency of shots, more options to defend against, and if you’re asking me if the 3-headed monster or PLD will get close to LMA/Lopez’s combined 32/17, I think that’s more than possible.

4) Frankly, I see Wes v. Henderson as the biggest drop. We have a pretty good idea of what Henderson is: a lower-than-average PER (13-15 over his career) in starting roles, basically what in baseball we call an “innings-eater”. He likes taking too many mid-range J’s, which I hope he’ll get out of the habit of, but amazingly enough, he shoots them as well as Tool #12 did (41% from 10-23’). He’s “adequate”, nothing special, on D, and if he’s taking the Wes role of stopping the #2 backcourt player (I see Aminu taking the #1) then we may have some issues there. I think some of his lack of offensive prowess may be overcome by sharing a lot of minutes with CJ, but that brings up the defensive issues again.

**I’m using “per 36’s” in addition to other stats because of course someone playing 22mpg will not have the same counting stats as someone playing 36. But in the cases of Plumlee, Henderson and Aminu (not Leonard and semi-not for Davis) you can see that in their career when the HAVE been starters and played many minutes, their efficiencies actually increase.

5)
Portland won't be a pushover, but the franchise isn't exactly swimming with talent right now. Spacing is going to be an issue all season long.
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Again, Bleacher Report-ing, but I’d love to see his take on why spacing will be an issue. That’s a heckuva note to just drop there and then let it be. POR now has two bigs who are fantastic around the rim, 2 bigs with the ability to shoot 3’s well enough for “spacing”, and maybe the 2nd- or 3rd-best deep shooter in the league (behind Curry and Korver). Yes, Aminu and Henderson are not known for being long-bomb threats, but did you know that both had eFG% the same as Tool #12 the last 2 years? And let’s be realistic, there’s really not a ton of difference between Batum’s 32% on 3pt shots last year and Aminu’s 28%. Davis and Plumlee are at least on the same level as RoLo on the P&R (many would say they’re better, but I won’t go there). Again, the big drop is from Wes’ shooting and defense to that of Henderson.

6) Here are some comps:
Roy Hibbert should be a welcome presence on the point-preventing end, but he's not going to score points in bunches. That task will be left to D'Angelo Russell (a rookie), Julius Randle (basically a rookie) and Jordan Clarkson, who won't control the rock nearly as often as he did last season…Frankly, it's hard to get a read on anyone's value in this starting five
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So to get this straight, he can’t get a read on a rookie playing out of position, 2 guys coming off of season-ending surgeries, Hibbert (who I like, but not on this team) and Jordan Friggin’ Clarkson—but he knows they’re better than the Blazers? :sigh:
I think DEN’s interesting, but he said that Lawson is the difference between being above POR and below. So, Lawson/Foye/Gallinari/Faried/Nurkic? I don’t see it, but that’s a minor quibble.
MIN has Wiggins and Towns. Got it. But they were also BY FAR the worst D in the league last year. Towns fixes all that? Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng, Karl-Anthony Towns… they might be good in a couple of years, but I have little doubt that that five loses to our five. Rubio “held” Dame to 22/7 last year, and Martin’s not guarding anyone, so they better hope that Wiggins and Towns can hold down the fort…
SAC: Rajon Rondo, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Willie Cauley-Stein, DeMarcus Cousins. Boogie’s awesome. Gay’s a chucker. McLemore has potential, but has done nothing yet. Rondo is Rondo. Would you switch our 5 with theirs? I’d love to see why.

So to recap, I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.
 
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BrianFromWA said:
Bottom Line Up Front for the Tl;dr folks: I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.

For the full meal deal:

It's another example of why so many say "Bleacher Report, lol...", because there's plenty in this little ditty to disagree with. I'll just go in order:

1) I don't know why losing Batum was "always going to hurt"...he was a useful, limited role player for the last few years (last year above 15 PER was 2010-11), and last year not only had a counting number line of 9ppg/6rpg (to go with a really good 5apg) and PER of 13, but was limited by injury for much more than the 11 games he missed. His 3pt shooting was 32%. If you say that the return for Batum was Henderson, Vonleh and the space for Aminu's contract to replace him, I don't see how that "hurt" the Blazers at all. And I'll go into it more later, but if you're going to complain that Wes and Robin and LMA "left for nothing", then it seems disingenuous (or, "Bleacher Report-level writing") to not bring that part up because it blows up your premise from the jump.

2) As has been hashed out here over multiple hundreds of pages, yes, POR lost 4/5 of its starting lineup. But even assuming that Mr. Fromal's lineup is correct (and as has been stated, I'm not sure it is), here's how that "precipitous drop" ends up**:

Dame 2014-15 v. Dame: worst shooting season of his career (40% 3pt before hurting his back in MIA, 24% 3pt over the next month, 35% over rest of season ) still ended up with the highest PER (21) and ORtg (112) of his career, even with increased usage rate (27%). Obviously, I don’t expect his skills to get worse—he should probably get back to the 39% or so 3pt shooting range, but if he’s doubled/trapped/gameplanned for more this year, he has the ability to have a bunch of “rollers” in the frontcourt to either get easy rim shots or pull defenders away to give Dame open 3’s. But Dame, I’m sure, was not one of Mr. Fromal’s “precipitous drops” prognostications.

While Aminu may “be more limited”, hard-core Blazers fans know about the difficulties in unlocking that unlimited offense that Batum supposedly possesses. Let’s just compare last year, shall we? I’ll just drop this link right here… http://bkref.com/tiny/UUcQ0
Higher PER, higher FG%, lower 3pt% (32% to 27%), much higher Rebounding rates, much lower assist rates, much higher steal and block rates, lower turnover rates, higher foul rate, higher ORtg. While Aminu may be “more limited”, he’s producing as (if not more) efficiently as limited-by-himself Batum in every category except 3pt% and assists. And he’s 2 years younger. Since he didn’t, I won’t, but that’s not even counting defense or play in pressure situations.

3)
Wanna bet? LMA is an all-star, and when he chooses to be LaMonster (as HOU found out for 2 games) he is awesome. Like Batum, he chose often to not unlock that level of his game. And because of that, it gets “remotely close”, especially when you figure that the calling card of P/D/L is “high percentage shots or pass”. The counting numbers you miss will not be the “good” shots DivaStar took---you’ll see a dropoff in the number of 18’ers at 41%.
Tool #12/Lopez vs. Leonard/Davis/Plumlee:
Group A: 4150 minutes played, 932 shots in paint, 931 shots 10-23 feet, 116 3pt.
Group B: 4430 minutes played, 1029 shots in paint, 74 shots 10-23 feet, 128 3pt.
Yes, you’ll see a dropoff. Our PF will not get 23/10. However, you’ll have much better efficiency of shots, more options to defend against, and if you’re asking me if the 3-headed monster or PLD will get close to LMA/Lopez’s combined 32/17, I think that’s more than possible.

4) Frankly, I see Wes v. Henderson as the biggest drop. We have a pretty good idea of what Henderson is: a lower-than-average PER (13-15 over his career) in starting roles, basically what in baseball we call an “innings-eater”. He likes taking too many mid-range J’s, which I hope he’ll get out of the habit of, but amazingly enough, he shoots them as well as Tool #12 did (41% from 10-23’). He’s “adequate”, nothing special, on D, and if he’s taking the Wes role of stopping the #2 backcourt player (I see Aminu taking the #1) then we may have some issues there. I think some of his lack of offensive prowess may be overcome by sharing a lot of minutes with CJ, but that brings up the defensive issues again.

**I’m using “per 36’s” in addition to other stats because of course someone playing 22mpg will not have the same counting stats as someone playing 36. But in the cases of Plumlee, Henderson and Aminu (not Leonard and semi-not for Davis) you can see that in their career when the HAVE been starters and played many minutes, their efficiencies actually increase.

5)
Again, Bleacher Report-ing, but I’d love to see his take on why spacing will be an issue. That’s a heckuva note to just drop there and then let it be. POR now has two bigs who are fantastic around the rim, 2 bigs with the ability to shoot 3’s well enough for “spacing”, and maybe the 2nd- or 3rd-best deep shooter in the league (behind Curry and Korver). Yes, Aminu and Henderson are not known for being long-bomb threats, but did you know that both had eFG% the same as Tool #12 the last 2 years? And let’s be realistic, there’s really not a ton of difference between Batum’s 32% on 3pt shots last year and Aminu’s 28%. Davis and Plumlee are at least on the same level as RoLo on the P&R (many would say they’re better, but I won’t go there). Again, the big drop is from Wes’ shooting and defense to that of Henderson.

6) Here are some comps:

So to get this straight, he can’t get a read on a rookie playing out of position, 2 guys coming off of season-ending surgeries, Hibbert (who I like, but not on this team) and Jordan Friggin’ Clarkson—but he knows they’re better than the Blazers? :sigh:
I think DEN’s interesting, but he said that Lawson is the difference between being above POR and below. So, Lawson/Foye/Gallinari/Faried/Nurkic? I don’t see it, but that’s a minor quibble.
MIN has Wiggins and Towns. Got it. But they were also BY FAR the worst D in the league last year. Towns fixes all that? Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng, Karl-Anthony Towns… they might be good in a couple of years, but I have little doubt that that five beats our five. Rubio “held” Dame to 22/7 last year, and Martin’s not guarding anyone, so they better hope that Wiggins and Towns can hold down the fort…
SAC: Rajon Rondo, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Willie Cauley-Stein, DeMarcus Cousins. Boogie’s awesome. Gay’s a chucker. McLemore has potential, but has done nothing yet. Rondo is Rondo. Would you switch our 5 with theirs? I’d love to see why.

So to recap, I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.
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And BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE
 
BrianFromWA said:
Bottom Line Up Front for the Tl;dr folks: I see Dame being just as good, if not much Greatbetter, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.

For the full meal deal:

It's another example of why so many say "Bleacher Report, lol...", because there's plenty in this little ditty to disagree with. I'll just go in order:

1) I don't know why losing Batum was "always going to hurt"...he was a useful, limited role player for the last few years (last year above 15 PER was 2010-11), and last year not only had a counting number line of 9ppg/6rpg (to go with a really good 5apg) and PER of 13, but was limited by injury for much more than the 11 games he missed. His 3pt shooting was 32%. If you say that the return for Batum was Henderson, Vonleh and the space for Aminu's contract to replace him, I don't see how that "hurt" the Blazers at all. And I'll go into it more later, but if you're going to complain that Wes and Robin and LMA "left for nothing", then it seems disingenuous (or, "Bleacher Report-level writing") to not bring that part up because it blows up your premise from the jump.

2) As has been hashed out here over multiple hundreds of pages, yes, POR lost 4/5 of its starting lineup. But even assuming that Mr. Fromal's lineup is correct (and as has been stated, I'm not sure it is), here's how that "precipitous drop" ends up**:

Dame 2014-15 v. Dame: worst shooting season of his career (40% 3pt before hurting his back in MIA, 24% 3pt over the next month, 35% over rest of season ) still ended up with the highest PER (21) and ORtg (112) of his career, even with increased usage rate (27%). Obviously, I don’t expect his skills to get worse—he should probably get back to the 39% or so 3pt shooting range, but if he’s doubled/trapped/gameplanned for more this year, he has the ability to have a bunch of “rollers” in the frontcourt to either get easy rim shots or pull defenders away to give Dame open 3’s. But Dame, I’m sure, was not one of Mr. Fromal’s “precipitous drops” prognostications.

While Aminu may “be more limited”, hard-core Blazers fans know about the difficulties in unlocking that unlimited offense that Batum supposedly possesses. Let’s just compare last year, shall we? I’ll just drop this link right here… http://bkref.com/tiny/UUcQ0
Higher PER, higher FG%, lower 3pt% (32% to 27%), much higher Rebounding rates, much lower assist rates, much higher steal and block rates, lower turnover rates, higher foul rate, higher ORtg. While Aminu may be “more limited”, he’s producing as (if not more) efficiently as limited-by-himself Batum in every category except 3pt% and assists. And he’s 2 years younger. Since he didn’t, I won’t, but that’s not even counting defense or play in pressure situations.

3)
Wanna bet? LMA is an all-star, and when he chooses to be LaMonster (as HOU found out for 2 games) he is awesome. Like Batum, he chose often to not unlock that level of his game. And because of that, it gets “remotely close”, especially when you figure that the calling card of P/D/L is “high percentage shots or pass”. The counting numbers you miss will not be the “good” shots DivaStar took---you’ll see a dropoff in the number of 18’ers at 41%.
Tool #12/Lopez vs. Leonard/Davis/Plumlee:
Group A: 4150 minutes played, 932 shots in paint, 931 shots 10-23 feet, 116 3pt.
Group B: 4430 minutes played, 1029 shots in paint, 74 shots 10-23 feet, 128 3pt.
Yes, you’ll see a dropoff. Our PF will not get 23/10. However, you’ll have much better efficiency of shots, more options to defend against, and if you’re asking me if the 3-headed monster or PLD will get close to LMA/Lopez’s combined 32/17, I think that’s more than possible.

4) Frankly, I see Wes v. Henderson as the biggest drop. We have a pretty good idea of what Henderson is: a lower-than-average PER (13-15 over his career) in starting roles, basically what in baseball we call an “innings-eater”. He likes taking too many mid-range J’s, which I hope he’ll get out of the habit of, but amazingly enough, he shoots them as well as Tool #12 did (41% from 10-23’). He’s “adequate”, nothing special, on D, and if he’s taking the Wes role of stopping the #2 backcourt player (I see Aminu taking the #1) then we may have some issues there. I think some of his lack of offensive prowess may be overcome by sharing a lot of minutes with CJ, but that brings up the defensive issues again.

**I’m using “per 36’s” in addition to other stats because of course someone playing 22mpg will not have the same counting stats as someone playing 36. But in the cases of Plumlee, Henderson and Aminu (not Leonard and semi-not for Davis) you can see that in their career when the HAVE been starters and played many minutes, their efficiencies actually increase.

5)
Again, Bleacher Report-ing, but I’d love to see his take on why spacing will be an issue. That’s a heckuva note to just drop there and then let it be. POR now has two bigs who are fantastic around the rim, 2 bigs with the ability to shoot 3’s well enough for “spacing”, and maybe the 2nd- or 3rd-best deep shooter in the league (behind Curry and Korver). Yes, Aminu and Henderson are not known for being long-bomb threats, but did you know that both had eFG% the same as Tool #12 the last 2 years? And let’s be realistic, there’s really not a ton of difference between Batum’s 32% on 3pt shots last year and Aminu’s 28%. Davis and Plumlee are at least on the same level as RoLo on the P&R (many would say they’re better, but I won’t go there). Again, the big drop is from Wes’ shooting and defense to that of Henderson.

6) Here are some comps:

So to get this straight, he can’t get a read on a rookie playing out of position, 2 guys coming off of season-ending surgeries, Hibbert (who I like, but not on this team) and Jordan Friggin’ Clarkson—but he knows they’re better than the Blazers? :sigh:
I think DEN’s interesting, but he said that Lawson is the difference between being above POR and below. So, Lawson/Foye/Gallinari/Faried/Nurkic? I don’t see it, but that’s a minor quibble.
MIN has Wiggins and Towns. Got it. But they were also BY FAR the worst D in the league last year. Towns fixes all that? Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng, Karl-Anthony Towns… they might be good in a couple of years, but I have little doubt that that five beats our five. Rubio “held” Dame to 22/7 last year, and Martin’s not guarding anyone, so they better hope that Wiggins and Towns can hold down the fort…
SAC: Rajon Rondo, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Willie Cauley-Stein, DeMarcus Cousins. Boogie’s awesome. Gay’s a chucker. McLemore has potential, but has done nothing yet. Rondo is Rondo. Would you switch our 5 with theirs? I’d love to see why.

So to recap, I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.
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Great post!
 
BrianFromWA said:
Bottom Line Up Front for the Tl;dr folks: I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.

For the full meal deal:

It's another example of why so many say "Bleacher Report, lol...", because there's plenty in this little ditty to disagree with. I'll just go in order:

1) I don't know why losing Batum was "always going to hurt"...he was a useful, limited role player for the last few years (last year above 15 PER was 2010-11), and last year not only had a counting number line of 9ppg/6rpg (to go with a really good 5apg) and PER of 13, but was limited by injury for much more than the 11 games he missed. His 3pt shooting was 32%. If you say that the return for Batum was Henderson, Vonleh and the space for Aminu's contract to replace him, I don't see how that "hurt" the Blazers at all. And I'll go into it more later, but if you're going to complain that Wes and Robin and LMA "left for nothing", then it seems disingenuous (or, "Bleacher Report-level writing") to not bring that part up because it blows up your premise from the jump.

2) As has been hashed out here over multiple hundreds of pages, yes, POR lost 4/5 of its starting lineup. But even assuming that Mr. Fromal's lineup is correct (and as has been stated, I'm not sure it is), here's how that "precipitous drop" ends up**:

Dame 2014-15 v. Dame: worst shooting season of his career (40% 3pt before hurting his back in MIA, 24% 3pt over the next month, 35% over rest of season ) still ended up with the highest PER (21) and ORtg (112) of his career, even with increased usage rate (27%). Obviously, I don’t expect his skills to get worse—he should probably get back to the 39% or so 3pt shooting range, but if he’s doubled/trapped/gameplanned for more this year, he has the ability to have a bunch of “rollers” in the frontcourt to either get easy rim shots or pull defenders away to give Dame open 3’s. But Dame, I’m sure, was not one of Mr. Fromal’s “precipitous drops” prognostications.

While Aminu may “be more limited”, hard-core Blazers fans know about the difficulties in unlocking that unlimited offense that Batum supposedly possesses. Let’s just compare last year, shall we? I’ll just drop this link right here… http://bkref.com/tiny/UUcQ0
Higher PER, higher FG%, lower 3pt% (32% to 27%), much higher Rebounding rates, much lower assist rates, much higher steal and block rates, lower turnover rates, higher foul rate, higher ORtg. While Aminu may be “more limited”, he’s producing as (if not more) efficiently as limited-by-himself Batum in every category except 3pt% and assists. And he’s 2 years younger. Since he didn’t, I won’t, but that’s not even counting defense or play in pressure situations.

3)
Wanna bet? LMA is an all-star, and when he chooses to be LaMonster (as HOU found out for 2 games) he is awesome. Like Batum, he chose often to not unlock that level of his game. And because of that, it gets “remotely close”, especially when you figure that the calling card of P/D/L is “high percentage shots or pass”. The counting numbers you miss will not be the “good” shots DivaStar took---you’ll see a dropoff in the number of 18’ers at 41%.
Tool #12/Lopez vs. Leonard/Davis/Plumlee:
Group A: 4150 minutes played, 932 shots in paint, 931 shots 10-23 feet, 116 3pt.
Group B: 4430 minutes played, 1029 shots in paint, 74 shots 10-23 feet, 128 3pt.
Yes, you’ll see a dropoff. Our PF will not get 23/10. However, you’ll have much better efficiency of shots, more options to defend against, and if you’re asking me if the 3-headed monster or PLD will get close to LMA/Lopez’s combined 32/17, I think that’s more than possible.

4) Frankly, I see Wes v. Henderson as the biggest drop. We have a pretty good idea of what Henderson is: a lower-than-average PER (13-15 over his career) in starting roles, basically what in baseball we call an “innings-eater”. He likes taking too many mid-range J’s, which I hope he’ll get out of the habit of, but amazingly enough, he shoots them as well as Tool #12 did (41% from 10-23’). He’s “adequate”, nothing special, on D, and if he’s taking the Wes role of stopping the #2 backcourt player (I see Aminu taking the #1) then we may have some issues there. I think some of his lack of offensive prowess may be overcome by sharing a lot of minutes with CJ, but that brings up the defensive issues again.

**I’m using “per 36’s” in addition to other stats because of course someone playing 22mpg will not have the same counting stats as someone playing 36. But in the cases of Plumlee, Henderson and Aminu (not Leonard and semi-not for Davis) you can see that in their career when the HAVE been starters and played many minutes, their efficiencies actually increase.

5)
Again, Bleacher Report-ing, but I’d love to see his take on why spacing will be an issue. That’s a heckuva note to just drop there and then let it be. POR now has two bigs who are fantastic around the rim, 2 bigs with the ability to shoot 3’s well enough for “spacing”, and maybe the 2nd- or 3rd-best deep shooter in the league (behind Curry and Korver). Yes, Aminu and Henderson are not known for being long-bomb threats, but did you know that both had eFG% the same as Tool #12 the last 2 years? And let’s be realistic, there’s really not a ton of difference between Batum’s 32% on 3pt shots last year and Aminu’s 28%. Davis and Plumlee are at least on the same level as RoLo on the P&R (many would say they’re better, but I won’t go there). Again, the big drop is from Wes’ shooting and defense to that of Henderson.

6) Here are some comps:

So to get this straight, he can’t get a read on a rookie playing out of position, 2 guys coming off of season-ending surgeries, Hibbert (who I like, but not on this team) and Jordan Friggin’ Clarkson—but he knows they’re better than the Blazers? :sigh:
I think DEN’s interesting, but he said that Lawson is the difference between being above POR and below. So, Lawson/Foye/Gallinari/Faried/Nurkic? I don’t see it, but that’s a minor quibble.
MIN has Wiggins and Towns. Got it. But they were also BY FAR the worst D in the league last year. Towns fixes all that? Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng, Karl-Anthony Towns… they might be good in a couple of years, but I have little doubt that that five beats our five. Rubio “held” Dame to 22/7 last year, and Martin’s not guarding anyone, so they better hope that Wiggins and Towns can hold down the fort…
SAC: Rajon Rondo, Ben McLemore, Rudy Gay, Willie Cauley-Stein, DeMarcus Cousins. Boogie’s awesome. Gay’s a chucker. McLemore has potential, but has done nothing yet. Rondo is Rondo. Would you switch our 5 with theirs? I’d love to see why.

So to recap, I see Dame being just as good, if not much better, than last year. Aminu v. Batum is at the very least a wash, with my edge going to Aminu. I think that there will be a much-smaller-than-expected dropoff from LMA/Lopez to Leonard/Davis/Plumlee, due mostly to the difference in efficiencies. They may have lower counting numbers, but be much more efficient while getting them because there won’t be 1000 of the worst shots in basketball going up. Wes >> Henderson, but if that’s the worst dropoff we have, I don’t see that as being a drop from what many of you were calling the 2nd-best starting 5 in the league to the worst in the West (and 29th overall). Or if you do think so, you need to do a better job than Bleacher Report in explaining why.
Click to expand...
My homie went in!!!

For real though, sometimes it's frustrating being a Blazer fan, as we are (and have been called) the smartest fans in the league (at least that's my somewhat biased opinion). But that, coupled with the continued half-ass analysis nationally, makes things frustrating.
 
Too many unknowns on this team to already rate it:

-how will CJ's defense look? can he look like he did in that Memphis series? if he can then we didn't lose all that much in SG position.
-How will Mayers perform? he can basically do all those pick and pop shots that LMA did+he can shoot from 3 and he can do double digit rebound each night + he has a cute teardrop that helps him with his lack of post moves. can he be a 15 and 9 guy if he gets enough minutes? i think he can.
- Can Aminu improve his shooting from beyond the arc to ~35% ? he did shoot the ball well in the playoffs so there's a chance we actually got an improvement from Batum and his soft defense and paintPhobia.
-Can Plumlee be as good as Lopez? why the hell not??

And last but no least: Is Olshey done building this years roster?

It is very likely this team will be one of the worst in the west, but i'm not going to give 2shits about "analysts" opinions at this point.
 
One factor I believe people are over-looking: when the Blazer offense was clicking the last 2 seasons, their ball movement was a thing of beauty. Stats alone don't define how Batum, RoLo, and Wes contributed to that.
 
oldmangrouch said:
One factor I believe people are over-looking: when the Blazer offense was clicking the last 2 seasons, their ball movement was a thing of beauty. Stats alone don't define how Batum, RoLo, and Wes contributed to that.
Click to expand...

Too bad we got none of those guys anymore.
 
oldmangrouch said:
One factor I believe people are over-looking: when the Blazer offense was clicking the last 2 seasons, their ball movement was a thing of beauty. Stats alone don't define how Batum, RoLo, and Wes contributed to that.
Click to expand...

The thing is that aside from Batum, you really don't associate anybody on last year's team as being brilliant passers. There was just a lot of low risk passing that swung the ball around to find imbalances in the defense. These imbalances were typically created by Lillard's penetration or Aldridge creating a threat in the low or high post, or Batum pick and roll action. That ball movement was much more a function of Stotts' offense than it was innate Blazer talent. (If you doubt that, go watch some old Nate McMillan offensive sets. Remember--he coached Batum, Matthews and LMA as well, and had very naturally gifted passers in Andre Miller, Brandon Roy and to a lesser extent Steve Blake. But the ball movement was TERRIBLE.)

I'm very, very curious to see what Stotts does with the tools he has before I pass judgment. I think Stotts has proven to be pretty adaptive and creative, and he'll get his chance to really try some different things with this team.

Seems to me this team could resemble a little those Okur/Williams/Boozer/AK47 Jazz teams that always were pretty competitive. Dominant younh point guard (Lillard vs Dwill), three point shooting from one big man (Meyers/Vonleh vs Memo) and lots of muscle from the other (Plumlee/Davis vs Booz). Defensive athletic wings. Intriguing gunner off the bench (Korver/CJ). Good coaching that emphasized ball movement. Isn't going to win a championship, but it's also not going to win just 20 games.
 
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Bleacher report is all on paper. Too early to base rankings.
 
barfo said:
No, I think it is one of those "internet" thingies, where the report comes to your house via a series of tubes.

barfo
Click to expand...
I 'm old school and that phrase fits the prediction before a team actually plays
 
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