The Ringer: Best Case, Worst Case: Portland Trail Blazers

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He didn't write anything new or insightful. Just summarized the thoughts about the team from the last two seasons.
 
blue9 said:
How is that not the best case scenario?
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51 wins and a 2nd-round blowout? Many people (in here) seem to be suggesting that as a mid-line performance based on the team's performance since Nurk's arrival.
 
blue9 said:
How is that not the best case scenario?
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The idea, at least in my mind, is that the team from 2 years ago had Plum as the center - and as good as he was, Nurkic is clearly an upgrade. The 2 Rooks are also upgrades.

So, everyone the same from 2 years ago - Plums +Nurkic > everyone the same from 2 years ago.

No - eliminate "everyone from 2 years ago" from both sides and you get

Nurkic - Plums + Rookies - Crabbe > 0

Math.
 
andalusian said:
The idea, at least in my mind, is that the team from 2 years ago had Plum as the center - and as good as he was, Nurkic is clearly an upgrade. The 2 Rooks are also upgrades.

So, everyone the same from 2 years ago - Plums +Nurkic > everyone the same from 2 years ago.

No - eliminate "everyone from 2 years ago" from both sides and you get

Nurkic - Plums + Rookies - Crabbe > 0

Math.
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Yeah, it'd be great if that's how things worked. But they don't. That "math" doesn't take into account how we massively over-performed that season, and got super lucky in the Playoffs. This team would have to over-perform (not as much, but some) to have the same success.
 
blue9 said:
Yeah, it'd be great if that's how things worked. But they don't. That "math" doesn't take into account how we massively over-performed that season, and got super lucky in the Playoffs. This team would have to over-perform (not as much, but some) to have the same success.
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I do not believe in this "over-perform" stuff. The team performed. Period. This is a historical fact. It might have over-achieved against expectations - but that is more on the expectations imho. It is not that they played better than they could - because this is a fallacy. There is no 110% of performance for an athlete.
 
The Blazers center position is upgraded, but their outside shooting will be worse without Crabbe (and from a cap perspective it was the right move to dump him).

So yeah, the Blazers should be better in certain areas with a healthy Nurkic in the lineup, but are they going to be light years better overall in a totally loaded Western Conference? I guess anything is possible, but a 42.5 over/under is probably about right. I think a ton depends on what kind of strides they take defensively, and if Aminu and Harkless can provide some kind of outside shooting in the 35-37% range. If they can't, then the are going to struggle at times to pull away from teams (particularly if Dame or McCollum have an off night).
 
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andalusian said:
I do not believe in this "over-perform" stuff. The team performed. Period. This is a historical fact. It might have over-achieved against expectations - but that is more on the expectations imho. It is not that they played better than they could - because this is a fallacy. There is no 110% of performance for an athlete.
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OK, so how does last season's performance, stack up then? Did they underperform or just perform? It was largely the same roster as the year before that outperformed expectations until the Nurkic trade.
 
andalusian said:
The idea, at least in my mind, is that the team from 2 years ago had Plum as the center - and as good as he was, Nurkic is clearly an upgrade. The 2 Rooks are also upgrades.

So, everyone the same from 2 years ago - Plums +Nurkic > everyone the same from 2 years ago.

No - eliminate "everyone from 2 years ago" from both sides and you get

Nurkic - Plums + Rookies - Crabbe > 0

Math.
Click to expand...

The team 2 years ago figured out they can win by playing defense. Haven't seen it since.
 
andalusian said:
I do not believe in this "over-perform" stuff. The team performed. Period. This is a historical fact. It might have over-achieved against expectations - but that is more on the expectations imho. It is not that they played better than they could - because this is a fallacy. There is no 110% of performance for an athlete.
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We'll have to agree to disagree. Because that team with Travis Outlaw that rattled off 15ish wins in a row was not that good - they over-performed*. It sometimes happens in sports, where things just click for a while and then the team falls back to earth.

*Call it what you want.
 
Nikolokolus said:
OK, so how does last season's performance, stack up then? Did they underperform or just perform? It was largely the same roster as the year before that outperformed expectations until the Nurkic trade.
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They performed less than their best - part of it was injury (Aminu, Turner, Ed Davis), part of it was new system (Turner) and part of it was coasting and expecting things to be bad.

Isn't this exactly what this exercise is? Best/Worst scenarios - I can assure you that a bad injury or two will make last year's performance seem great, but if we are talking about best scenario - this team can be better than the one from 2 years ago.
 
andalusian said:
They performed less than their best - part of it was injury (Aminu, Turner, Ed Davis), part of it was new system (Turner) and part of it was coasting and expecting things to be bad.

Isn't this exactly what this exercise is? Best/Worst scenarios - I can assure you that a bad injury or two will make last year's performance seem great, but if we are talking about best scenario - this team can be better than the one from 2 years ago.
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I mostly agree with that, but the only hangup is that even if they are better than the team that snuck past the wounded Clippers, the West is a lot tougher this year than it was that year.
 
Nikolokolus said:
I mostly agree with that, but the only hangup is that even if they are better than the team that snuck past the wounded Clippers, the West is a lot tougher this year than it was that year.
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We will find out. On paper, the west is tougher. In reality? I am not certain.

GSW is the same. On another level.
Spurs could fall - health and age. They are not winning over 60 games again.
Rockets - on paper better. We will see if it works for them.
Thunder - should be better - even if Melo wants to kill Westbrook by the 3rd week.
Minni - better on paper. Will likely be better - but not an awful lot (They are still missing shooting and will miss Rubio setting people).
Clips - will be worse.
Utah - Amazing defensively, even worse on offense. They will be good - but I suspect not as good as last year.
Denver - Maybe better, maybe worse, I am still not sold on them being tons better. We will see.
PHX - Same hot garbage
LAL - Better. From hot garbage to warm garbage (with excellent rating)
Mavs - If better, it is not by much, more likely to decide to tank
Pelicans - Great front-court, same crap elsewhere. Probably the same if slightly better.
Griz - Worse
Kings - LAL level - warm garbage

Some teams are better, others worse. Not sure it will mean much for the Blazers. For every team that finished behind the Blazers that got better there is a team that finished above them that got worse.
 
PtldPlatypus said:
51 wins and a 2nd-round blowout? Many people (in here) seem to be suggesting that as a mid-line performance based on the team's performance since Nurk's arrival.
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Best case would be a good thread. How about 52 wins and going 6 games in the second round? Not best case enough? ;)

Best case is obviously a couple of key injuries to other teams, catching lighting in a bottle for a month, and winning the championship. The roads to lots of championships have been paved by injuries to other teams. Luck is part of the equation. Maybe we'll get some.

:cheers:
 
BBert said:
Best case would be a good thread. How about 52 wins and going 6 games in the second round? Not best case enough? ;)

Best case is obviously a couple of key injuries to other teams, catching lighting in a bottle for a month, and winning the championship. The roads to lots of championships have been paved by injuries to other teams. Luck is part of the equation. Maybe we'll get some.

:cheers:
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Egg-zactly! I don't wish a career-ending injury on anyone. I'm only using my voodoo dolls for season-ending injuries. ;)
 
We are better due to that games we play so far that we are attempting to play defense. Plus it looks like our bench will be a lot better. Turner looks like he fitting in finally and the 2 rookies look like they can help. I won't be suprise if the bench will be top 10 or better.
 
Our best case scenario is a 3rd seed. This could be because SAS falls off due to age or OKC/HOU not gelling well. Finishing ahead of two of those teams, than beating the other one in the 2nd round to make it to the WCF isn't an out of range possibility.
 
Best case scenario in terms of both sides of the ball:
Offense: 3rd-5th in the league
Defense: 8th-10th in the league
That would be a top 5 team in the league.
 
KingSpeed said:
Best case is championship. Period.
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And THIS is why you freak out after every loss.

Oh wait you can't even see this. I should say something really bad to see if you are secretly following me again.
 
It's too hard to put a prediction on things.

How will the rookies play?

Can Nurk stay healthy?

Can ET stay healthy?

Will Pat step up?

I have almost zero expectations for this season. I'm just going to enjoy it.
 
RR7 said:
I bet nobody would be critical of the article if they said best case scenario was the Finals.

/MM
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Lol.

Really wouldn't. It'd be just as silly as saying we might miss the playoffs, but it'd be the opposite of the disrespect we normally get from the national media.

It's like, they were predicting us to be a 4th/5th seed at the start of last year. Now we're better than we were then, yet we're supposed to be a borderline 8th seed. The west didn't get that much better.

That shows that they are simply predicting things based on how last year went, without actually taking notice of what caused us to regress last year and how those actual problems are fixed. There's so many intricacies to the game of basketball that national writers have absolutely no grasp of.

Therefore, it leads to them looking at how good big names look on a sheet of paper and overhyping big markets at the expense of smaller markets.

The NBA Media is the worst of all major sports. They added Paul Pierce to the ESPN NBA Countdown show, and I watched for 10 minutes. What'd they have him talking about for most of it? Whether Isaiah Thomas should be (quote) "salty" that he got traded. SMH.
 
Natebishop3 said:
It's too hard to put a prediction on things.

How will the rookies play?

Can Nurk stay healthy?

Can ET stay healthy?

Will Pat step up?

I have almost zero expectations for this season. I'm just going to enjoy it.
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1.) Well
2.) Should have a better chance at staying healthy due to his weight loss
3.) I think so, his injuries were kind of fluky things and weren't representative of an injury prone player
4.) ...to the mound? Hopefully.
 
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