Portychat redux

Terraholm wrote:
> RMJon23 wrote:
>> I tend to think along brink-ish lines re: Blazers. Oden stays healthy
>> (and their future MVP candidate Roy, of course) and they win 50
>> games.
>
>>
>> And next year they'll be one of the top 3 teams in the West. And if
>> everything goes well for them, the year after that they're freakin'
>> scary-good.
>
> OK I buy that time line better... =)
>


I will throw in their cap situation for more improvement... =)


Next summer they have 32.3 million signed in Roy, LMA, Oden, JoeL, Rudy,
Batum, Sergio, Outlaw, Webster, and Bayless with another 7.6 million in
non fully guaranteed contracts for Outlaw and Blake for about 40 million
for their core.

Also two restricted FAs easy to upgrade in Fyre and Diogu. If they let
them walk they will be about 20 million under the cap.
Or it makes them a great source for a big ending contract now with
Reaf's 12.7 mil.

From what KP has said Allen will not care if the following years they
are back over the tax line paying the big 3s extensions.

Terraholm wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> FWIW, Hollinger's numbers agree with me, though his early season
>>>> numbers are definitely susceptible to much more random variance:
>>>> http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerranking
>>>>
>>>
>>> Means nothing.
>>
>> They don't mean nothing and his system has a pretty good track
>> record. It had both conference finalists pegged by December last
>> year... and his rankings were way ahead of the curve on the
>> Lakers... before even we Laker fans were believing LA was for real
>> his numbers said they were.
>
> Still means nothing.

No, nothing would be a system that ranks teams' chances based on the color
of their uniforms or average number of letters in players' last names.

In december during their win streak his numbers
> had the blazers at an 80% chance of making the playoffs too...

And...? Hollinger's system is a quick way of looking at stats that have
been proven to be good predictors of future success: margin, SOS, recent
games. So while it isn't perfect, Hollinger doesn't claim it to be and
neither do I... but this isn't a binary, all-or-nothing proposition... it
has a heck of a lot more value than nothing.

Here are the caveats he's giving for Porty in particular:

"As of today, no other Western team projects to win 51 games, and only one
is within eight points of The Juggernaut in the Power Rankings. That team,
surprisingly, is Portland, and while the Blazers are certainly young,
exciting and ready to claim a playoff berth, they're also suspect
defensively and reliant on jump shooting; at this stage they're also likely
being overly rewarded for a 42-point win over Chicago."

>
>>
>> As I mentioned, the usual disclaimers apply because it's early and
>> the system is predictive only insomuch as the past is a reflection
>> of what to expect in the future... which isn't true with a team
>> like Utah that will be getting Deron back and the Spurs who will be
>> getting Manu/Parker back... but built into Porty's numbers are eight
>> games worth of data without Oden so I'd expect he'll help improve
>> their terrible defense so far.
>
> If the starters learn how to use him. Right now both units look better
> with Oden off the bench and JoeL starting.

Doesn't matter if he's starting or not, like Bynum, his primary value to the
team right now is going to be defensive and frankly Porty needs a lot more
help with their D than their O. In fact, that makes the two of them exactly
alike in their roles for the team...

brink