Those of you Truehoop readers out there may have already found your way over to this, but http://hardwoodparoxysm.blogspot.com/ has a pretty provocative way of displaying player styles.  Basically, instead of classifying players by position, this classifies them along three axes, which they label Scorer, Interior Player, and Perimeter Player based on their box score stats.  Then, they are displayed with colors to match the types.  The image of the '07-'08 season is here: http://gmapuploader.com/iframe/eiIPdFI01F

I recommend reading the methodology if you're interested.  What I'm interested in is the similarities between two players that emerge from this system.  Naturally, I want to know who in the NBA today, statistically, is most comparable to our Blazers.  The results are pretty interesting.

Brandon Roy's type is a little bit of a surprise: he's closest to players (remember - in style, not in quality) like Tony Parker, Beno Udrih, Ronnie Brewer, and DeShawn Stevenson in the "Perimeter Scorers" sextant.  Steve Blake is close to Earl Watkins and Kirk Heinrich in the "Pure Perimeter" sextant, which is about right.  Joel Pryzbilla is on the furthest extreme, of everyone in the NBA, on the "pure interior" spectrum, closest to Diekembe Mutumbo.  LaMarcus Aldridge and Antawn Jamison are just about on top of each other on this chart and both are pretty close to David West, which is a bit enlightening, I think.  If that's what we can count on moving forward alongside Oden and Roy, I think we'll be just fine.  It also sets reasonable (but still high) expectations on his ceiling, his role, and his likely career path.  Travis Outlaw is closest to Josh Howard, and interestingly enough, so is Martel Webster.  They obviously look very different on the court, but statistically, their games are quite similar by this measure.

Anyway, it's a really fun graph to dig into.  There's also one of the top 250 players in NBA history, which definitely passes the sniff test and still produces some fascinating results.

One of the big storylines of last night's runaway victory against Golden State was our ability to limit Baron Davis and Steven Jackson to a combined 9 points, well below their combined season scoring average of nearly 44 points.  From watching the Blazers throughout this season, however, it seems that we have quite a talent for shutting down or neutralizing the opponent's best (or one of their best) players.  To wit:

Carlos Boozer, 1/5 - 6 points
Chris Paul, 12/17 - 11 points, 4 TO
Deron Williams, 12/14 - 11 points, 5 TO
Steven Jackson, 12/12 - 9 points (3-15 FG), 4 TO
Michael Redd, 12/9 - 18 points (5-23 FG), 4 TO
Pau Gasol, 12/3 - 14 points (4-14 FG)
Dirk Nowitzki, 11/30 - 11 points (5-15)
Dwight Howard, 11/26 - 9 points
Rip Hamilton, 11/13 - 14 points (5-20)
Dirk Nowitzki, 11/9 - 11 points (4-13)

Now, for any one of these, you could just say "So-and-so had a bad game," which would be true.  On the other hand, it happens often enough to make one believe that when we put our minds to it, we have the ability to make at least one opposing player's night miserable.  Anecdotally, I attended both New Orleans games, fretting beforehand that we would be scorched by CP3 only to end up wondering why he was so quite.  I also witnessed the first Dallas game, wondering leading up to tip-off worrying just how many ways Dirk would make us his manservant, only to see a rather innocuous stat line.  Even in losing against Orlando, we managed to make the scariest man in the league, Dwight Howard, a relative non-factor.  I also remember a first half where we couldn't contain Pau Gasol, only to see him put up a big 0 in the second half.

Until last night, I haven't seen much discussion of just how effective we seem to be at shutting down the opponent's top player when we key in on them.  As for this apparent "talent" of ours, I have to credit Nate McMillan for savvy game-planning.  I wonder if it's something they specifically discuss before each game - it happens too often for it to be a mere coincidence.

What is the sound clip that plays at the Rose Garden every time Martell scores a field goal?  I keep feeling like it's on the tip of my tongue, and now it's driving me crazy!

What else to discuss...well, there's been a lot of talk around these parts about Brandon being an All-Star this year, which I think is justified, even if he's unlikely to get the nod.  However, All-Star or not, I think the real question is: what guard in the NBA would you rather have for your franchise (this year, next year, five years down the line) than Roy?  When you look at a "franchise player," you're obviously not just looking for excellent court skills, you're also looking for leadership, fan support, etc.  I honestly have a hard time naming any.  The only guards I'd rather have this year (not looking to the future) would be Nash, Chris Paul, and maybe Dwyane Wade (I say maybe because he may be less than 100% this year).  Sure, Kobe may be a "better" player, as may Iverson, Kidd, and Baron, but I feel like none of their games are as conducive to winning basketball as Brandon.

I grew up in Philadelphia, and my basketball fandom basically started with the beginning of the A.I. era, and I tell you, having a star like Roy is so much different than having a NBA-leading scorer.  Even during the good years in Philly, it often felt like the rest of the team stood around watching Allen on offense, and the team was completely dependent on his scoring to win.  We even saw a little of that in our first win against Denver this year.  It's such a nice breath of fresh air for me to watch a Roy-led team.  Going forward, the only guard I might rather have, if you offered me a trade straight up, would be CP3 - and that might even be a stretch.

Regardless, I think we can all agree that no matter how many games we win this year, it's amazing what good hands this franchise is in with Roy as the foundation.

I recently moved to Oregon, and while I continue to live and die by the Phillies, my basketball loyalty has definitely shifted from the Sixers to the Blazers (this was rendered completely painless by the departure of Monsieur Iverson).  As a Blazers season-ticket holder, I have found myself reading the fellow-SBN site Blazersedge on a daily basis.  Allowing for the cultural shift between the Atlantic Coast (Philly Phans in particular) and the Pacific Northwest, I nonetheless feel that the Blazersedge code of etiquette is something that would benefit this (and, really, any) blog.  After a couple of relatively common-sense points (citing sources, not using profanity or racial slurs), the Blazersedge Credo (authored by the site's admin, Dave) contains this nugget:

 "5.  Do not violate my pet peeves, which all have to do with bad/abusive/unfair conversational styles.  In other words, don't be "THAT guy".  Typical characteristics of THAT guy:
--He posts something and then responds to every...single...comment with an overly-defensive comment of his own, not letting people have real conversation about his points.  It's fine for people to disagree.  In fact debate makes the best conversations.  If you don't want anybody to disagree with what you've written, go to Hallmark, buy a journal, and write your thoughts there.  If you write them here, give people some space to reply with good, solid points of their own.

--He talks about the person posting instead of the post and its points/ideas.  This is completely unnecessary.  Hint:  Limit the use of the word "you" in your posts.  "You're an idiot if you think LeBron will be traded.  Cleveland values him too much..." should be just "Cleveland values LeBron too much to trade him."

--He begins posts with phrases like, "If you had actually watched the game..." or "If you knew anything about basketball..."  These are inflammatory and again unnecessary.  It's possible that people actually did watch the game and simply saw something different than you did.  

While other offenses can get you banned, the only people to this point who have actually been banned got the heave-ho for violation of Rule #5.  Ignore at your peril."

I continue to be a regular Good Phight reader in large part because the conversation is, on a whole, much more insightful than the analysis I find in mainstream media outlets.  I also enjoy the Good Phight because regular posters (and a big shoutout to dafaji here for setting the tone) aspire to create dialogue, expand others' ideas, and provide thoughtful and respectful counterpoints to posts they disagree with.  I just think it would be worthwhile for every poster (myself included) to consider this critical point of etiquette so that we may avoid inflammatory, bar-fight caliber conversations.

The happiest of turkeys to you all!

I'm looking over the list of free agents, and there are a few names I would think are worth considering.  These are in the crazy-enough-that-it-just-might-work category.  I'd love to hear your opinions.

Brad Wilkerson, 1b/CF - If we let Rowand go, I think Wilkerson could be a really useful player to back up Victorino in center, as well as covering our arses for the corner outfield spots and first base.  Considering his last three disappointing seasons, he could come cheap.  Considering his still-keen plate discipline and decent power, he could reasonably regain some of the form that he flashed in his excellent 2004 campaign.  I'd say if you can get him for around $3 million, he'd be a nice pickup, and would allow us to trade Bourn for pitching.

Mark Prior, P - I agree with dafaji's preference for junkpile relievers - the goal is to buy low and take intelligent gambles on guys who miss bats.  There's a chance Prior will never be useful again.  But what if he could be had for, say, $1.5 million to pitch in relief next season?

Matt Clement, P - Like Eaton, he can't possibly be as bad as his most recent performance.  Maybe he really is no longer an 8 K/9 guy, but if he rebounds to 7, maybe he could be useful in the back end of the rotation or in the pen.

Furthermore, what does anyone know about the Japanese free agents, like pitchers Kazumi Saito, Hitoki Iwase, and Kenshin Kawakam?  Would any of them need to be bought out of their current contracts, a la Dice-K?

One of the most frequent criticisms leveled against the Phils, both this year and in the past, is a lack of "timely hitting" or a perceived failure in clutch situations.  From a fan's perspective, seeing lots of runners left on base throughout the year can give a distorted perception - as more than one person on this blog has pointed out, one of the reasons the Phils strand so many is that they generate so many baserunners!  A team that leads the league in OBP (as the Phils currently do) will necessarily strand a ton of baserunners; after all, only home runs yield zero LOB.

Anyway, at the end of last season there were several pieces in The Hardball Times about how every team fared, relative to average, in "timely" hitting, as well as in "feast or famine" offense (i.e. 1 run today, 10 runs yesterday, 2 runs tomorrow...).  The conclusions about the Phils were that they were about average at leveraging their hits, and perhaps even more consistent than most teams in terms of day-to-day offensive output.  

Today's lead article in THT is about 2007 WPA to date, and Phils' hitters are right about average in leveraging their hits given total runs scored.  The article is here:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/wpa-to-date/

The Phillies are just barely below the line - hardly the atrocious performance we often attribute to them.

The other thing that jumps out in the WPA article regarding the Phillies is that the bullpen has been terrible.  "Tell us something we didn't know!" you say?  How about the Yanks' bullpen being worse than ours...