PoliSam
- joined Apr 16, 2008
- last login Feb 01, 2013
- posts 31
- comments 2228
Born in Eugene, OR. Raised on Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Buck Williams, Jerome Kersey, and Uncle Cliffy.
SEHS, Colorado College (BA), Pacific University (MAT), and UCSD (PhD) graduate.
Currently a professor of Political Science in Oregon
A Fan Of...
- nba Portland Trail Blazers
- ncaaf Oregon Ducks
- ncaab Oregon Ducks
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Missing the Blazersedge Jersey Contest?
2Obviously, one of the worst parts of the NBA lockout is the absence of Dave's fantastic Jersey contest! If you are an Oregon (or UCONN) basketball fan, there is similar contest being run at fantuition.com. If you are interested, follow the link and play! Fantuition.com
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Hollinger on Rudy
45As if we need more analysis and discussion of Rudy Fernandez's woes, John Hollinger devotes his entire Per Diem to Rudy. It's on "insider", but this will give you the gist of it: That talent has been apparent at times during the past two seasons, but not lately. Tuesday night's five-point, two-assist performance didn't include a field goal in Fernandez's 28 minutes, and that's par for the course since Roy went out. Fernandez played 37 minutes against the Lakers and scored just nine points in that April 11 game. In the four games since, he's yet to reach double figures in points despite being the Blazers' primary shooting guard and playing 157 of a possible 240 minutes. Fernandez has been the Invisible Man, and the totals are train-wreck bad: 36 points, 10-of-30 shooting and -- get this -- just six 2-point field goal attempts in five games. He's been strictly a spot-up shooter, and not an accurate or threatening one.
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"Regularized Plus-Minus" at a newish nba stats site
12Very interesting new approach to adjusted-plus minus presented at the recent Sloan conference. The link above provides a nice explanation of both "traditional" adjusted-plus minus and his "regularized" version of it. Definitely worth reading if you have the patience for it. The most interesting result he produced concerning the Blazers is Brandon Roy's defensive rating (not very good).
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Hollinger: Surprise teams=Healthy teams
9An excellent article by John Hollinger (insider) about the role of injuries in determining which teams have exceeded and fallen short of pre-season expectations. For those that do not have insider, here is the "money" stat: Fewest games missed by top six players: Atlanta: 2 OKC: 2 Houston: 4 Memphis: 6 Most games missed by top six players: Portland: 162 Golden State: 108 New Jersey: 85 Detroit: 81
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For your consideration. The proportion of minutes played by the most common 5-man unit on each team...
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For your consideration. The proportion of minutes played by the most common 5-man unit on each team in the NBA so far (normally the starters, but not always). I'm not sure what it means, but found it interesting. Note that a few of the teams below the Blazers have had to change starting line-ups due to injury in the middle of this season, like Orlando with the injury to Carter or Charlotte with Bell coming back from injury. Glass half-full: the guys have not played enough together to gel. When they do, the team will be dominating. Glass half-empty: Nate is making rotations too quickly; Oden cannot avoid foul trouble, so the Blazers are doomed.
2009-2010 Regular Season Prediction Contest
I don't know about the rest of you, but for me Dave's reminder that the glorious Blazersedge Jersey Contest does not start until November was a major gameday buzz kill. I had my Excel Spreedsheets,...
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Preseason Stats
6Because they are so, so meaningful. Also, because Oden is averaging 30pts, 20 rebounds, and 3 blocks per 48 minutes (which would be 20pts, 13 rebounds, and 2 blocks per 32 minutes, fwiw).
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Notable over-unders for season win totals
10- Portland 52.5
- LAL 61.5
- Cleveland 60.5
- San Antonio 54.5
- Denver 52.5
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ESPN Fantasy Basketball Predictions for the Blazers
7Very detailed. Nothing too controversial, but still interesting. A few thoughts: I think the player with the best chance to exceed their projections is Oden. I found their minute projections especially interesting, with Miller playing 32 minutes per game and Blake playing 20 (with the games played projection, it works out to just barely more than the 48 minutes at PG). They split the SF minutes fairly evenly and kept Rudy's minutes unchanged. I'm ready for training camp to start!
8-18 Junk Drawer, Wicker Edition (update with graph)
When I think of the "first" basketball hoop, I have in mind a wicker basket that looks something like this: Apparently, however, Dr. Naismith's first hoop wasn't really wicker, at least that's...
Predicting Wins in 2009-2010, Consider "Regression to the Mean"
With the release of the 2009-2010 NBA schedule yesterday, we saw the first wave of predictions for the upcoming season. In making predictions for the Blazers or any other team the first thing most...
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Batum Leads France with 15pts, 5 Assists against the Czech Republic
31Pretty nice stat line for Nic! Does anyone have additional info on this game? Like, when was it played?? I started searching for the box score when I saw a story about Parker hurting his ankle against Austria... I was surprised to see that France has played two games and yet no reports from our European Blazer fans.
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Oden Story from Las Vegas Review-Journal
8Interesting to get a third-party perspective. For a first-party perspective, Casey has a nice summary: More Oden
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Sergio Wants Out "I don't know what my future (is) going to be," Rodriguez said. "I think...
98Sergio Wants Out "I don't know what my future (is) going to be," Rodriguez said. "I think something is going to happen, either a trade, or something. But I think for me, I feel like I need a change. I need to play a different way. I really enjoy playing three years here. But I think I need something (different). I feel after three years, I need a change."
http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2009/05/pritchard_the_puzzle_master.html
Most disappointing/worrisome player performance? (poll)
I know we are starting to move on from the Houston series, but before we do, I wanted to settle an argument that I have been having with myself.: the Blazers lost several player match-ups in...
Oden off the Bench? An Analysis
Reports suggest that Oden will soon start playing again for the Blazers. There has been a lot of discussion about whether he should start or come off the bench when he returns. My guess is that...
Home Court Advantage in the NBA, 2008-2009
With the Blazers continued road woes and the importance of scheduling in the Western Conference playoff race, I thought I'd take do a little analysis of home court advantage in the NBA this...
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More Jefferson rumors from Stein at ESPN
2-Not really new, but additional confirmation that Jefferson + Ridnour is being discussed. -A claim that Washington is not trading Butler. -A few nuggets about Vince.
The No-Stats All-Star
There is a great article in the New York Times Magazine this week by the author of Money Ball, Michael Lewsi. It is about Shane Battier, Houston's GM Daryl Morey, and the "new" stats in basketball:...
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I'm sorry for being immature, but this picture deserves some comment. Please submit your best...
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I'm sorry for being immature, but this picture deserves some comment. Please submit your best mock captions below. I know there are a lot of comedic geniuses here at Blazersedge. Make us laugh.
2nd Update: NBA from 1951 to 2009, POR, LAC, LAL
In response to the questions and comments on my previous post on ages and success in the NBA, I did a little additional work. I could not do everything that people asked about, but I tried to...
Ages of Success in the NBA: How Unusual are the Blazers? (Updated)
One of the major themes of this seasons has been that the Blazers have been unusually successful for their age. I wanted to know, more precisely, just how young the Blazers are and just how...
Oden and Portland's Team Defense
If Portland is going to contend for NBA championships some day, it will need to improve its team defense. Although the season is going quite well so far (in my opinion), Porltand is only 20th in...
Blazers-Clippers Game Report
My girlfriend and I drove from San Diego to downtown L.A. to watch the Blazers take on the Clippers at the Staples Center. Living in Southern California, there are not a lot of opportunities to...
A Bayless Comparison: Tony Parker
There has been a lot of discussion about how Bayless will fit into the Blazers offfense. It is clear that he is a prolific scoerer with a gift for penetrating and drawing fouls. He has not...
Career Trajectories of Early Entry G-F, Part 1
All of the debate and discussion about the value of the young talent on the Blazers and how much the Blazers should get back in any trade of its young assets raises a very interesting set of...
Dallas Needs Players
As a fellow Blazer's Edge reader, I know what you are thinking: "I need to read about another trade proposal... about as badly as I need another hole in my head.." But, here's the...
Joe Alexander
There is not much NBA news right now, so I thought I'd do a little research on one of the more likely draftees for the Blazers according to the mock drafts, Joe Alexander. When watching college...
Oden played on TV this morning
CBS rebroadcasted the 2007 national championship game. It was a great opportunity to watch Oden play and fantasize about what he'll bring to Portland next year. Keep in mind that the guys he's...
Going big, Going small
I listened to the chat with Dave, Quick, Henry, and Casey today and the conversation about future roster moves got me thinking: we really do not have a good idea of what type of players Pritchard...
