SB Nation User Blog: PoliSam

Oden and Portland's Team Defense

PoliSam — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:01:52 -0000

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 the leage in defensive efficiency. It is highly unlikely that the Blazers can win a NBA championship playing that level of defense. Fortunately, there are some very encouraging signs that Oden, even early in his rookie season, is having a positive effect on Portland's team defense. I have commented on this before, but thought I would provdie a little visual evidence to support that claim.

The majority of the discussion of Oden's effect on the team has focussed on the plus-minus statistic or comparison of statistics with Oden in the game and with Oden out of the game. Although there some valuable insights can be gained from looking at those kinds of statistics, they have a couple of drawbacks. One, it is possible that during Oden's minutes he has faced, on average, stronger players or played with weaker teammates. Since there are no readily available statistics to quantify the strength of his opponents or teammmates when he is on the floor, this is a significant problem. Two, having Oden in the line-up can affect how the team plays when he is out in the game as well as when he is on the bench. As is becoming increasingly obvious, Pryzbilla can play much more aggressively when he plays limited minutes because he does not have to worry as much about foul trouble and has more energey. In addition, when Oden plays, Frye is more likely to defend PFs rather than Cs, which is a big improvement.

For those reasons, I think a better way to assess the effect of Oden on Portland's defense is to compare Portland's defensive efficiency in games that Oden played to it's deffensive efficiency in games that he did not play. Since "good" offensive teams will, by definition, score more than "bad" offensive teams, we want to know if teams Porltand has played better defense without or without Oden, "controlling" for the offensive strength of their opponent. If Portland's defensive effiency was better with Oden, but they played weaker teams when Oden played, we wouldn't know much. A rough measure of offensive strength is simply their average offensive efficiency in games this season. So, a simple way to see if Oden might have an effect on team defense is to plot opponent's offensive efficiency when they played Portland against their average offensive efficiency and compare the games that Oden has played to the games that Oden did not play:

via photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net

This graph shows several things. One, as expected, teams that have better average offensive efficiencies tend to score more effieciently against Portland, on average. Two, the relationship between average scoring and scoring against Portland has roughly the same slope whether or not Oden plays. This is shown in the green and orange lines (the "Fitted" lines). The fitted lines show, in essence, Porltand's average defensive efficiency, given an opponent's offensive strength with and without Oden. Three, given an opponents offensive strength, Porltand has played, on average, signicantly better defense with Oden.... In particular, teams have scored between .1 and .13 fewer points per possession against Portland when Oden has played than when he was out with an injury. Though it is not shown in this graph, the effect is so large that passes standard tests of a statistical signficance (in a regression based t-test, the probability that the oden effect is zero is less than 5%).

Now, is this definitive, 100% ironclad evidence that having Oden in the line-up has caused Portland to play better defense. No. Certainly there are other deterimants of an opponents offensive efficiency than simply their average offensive strength. It's possible that, home court advantage, injuries, a "lucky streak" of good defense , or something else can explain this pattern. It is worth noting, however, that controlling for home court advantag actually increases the size of the "Oden effect" and controlling for opponent injuries does not eliminate eliminate it.

That being said, this is really just an early development that will be interesting to track the rest of the season.

Blazers-Clippers Game Report

PoliSam — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:14:11 -0000

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 see the Blazers live and in person, so we had to go. It was a great decision.

I figured that we could buy scalped tickets at the arena. When we got there, however, no one seemed to be selling any tickets. There were just a ton of high school kids getting off of buses and people meeting up with friends. We walked around looking clueless for a few minutes and were about to try to buy tickets from "VIP tickets" when a man pulled us aside and said, "you just won the lottery." I was a little skeptical--sounded like a hackneyed sales pitch--but he whisked us into the arena and sold us courtside seats for peanuts! Apparently he liked my girlfriend's smile. Whatever. Courtside seats! To see Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldrdge, Greg Oden, Rudy Fernandez--the Blazers! Wow. I usually sit in the upper concourse or whatever, but we sat right behind the Clippers owner, Donald Sterling at midcourt. It was crazy. And, as luck would have it, I sat next to another Blazer fan who also reads Blazersedge. We talked Blazers and tried to avoid being too conspicous about our giddiness about the Blazere's good fortune within earshot of Donald Sterling.

Obviously, the laws of karma dictate that I relate, as well as I can, my experience and impressions to those of you that were not so fortunate. It looks like the game was not televised and the radio and box score can only tell you so much. Since the box score is available, I'll try to focus on things that you could have only known if you were there and I'll try to highlight was in which I think the box score is misleading for this game.

Pre-Game Impressions:

Everyone has probably heard this a million times, but it has to be said: NBA players are huge!

The strangest thing about sitting courtside is that the players look you in the eye during warm-ups. Obviously, as a fan I am watching the players as the players warm-up. This makes sense: it's a professional baskteball game and watching them play is what I came there to do. But, when you are that close to the players watching them feels like staring and the players sometimes stare back. If I had better social skills, I would have said hello or "Go get em" or something, but obviously I don't have good social skills, so I just stared blankly. Part of the strangeness of the interactions is that the the players all look familiar to me--I've seen their pictures a thousand times--I fell like I know the team personally. So, part of my brain is saying "Hey Rudy, what up?" But, then the rational part of my brain is saying, "Sam, he doesn't know who you are. He thinks you are some crazy dude that's staring at him." Anyway, it's odd to be so close to the players.

Baron Davis was out before all of the other players going through a solo workout. As you know, he did not play, and was primarily working on his shot. Baron is a somewhat charismatic guy and a somewhat goofy guy and i enjoyed watching his shooting routine. Surprisingly, Baron was not very impressive shooting the ball. In fact, I shoot a higher percentage when I'm shooting by myself than Davis shot and I'm nothing special on the basketball court. I expected an NBA star like Davis to drain at least 70% of his shots on air. He was hitting about 40%. As I said, Davis is a little quirkly, so perhaps he was trying to get the misses out of his system.

Gernal Game Impressions:

-This was definitely a preseason game. There were some moments where the game become intense, where players really hustled, but neither team played their hardest. If anything, I thought the Clippers came out with a bit more determination than the Blazers at both the beginning of the game and the beginning of the third quarter

-The Blazers made the Clippers' offense dysfunctional for most of the game. This is probably not saying a lot, given how little talent the Clippers weilded tonight, but the Blazers were more aggressive defensively than I can remember. They were poking at the ball and forcing turnovers throughout the night, though the line-up of Rudy, Blake, Roy, Aldridge, and Oden was particularly effective at this (the box score reflects this as well, Rudy, Roy, Blake, and Aldridge each had three steals).

-When the Clippers managed to maintain possession of the ball, they took contested shots or difficult shots at least 60% of the time. My infallible "lucky shot detector" said that the Clippers hit more than their fair share of prayers. Cutino Mobely, in particular, seemed to be in the good graces of the patron saint of desperation floaters... The solid defense was primarily the result of sound on the ball defense and solid rotations. The few times the Clippers got easy baskets, it was usually the result of preseason laziness... of a simple lack of hustle. It was nice to see the Blazers prevent Al Thorton from going off after Kevin Martin's performance on Monday.

-Pryzbilla and Frye absolutely dominated the offensive glass. They did some of their ditry work against the Clippers starters and some of it against Paul Davis and Deandre Jordan. It was impressive and Clippers fans were quite frustrated by it. If he stays healthy, I think Pryzbilla will have an even better rebound rate than last year. It's going to be a huge advantage for the Blazers to play Przybilla against back-up centers and tired centers. In addition, Frye, playing against back-up power forwards and next to Pryzbilla is going to be a pest.

-The Blazers did not shoot particularly well tonight, but they were getting relatively open shots on most possessions. Perhaps they shot a somewhat high percentage of jump shots, but they shot a lot of wide open jumpers. Roy was the only Blazer that hit his open jumpers consistently (most of his misses were off of lay-in attempts). If the Blazers had had an average night shooting, they would have won by about 10 additional points.

-I am not really enamored with the Blazers half-court offense--seems a little predictable and it does not generate many easy shots... mostly jumpers. On the other hand, I really don't have a great feel for NBA offensive strategy, so I do not have any counter proposals. What worked tonight was the dirve and kick off the pick and roll and feeding Oden in the post (the latter did not happen all that often). What did not work was giving the ball to the PFs on the pick and roll. Nate seems to have given the green light to Aldridge, Frye, and Outlaw to shoot contested 18 foot jumpers. They are hitting about 30% of those shots.

-Blazers were pretty good scoring off of steals and in transition. Blake seems to be pushing the ball harder and Rudy is very sneaky on the break.

Player Thoughts:

-Roy. Without the benefit of the box score, I would not have known he was the leading scorer. He was pretty quiet. He missed more lay-ins than usual, but made up for it with his three point shooting. He seemed to want to let his teammates get most of the work on the offensive end.

-Rudy. Had a much better game than the box score might indicate. He was everywhere. He got key rebounds. He got important loose balls. He made timely steals. He did not shoot particularly well, but he was taking the right shots. He was taking wide-open threes. Those shots will drop. He moved the ball well and continues to move well without the ball. Not playing without Sergio might have cut 3 or 4 points from his total, but he looked comfortable with whoever was on the court.

-Aldridge. Forced some shots on offense, but was otherwise solid. He was active on defense and on the boards. He and Oden shared several rebounds that ended up in Oden's hands. He had a nice dunk in transition off a pass from Blake. I LOVE when Aldridge runs hard on the break.

-Oden. It was a pretty impressive night for Greg Oden, Jr. Every summary of Greg Oden's games should start with a summary of his defensive effort. I'll follow my own advice. He gave Kaman fits tonight. Considering that Kaman is an established, veteran center in this league, that the Clippers were running a ton of plays for Kaman, and that Kaman was playing hard, that's probably the most impressive thing Oden has done all season... You know that you are playing well as a rookie when the home fans start heckling the guy that you are guarding. That happened tonight to the man Oden guarded. "C'Mon Kaman! Shoot the ball!" they yelled. "Do something, Kaman!" they pleaded. It almost got ugly. I felt bad for the guy. O, and Greg, Jr played Kaman for about 30 minutes and only had two personal fouls. Wasn't Oden supposed to foul out every game this year? Oden was a little less impressive as a help defender, but that may have been by design.

On offense, Oden looked good. When you see 12 points for Oden in 30 minutes, keep in mind that the Blazers are not running many plays for him. He's getting most of his points off of offensive rebounds. This is important. I'd guess that Aldridge touches the ball about 70% of the possessions when he's in the game. Oden's at about 35% (my guestimate). I did not really appreciate how important this is until watching a game in person. In fact, the comparison between the way the Clippers used Kaman and the Blazers used Oden was striking. The Clippers moved Kaman all over the court. They set screens for him. They ran the pick and roll with him. Most of the time Oden waited on the block for something to happen--by the design of the play. When he got the ball, it was usually just off of a simple post up--no help from screeners or ball movement. When Oden becomes a focal point of the offense, his point total will jump quickly. I'm fine with Nate easing Oden into the offense, I just think fans and beat writiers ought to take this into heavy consideration when assessing Oden's early season production.

-The one part of Oden's game that had me concerned was the way he jogged down the court. He jogged really, really slowly. Now, this has very little to do with the game of basketball. I know that. But ,I don't know why he jogs so slowly. Many people have described this as lumbering. It's a good description. Greg lumbers in transition. I don't think he's that out of shape. I don't think his knee is bothering him. I think it's probably just a bad habit, but I worry that it will prevent him from being getting into peak shape by the time the regular season starts. But, really, it's fine. I love Greg Oden. God loves the Blazers!

-Bayless. The reports of the demise of Jerryd Bayless are greatly exaggerated. Bayless had a superb night. Two of his three turnovers came in garbage time. He was spark off the bench. His defense was excellent. He ran the half-court offense relatively well and he hit his jumpers. He lead a big run by the Blazers in the fourth quarter with a steal and a three point play, a couple of assists, and an easy basket in transition. He's a long way from being a perfect basketball player, but he has some skills that no one else on the Blazers have and he's only going to get better.

-Outlaw. Just when I was about to beomce really concerned that something was seriously wrong with Travis, he erupted for 7 points in about 5 minutes, which helped break open the game. Yes, he has not looked great in preseason. Yes, at times he failed to hustle at times tonight.. Yes, he has taken some questionable shots. But, it is preseason. I would not get too worried about Travis.

Okay. That's it. Fun game. Lot's to like. I'm a liker. Can't wait from the regular season to start. Sorry for the typos. It's late.

A Bayless Comparison: Tony Parker

PoliSam — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:34:18 -0000

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 demonstrated, many have said, the skills or the instinct of a pure point guard (either in summer league or in college). Indeed, in one of the fan posts below Bayless has already been labeled a bust by scouts because the Blazers need a "distrubtor" at point guard: (Bayless a Bust).

Is that really true? Many people , including many astute observers on Blazersedge as well Kevin Pritchard, disagree. I also disagree and would like to provide some evidence to that effect by way of an analogy.

I see Bayless fulfilling the same role on the Blazers as Tony Parker plays for the Spurs. I do not think Parker and Bayless' skills and talent are identical, but I think they could serve a similar purpose for their teams. If you look at Parker's statistics (or watch the games) Parker is not the Spurs primary playmaker. Parker has averaged 16 points per game and between 5 and 6 assists over the course of his career. For most of his career, Parker has dribbled the ball up the court and made a simple pass to Duncan or Ginoboli and allowed them to work one-on-one or with each other. As he has matured, he has statred to make more plays in the half-court, but his primary function on the Spurs is to keep the defense honest, too punish opposing defenses for doubling Duncan or Giniboli. Parker puts pressure on defenses by being able to slash to the hoop and finish.

Keeping a defense honset is precisely what I would want out of a point guard playing with Oden, Roy, and Aldridge and is exactly what Jerrdy Bayless seems to be able to do. Teams are going to double Oden in the post, they are going to try to trap Roy off of pick and rolls, the more players on the floor that can make opposing teams pay for this strategy, the better. The fact that Bayless has the speed and the skill to get to the basket and draw fouls at a high rate, like Tony Parker, seems to make him a great fit for the Blazers.

The only way Bayless scoring prowess would be a problem is if he were to refuse to pass to Oden and Roy or were to refuse to follow the instructions of the coaching staff... I just don't see that happening, because if he did it, he wouldn't get any playing time and he'd look like a fool.. Even if he were "selfish" (which I don't think he is), he would learn to fulfill his role on this team out of his own self interest.

Granted, Tony Parker is a proven NBA starter and NBA finals MVP, while Bayless is a rookie, but am I crazy for seeing Bayless doing for the Blazers (in a few years) roughly what Parker has done for the Spurs?

Career Trajectories of Early Entry G-F, Part 1

PoliSam — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:51:45 -0000

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 questions: how much do players improve, on average from year to year? Do they improve quickly early in their career and then level off or is it more gradual assent? How many years does it take for a player to plateau? Or, more specifically, how good are Webster and Outlaw going to be in a couple of years? Are there many players at their position that go from their level of production during their third years in the league to being NBA All-stars? What is the chance that they regress? Certainly there are many players that take a step backwared in their fourth or fifth seniors, like Leandro Barbosa, Luke Ridnour, Kirk Henrich, Ben Gordon, and Juwan Howard--and that's not counting players that sustain a significant injury, like Darius Miles.

Obviously, a lot depends on the individual player. Players that are dedicated to their games improve more than those that are not (duh!). On the other hand, raw players have, by definition, more room to improve (see Ridnour). There may also be differences in player improvement by the age a player enters the league, by position, by NBA era, by skill set, and by team environment. On the other hand, not using the history of other players to inform one's projections about current players just because they are not identical seems unwise to me.

Thanks to basketballdatabase.com it is now possible to address these questions quantitatively. Data on every player that played from 1950 to 2006 is freely available. So, having a little free time, I downloaded the data and crunched the numbers. In order to focus my analysis, I selected a sample of players that I consider a reasonable comparison group to Webster and Outlaw, while leaving in enough players to have some "statistical" power. I know most BEs aren't really interested in confidence intervals or the finer points of statistics and probability, but it should be pretty obvious that if, in the last 20 years, there is only one player of Webster's height, weight, position, age of entry, and first year stats, we probably aren't going to learn much by just comparing him to that person. It turns out that there are relatively few players (36) that have entered the league at age 19 or younger and played for five seasons by 2006-07. However, I think this is an important enough issue that, in general, I went with smaller samples with players more Webster-like and Outlaw-like players rather than larger samples with many players that were quite different from Webster and Outlaw.

There are many different ways to try to answer the questions posed above, and I've used three different approaches (two shown in this post). The first is relatively simple: I selected all players that entered the league at the age of 19 or younger and were between 6 ft and 6ft 9in, started their careers after 1980, and had at least 5 years of experience. With this sample, I calculated the average production by year of experience (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th). That is, the table below shows how many points, rebounds, assists, etc that the average early entry guards and forwards produced per 36 minutes in their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th seasons. In this analysis, it is important to restrict the sample to players with 5 years of experience because if players leave the sample after their second year, then the averages calculated for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th years will be from a different group of players than those calculated for years 1 and 2. Scaling the "stats" to "stats" per 36 minutes is also important since playing time can vary greatly depending on team depth, coach, etc. Here are the results:

Table 1

Year	MIN/G	PTS/36	REB/36	A/36	S/36	TO/36	FG%	FT%	3P%
1	21.19	14.52	6.62	2.83	1.33	2.90	42.2%	68.9%	22.0%
2	26.51	16.28	6.45	3.38	1.31	2.73	45.1%	71.1%	25.7%
3	29.12	16.12	6.40	3.51	1.37	2.64	43.4%	72.8%	28.0%
4	31.88	17.33	6.58	3.42	1.31	2.38	44.4%	75.1%	26.6%
5	33.65	18.46	6.48	3.44	1.30	2.66	45.7%	74.9%	28.4%

What do they say? Probably depends one what your expectations were. As much as anything, rookies look surprisingly productive, they just do not have the trust of their coaches to get minutes. Second, some parts of the game have a different learning curve than others. Points, FT% and 3P% show a pretty steady improvement. Steals, Turnovers, and FG% surprisingly, bounce around. And Rebound productivity, if anything, declines. Secondly, there is still a considerable amount of improvement to be had for players that were 21 in their third year in the NBA. On the other hand, by these numbers it would appear unlikely that a player averaging 13 points per 36 minutes in their third year, like Webster or Outlaw, will become a scoring champion by their fifth year... even though scoring is one of the areas where players improve the most. While it's true that Webster and Outlaw got slower starts than the average player in this sample, they really weren't wildly different by year 2:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/webstma02.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/o/outlatr01.html

In case you are wondering, here is the career trajectory for a similar sample of players that played at least 8 seasons (though the sample only includes 12 players):

Table 2

Year	MIN/G	PTS/36	REB/36	A/36	S/36	TO/36	FG%	FT%	3P%
1	20.79	15.25	6.80	2.90	1.40	3.19	41.9%	0.7105	0.2366
2	26.45	17.04	6.48	3.41	1.40	2.79	45.4%	0.7325	0.2643
3	31.03	16.77	6.31	3.84	1.51	2.80	44.1%	0.7649	0.3149
4	33.91	18.39	6.52	3.57	1.43	2.60	45.6%	0.7784	0.2919
5	36.85	19.08	6.56	3.71	1.34	2.62	45.2%	0.7801	0.3108
6	36.28	19.99	6.74	3.56	1.25	2.64	46.2%	0.7865	0.3243
7	37.52	19.68	6.23	3.76	1.36	2.69	45.8%	0.7717	0.3371
8	36.85	18.75	6.25	3.88	1.33	2.58	45.2%	0.7816	0.3211

They show the same general pattern. Note, however, that these players plateau in their 6th season from a statistical stand-point.

Now there are a lot of reasons to question the validity of any inferences using this data. A fairly obvious problem is that both samples were quite small. An alternative approach would be to include players that started later in their careers and look at productivity by age. By including players that started when they were 21 or younger, we loose the unique experience of players that entered the NBA as teenagers, but we get more players (91) and it is still interesting. So, the next table shows the progression of the same type of players (6ft to 6ft 9in, started careers by 1980, etc):

Table 3

Age	MIN/G	PTS/36	REB/36	A/36	S/36	TO/36	FG%	FT%	3P%
21	26.01	16.46	6.36	3.48	1.39	2.80	0.4518	0.7292	0.2172
22	29.26	17.39	6.36	3.64	1.33	2.72	0.4652	0.7455	0.239
23	30.60	17.69	6.42	3.72	1.34	2.58	0.468	0.7543	0.2406
24	31.89	18.01	6.31	3.67	1.27	2.55	0.4681	0.7666	0.2517
25	30.98	17.49	6.25	3.62	1.27	2.42	0.4643	0.772	0.255
26	31.21	17.46	6.35	3.70	1.29	2.46	45.9%	0.7716	0.2906
27	29.98	17.15	6.02	3.50	1.21	2.32	45.9%	0.7823	0.2863
28	28.11	16.28	5.89	3.57	1.13	2.35	44.4%	0.7647	0.2694

This pattern reinforces, more or less, the observations made above. Players definitely improve, on average, over time, but expecting dramatic improvement is probably questionable, because some players get worse and some players do not improve a great deal after the age of 22 in terms of rare productivity.

Conclusion:

In my first cut of looking at the experience of other players "like" Webster and "like" Outlaw, it's clear that players tend to improve after their 3rd seasons, but that they do not tend to improve enough for either Webster or Outlaw to turn into all-star caliber players. Strictly speaking these figures do not provide a way to project Webster or Outlaws future, but if we were to do so, any where between 12 and 17 points per game would seem reasonable. Therefore, in my view, those that expect a lot of improvement from Outlaw and Webster and those that don't expect much, both have plausible arguments. One group is being optimistic, another pessimistic.

In my next post, I will use some slightly more advanced analytical tools to make projections for Outlaw and Webster's production in future seasons. These methods (OLS regression) will provide me with a way to try to address the fact that both Webster and Outlaw were relatively "raw" players when they entered the league. The types of conclusions I have drawn thus far, assumes that the amount of improvement does not depend much on one's initial productivity, which might turn out to be false. Should be interesting.

Thoughts?

Footnote:

A statistical caveat: the amount of improvement suggested by tables 1 through 3 is biased upward to some degree. Since I dropped all those players that fell out of the league entirely and were unable to play, the players in the sample are all, in a sense, successful players-it doesn't include the washouts. On the other hand, given that I expect Martell and Outlaw to last well beyond their fifth seasons and older players are as likely, if not more likely, to have a career ending injury, I think it's reasonable to restrict the sample in this way.

Dallas Needs Players

PoliSam — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:14:59 -0000

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 thing: Kevin Pritchard is going to make some kind of trade. He just is. He's talked about it many, many times. All of the NBA insiders are reporting that Portland's pick is on the block. Recently Prichard even said that the trade talk is heating up. It is going to happen. Where there is smoke there is fire. Unfortunately, I have no idea what he's going to do and it is driving me a little nuts. So, like many of you, I scour the internet for word of teams that are looking for players and try to piece together a plausible answer. It's a great puzzle (My girlfriend cannot figure out why I haven't solved it yet). On most days I come up with nothing. Today, however, I find this little gem of a story from HoopsWorld. Here is the key information:

Why Dallas Has to Trade

Today the Dallas media is talking about Eddie Jones, who could opt out of his contract with the Mavericks and give Dallas an eighth potential roster spot to fill... As much as the Mavs would like to believe they're going to be contenders next season, it's not going to happen without some other team out there taking pity on them. They're fighting luxury tax/salary cap issues because they're overpaying Josh Howard and Jason Terry. It made sense to overpay them at the time because the team was so deep and seemed so close to winning a title. But now with Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd taking up the bulk of the team's cap space, it becomes hard to fill all of those other roster spots when there's no money to do it with.

Ultimately the Mavs are going to need to trade one of their top guys and get multiple players in return. Not multiple players like they got from the Nets, but multiple players who can actually crack the rotation and contribute to winning basketball games.

Multiple players that can play? Hmm, who has more players than minutes. WE DO! They have a need. Maybe they'll do something relatively hasty: Jack, Martell and the 13th pick for Howard? I don't know. I don't do the whole salary cap thing.... which is why I posted this on Blazersedge. The best Blazers-Mavs trade gets a big huge prize! Let's hear it! Have at it, trade hounds!

Joe Alexander

PoliSam — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:35:37 -0000

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 basketball, I primarily watch the Pac-10, so I did not know a lot about him. Fortunately, there is a wealth of information on the internet about him, including some extensive highlight videos. This post focuses on reporting facts, but I'll include a few comments as well.

Basics:

6-8, 230 lbs. 21 years old (born same month and year as Martell Webster)

Stats, junior year at West Virginia:

Mpg: 31.6, ppg: 16.1, Fg%46.2, FT%81.4, 3P%26.8 6.4 rpg, 2.4 apg, 2.2 TO

West Virginia played at a relatively slow pace (197th in Division I) and against a strong Big East. Overall, West Virginia played the 34th best defense, according to http://kenpom.com/rate.php. He played more like a 4 than a 3 at West Virginia... The stats make clear that ge's not a three point shooter.

Video.

Highlights against UCONN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YkitJ5-wuQ&feature=related

Demonstration of leaping ability: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PKY3ashUMI&feature=related

EXTENSIVE HIGHLIGHTS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdAYyqSOuPc&feature=related

What the videos show: a SF with more of an interior game/mid-range game than current Blazers SFs. Lot's of dunks. Lot's of pull up jumpers. Not great handles. Not a great three-point shooter. Great leaping ability. Not great lateral quickness.

Biographical information from draftexpress.com and the New York Times

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Joe-Alexander-1185/

"he’s only been playing organized basketball for about five years now"

"averaged just 1 point per game only three years ago playing prep school basketball at Hargrave Military Academy"

"everyone we spoke with that had been working with him over the past week could not stop raving about how well he had been responding to them thus far. “A fierce worker,” Joe Abunassar told us. “He’s an animal in the weight room,” strength trainer Tony Falce told us. “He’s worked non-stop for every minute since the second he got here.” One after one, each of the trainers filtered over to our direction to share a story about their favorite pupil. And indeed, physically he’s extremely impressive, quick off his feet, agile, with a great frame, and big hands. “He has great strength, balance, and power” Abunassar told us."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/sports/ncaabasketball/25wvu.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=041567b8905008a0&ex=1206590400

"He spent six years of his childhood in China and barely played on his prep school team. But the recipe he has used to rise to stardom is familiar — he has a work ethic so maniacal that one of his brothers refers to it as “unhealthy"

"Be it in China or playing high school ball in the United States, Joe Alexander always had a ball in his hands. He would dribble in the school locker room for nearly four hours until volleyball practice ended and he could use the gym."

My random thoughts: any player that is still improving is intriguing, but also scary. Would seem to be something of a gamble. Similar to Outlaw and Webster in that he is raw, but a much different game than Outlaw or Webster. Nonetheless, if the Blazers drafted Alexander it would probably mean either Outlaw or Webster is on the trading block or was already traded. I'm not sure if he "fits" the Blazers needs any better or worse than Webster or Outlaw, though my instinct says the Blazers need Websters outside shooting more than Alexander's midrange game and rebounding. Neither Webster nor Outlaw is a defensive specialist, but they have more potential than Alexander.

Your thoughts?

Oden played on TV this morning

PoliSam — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:12:58 -0000

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 played against, Horford and Noah have produced at the rate of an "average" NBA center this year.

http://www.82games.com/0708/07CHI17C.HTM
http://www.82games.com/0708/07ATL12C.HTM

After four minutes, he's already had two great blocks and a nice left-handed hook shot. The thing that I have noticed most thus far is that he has great hands and quickness. He's very rangy for a 7-foot 250 lbs man. UPDATE: Oden ended up with 22 pts 11 rebounds and 5 to 6 monster blocks. He looked tired for much of the second half, but he was a monster.

Going big, Going small

PoliSam — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:09:23 -0000

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 and McMillan want to put around the core. Assuming that Oden, Aldridge, and Roy are now the core of the Blazers, what are the team's long-term personnel needs?

Does everyone else on the roster need to be "a role player?", as Abbott suggested? If you had to choose to add another "A+" player, which position is more important, PG or SF? Why? Are there any A+ players in the organization for the 1 or the 3? Again, if you had to choose, would you surround those three with 1-3 that are shooters or slashers? I'm curious to see what folk's dream teams look like.

My dream squad would be a sweet shooting/defensive specialist at the 3 (like Bowen or T. Prince), and a lighting-quick point-guard that could penetrate and create shots. My concern with the current roster is that Roy is the only player that can create his own shot off the dribble... and he's probably an A- slasher in the NBA, very good, but not amazing.

Rudy Fernandez News

PoliSam — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:22:38 -0000

There is some news about a European team (Barcelona) trying to sign Fernandez. Does this affect the Blazers in any way? I believe the story said that Fernandez was disappointed with where he was drafted, but my Spanish is not all that great. Any Spanish speakers can to check out this story?

http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/04072007/21/navarro-apunta-memphis-bar-apurara-rudy-fernandez.html