Totally off topic, but I'm curious if anyone else has watched this.  The episode last night was pretty hilarious, and Shaq/Rogers actually put up a decent match vs May/Walsh. 

Shoot, if Shaq actually trained for a full month in the sand, I think Rogers/Shaq could have won that match.  He made some pretty obvious errors that were simply due to a lack of playing beach volleyball.  (He stayed on the net when Walsh was hitting from about 20 feet back, he kept 2 hitting it over when he was a decent setter, his arms were in the wrong position when blocking, which led to 2-3 blocks going to his side.)

He really is a unique individual...

(If OT posts aren't allowed here a mod can feel free to nuke this thread.)

Seeing as how I am banned from BEdge, I will post this here and add some Lakers info at the end.  I had more stuff, but I guess my fanpost was too long because it got cut off so I axed the Fanpost and am remaking it now.

Win shares are one of my favorite forms of a player’s achievements.  The main reason for this is that it actually tries to define good defensive play.  Now, that is tough to do because no matter how much an equation tries to single one person out, teammates will have an affect.  I don’t actually believe that Hedo Turkeyglue is the 12th best defensive player in the NBA like win shares say he is, but no system is perfect and this one gets closer than most.

There are two other flaws with NBA win shares in my opinion.  One is that a team’s win shares don’t actually equal a team’s win like they do in baseball.  The second is that it’s not adjusted to playing time.  Yeah, playing more helps your team win more, but typically you want a player’s true productivity when judging how good they are when they are playing.  My example for this is the 2007-2008 Lakers.  They were a good team for most of the season and in the playoff mix.  Then this guy named Pau Gasol came along.  They went 22-5 with him on their team and he racked up an insane 4.9 win shares in that time.  If you just look at win shares, he wasn’t one of the most valuable players, but when you adjust for minutes played he was right with Kobe for the most valuable player on that team.

So, I did 2 things with win shares to creates Adjusted Win Shares (AWS), Adjusted Defensive Win Shares (ADWS), and Adjusted Offensive Win Shares (ODWS).

1. I fixed them so that every team’s win shares actually equal every team’s wins.  I believe that the average team was only 3.3 win shares off their actual win total, so this was not a big change.

2. I adjusted Win Shares to be per 30 minutes.  (Just because 30 was a nice round number.)  This did two things.  First, it lowers the total win shares of guys who play 40 minutes a night almost every game.  Second, it helps show the true value of guys who were injured or aren’t getting enough playing time.  (“Does Chris Andersen deserve more minutes or is he just an impressive shot blocker?”  This is the type of question that is answered by adjusting for minutes.

Now, I understand that part of being a good NBA player is being able to play 40 minutes a night for 82 games without wearing down, but I also know that a ton of stats are skewed by how many minutes a guy plays and what team he plays on.  OJ Mayo may put up impressive numbers on a bad team, but does he really help his team win more than other guys on his team?  Who knows?

I used 820 minutes as a cutoff for the minute adjusted win shares.  That’s 10 minutes a night if you didn’t miss a game or more if you did.  I thought about raising it, but didn’t want to boot role players, guys who were traded to a team halfway through, and guys who were injured for a lot of the year off this list.

Finally, the total win shares for a team add up to way more than the team’s actual wins because it is pace adjusted to 30 minutes.  A team that played 15 guys throughout the year cannot obviously play them all 30 minutes a night… that’s 450 minutes per game.  Not even Boston/Chicago games can pull that off.  So the numbers are all inflated, but they are also all to scale with one another so it works out.  The list is 274 players long… so here are the top 20.

You’ll notice that not a single player form a losing team is on here.  That’s too bad for them.  Winning games is how you get win shares.  The truly great players don’t usually play for losing teams because they can will themselves to wins.  (Lebron was towards the top of the win shares even when he had ZERO support.)  Another way to put this is that NO team in the NBA is bad enough to totally fail if they have one of the top players.  Would the Kings suck with Lebron on their team?  Yes, but they’d probably be 35 win suck instead of 17 win suck so that Lebron could still rack up his Win Shares.

So, nothing on this list is all that shocking.  Some random notes on the top 20:

-Lebron and Paul are a huge jump ahead of everyone else.  The gap between Paul and 3rd place is bigger than the gap between 3rd and 20th.  Impressive.

-5 of the top 6 guys on the list are considered by everyone to be the top 5 players in the NBA.  Gasol is the party crasher in these regards.  Good for him for helping to point out that Lebron/Kobe/Wade/Paul/Howard aren’t actually the only 5 superstars in the league. 

-Nelson and Ginobli are two guys who love my system because they were out half the year.

-Bynum at a 10.1 is pretty scary and makes me fear the Lakers if he can ever stay healthy.

-I’ve argued this with numerous people, so I’m happy to see these results.  Anderson and Nene were as important to Denver’s wins as Billups was.  People who talked like Billups is God because of how he single handedly turned that team around can now shut up.  He helped, but he didn’t do it alone.

-Dirk has led the league in Win Shares 3 times.  Dallas dropping off their win count this year and the fact that Dirk plays insane minutes are why he only comes in at 20 on this list.

-Carl Landry is the man!

Now I’m going to feed you more random information than you will know what to do with based on my results.  Keep in mind for all of these that the average WS score is 5.1.

OJ Mayo and Raymond Felton play too many minutes.  They are both in the top 5 in the NBA in minutes played and they have win share scores of 2.2 and 3.1 respectively.

Guys who played under 1500 minutes that had Adjusted Win Shares of 8 or higher are James Singleton (8.8), Manu Ginobli (10.7), Jameer Nelson (11.1), Kurt Thomas (8.1), Leon Powe (9.7), Andrew Bynum (10.1), Chris Andersen (9.9), Carl Landry (10.1), and Eddie House (8.1).  Almost there is Greg Oden (7.9).

Some of these guys didn’t play 1500 due to injuries such as Nelson, Ginobli, Bynum, and Oden (plus fouls.)

Some of the other should really have playing time discussions with their coaches.  (Hi I’m Carl Landry, it turns out I lead to wins!)

AGE!  Which age group has the best players?  I broke it up into groups. 

Young Guns        (19-22)-  Ave:  4.3 Leader: Andrew Bynum (10.1)  Loser: Javaris Crittenton (0.0)

Feet are now wet (23-25)-  Ave: 5.6  Leader: Lebron James (15.9) Loser: Royal Ivey (-1.1)

Prime?                 (26-29)-  Ave: 5.0  Leader: Pau Gasol (12.2)  Loser: Deshawn Stevenson (-1.5)

That darn 30        (30-33)-  Ave: 5.3  Leader: Kobe Bryant (11.2)  Loser: Desmond Mason (-0.6)

Old timers              (34+)-  Ave: 5.7   Leader: Shaq (8.6) Loser: Bobby Jackson (1.6)

It should be noted that only 16 guys made up the old timers.  If you’re still playing at 34+ you’re probably pretty good (or Bobby Jackson.)

PER is a good indicator of AWS EXCEPT for guys who are defensive minded.  For example, Ben Wallace’s 12.2 PER is not good at all, but thanks to his 5.3 ADWS he actually has a pretty good AWS.  But in general, the two are similar.  10 of the top 15 guys for PER were also top 15 in AWS.

Finally, here are some Laker stats.

I added 2 guys who didn't qualify, but still left off the guys with under 200 mintues played.  (They can have insane and worthless numbers.)

I stole this from Robi S at the Lakers blog who stole it from a guy at the Clippers blog.  It is fun times! 

Continue reading this post »

So, I can’t really think of a team that changes their starting lineup on a nightly basis.  Yes, starting lineups change constantly, but this is because of injuries, finding out a given player sucks, because you are losing too often, and so on.  I’m trying to think of a healthy and winning team that rotates the starting lineup constantly and am failing to think of a good example.  (Although I am sure it happens.)  To me, this is like going for it on 4th and 1 in the first quarter of a football game.  It might be beneficial, but nobody else tries it so I’m sure not going to be the coach to risk doing it on a regular basis.  (Even if odds say I should.)

First off, I don’t want to get into a debate about our lineup.  I’m just going to say Outlaw is gone for the sake of minutes.  If he’s not traded, adjustments would be made, but he isn’t a big factor in this issue regardless.  Our lineup would be Blake (or new PG I don’t care), Roy, Batum, LMA, Oden, with Rudy, Webster, Billa, PG, PF off the bench.  (PG/PF don’t matter for this either.)

Now, this is what I propose to do with our starting lineup.  Against teams with weaker/smaller SFs, have Roy start at the SF spot and Rudy at the SG spot.  We've seen that Roy completely dominates SFs when he plays it and we've also seen that the Rudy/Roy lineup crushes teams.  (Someone will no doubt link the stats for this and I will ninja them and toss them into the main post.)  This lineup would give us some ridiculous early leads against a lot of teams.  Then bring Webster/Batum off the bench and mix it up the rest of the game as usual.  Webster can switch to SG spot since that is where he used to play and probably would have continued to play if not for the acquisition of Roy.

Against teams with tougher SFs, start Roy/Batum, since you need Batum against the tougher SF.  Webster can come off the bench at SF at these times.  We can still try and sneak in a little Roy/Rudy whenever that tough SF goes to the bench.  (I’m thinking guys like Lebron, Artest, etc.  They do sit for 6-8 minutes a game and we could try and work Rudy/Roy into that time.)

Basically, I think Nate should try to work the PG/Rudy/Roy lineup WHENEVER possible since it seems to work extremely well. 

Thoughts?

Part 1 results are somewhere in the past fanposts.  In this day and age things fall off the sidebar pretty quick!

Same deal as before.  Only 43 people answered, but I made the points out of 100.  Commentary at the end!  I'm sure I have at least one typo like last time, feel free to make fun of me for those.

11. Name your favorite Blazer forward of all time.  (Your favorite, not necessarily the best.)

12. Name an active player that Portland let go that you want back.

13. Name an active player that Portland let go that you definitely do not want back.

14. This is the age that most people become Blazer fans.

15. This is the opposing team that you hate the most.

16. This is the opposing team that you hate the least.

17. Name the funniest Blazer, past or present.

18. What would you find in Brandon Roy’s locker?

19. What does Greg Oden do in his spare time?

20. If Batum could block anyone on a fast break, who would it be?

Biggest Blowout: Laker hate!  The only thing we agree on more than our Sabonis love is our Laker hate.
Closest vote: Opposing teams and what Oden does in his free time both got a lot of different responses.  Neither can match the most underrated Blazer category though.  The closest 1-2 matchup was who would Batum block with Kobe/Lebron being just "2" (also known as 1) vote off.

Things of interest
11. Rasheed Wallace was the favorite forward of the majority of people, and yet very few people listed him as the player we would want back that we used to have.  I believe that this goes to show that even the silly fans who like Rasheed have the logic to understand that we don't need him right now! (If I had voted myself Cliff would have had more points!)
12. Von Wafer won this one... I would bet anything that 2 weeks ago Wafer would not have cracked the top 5.  Oh well.
13. We don't want Zbo back, not too shocking.  Whoever put Bonzi Wells made me giggle.
14. 6-8 and 11-13 range were the only ages outside of "birth"and "16"  to get more than one vote.  Interesting that people don't see 9-10 year olds as picking up a love of the Blazers. 
15. Surprised we only got 1 person voting Rockets here.  I figured the Von Wafer effect would carry over to at least a few people.
16. 19 teams got love here, the other 10 should hate themselves.  (Lakers even got a vote, bleh.)
17. Wouldn't shock me to see Oden top this list in a few years.  Guy does seem to have a sense of humor.
18-20 These were more open ended and got some fun responses.  Here goes.

18- Other things Roy has in his locker
1. Channing Frye (okay?)
2. Greatness
3. Kids Toys
4. Magnets (to hang pictures with I guess?)
5. Meaning of life (Do share)
6. Icewater, for his veins (I like it)
7. Sex Panther (Everyone get the reference)
8. Magic Beans
9. Contract with the devil
and my favorite...
10. His son, that kid is with him everywhere

Frye can babysit Roy's son in his locked I guess?

19- Other things Oden does in his free time
1. Age (How original)
2. Eat
3. Collect Baby Kittens (I hope this has nothing to do with number 2)
4. Bingo (More old people jokes)
5. Practice FT face (I will have to pay closer attention next time he shoots)

20- Other people Batum wants to block
1. Michael Jordan (That would be epic)
2. Scottie Pippen
3. Marbury (really?)
4. Von Wafer (Book it for tonight)
and the winner...
5. Me (The responder must hold himself in high regard.)

Hopefully you all know more about your fellow fans now!

First off, I was going to wait on this, but a day off seems like a good time.  I deleted the old thread so that the comments weren't bogged down by a ton of responses.  Also, I'm going to have to break this into two parts because SBN doesn't want me posting something this long.  I'll post part 2 tomorrow afternoon. 

Moving on!  43 people responded to the survey so I just multiplied to make it look like 100 did.  (This is why you will see 5, 7, and 9 so often.)  Basically, the numbers can be taken as percentages that are rounded off.  On almost all of these I only put down answered that had two or more votes, there are a couple exceptions because there wasn't much variety in the answers.  Finally, I suggest playing this with your non BE friends before Game 7 on Saturday!  (Oh yeah, I said it!)  Here we go.

100 *COUGHS* PEOPLE WERE SURVEYED, AND THIS IS WHAT THEY SAID

1. Excluding Clyde Drexler, name the best Blazer dunker of all time.

2. All time, name the Blazer you would want shooting FTs for you with the game on the line.

3. Name ONE opposing player that did NOT make the All-Star team this year that you want as a Blazer. 

4. Which current Blazer has the best hair cut?

5. This Blazer is the smartest player on the team.  (On court + off court IQ.)

6. Name the current Blazer that you would want to be stuck on an island with.

7. Name your least favorite Blazer of all time.

8. Name the most underrated Blazer of all time.

9. Name your favorite Blazer center of all time.  (Your favorite, not necessarily the best.)

10. Name your favorite Blazer guard of all time.  (Your favorite, not necessarily the best.)

Notes:

Biggest Blowout- Sabonis is clearly the favorite Blazer center of all time.  (There will be one even bigger blowout in part 2, any guesses?)

Closest Vote- Most underrated Blazer of all time, no one got over 10% of the vote and 26 different people got votes.  Dunker was second closest.

Funniest/Most Random Answers

1. Antonio Daniels (The person who voted that did link a video.)

2. Arvydis Sabonis (He was a good FT shooter for a center, but ehh...)

3. Grant Hill (Isn't he like 80?)

4. Michael Ruffin (Condolences to Blake/Przybilla, only 2 guys on our roster not to get a vote.)

5. Raef LaFrentz (I guess being paid to do nothing is pretty genius...)

6. Rebecca Haarlow (2 people said this and since I have seen some pretty random answers on the show itself, I had to keep this answer on.)

7. Steve Blake (Really?  Even if you don't think he is good, not sure why you'd hate him.)

8. Chris Dudley (Underrated... okay?)

9. Nothing notewothy here... go Sabas!

10. Bayless got as many votes as Porter.  Ouch for TP30.

"This is not the bold statement it would have been back in either the first or second round. By now, it should be clear.

The Lakers will win the championship this year.

You want a bold statement? I’ll take it one step further: It doesn’t matter who they face in the Finals."

Good call on that one.

Can the Lakers take the next two games at home, and then head to Boston with the confidence and momentum necessary to take the series and win the championship? Time will tell, but the Lakers have one very strong advantage.

They have Kobe Bryant.

He refused to lose in this game, and you can be sure that there is more of that to come. Bryant was the difference in Game 3, and the Lakers are counting on him to be the difference in the series. If history is any indication, he will come through.

How'd that work out?

The originality of this blogger is amazing.

15 people gave their responses.  (I had to omit the ratings based on beards, as awesome as that was.)

The only scores that I altered were 11s and 13s for Roy, which I lowered to 10.  I also had to erase a couple of 10s for Shavlik because doing the BE chat, while awesome, isn't the right criteria for this.  Everything else stayed.

For those who don't know, Mode is the most commonly occuring score.  Notes time!

Roy: Obviously here, nothing below 9.  He is Roy.
Nate: Two 7s, everyone else was 9+
Billa: Steady across the board, just like Billa!
LMA: One 6, everything else was 8+
Batum: Some range on Batum.  Four 10s, but only one 9.  (Probably based on expected vs actual results.)
Haarlow: A lot of range again.  Lots of 10s, but some low scores.
Blake: All but 2 people gave Blake a 7 or an 8.  Consistent.
Rudy: Had a 4... and EVERY other person gave him from 7-8.5.
Outlaw: Pretty consistent scores.
Barrett: Some low, some hate, and lots of 7s in between.
Oden: Nothing to note here.  (No one went extreme either way.)
Rice: Not quite the range I expected.  Couple of low scores, but nothing super high.
Wheels: Lotta 3-5s, with a couple of big scores helping his average.
Sergio: Consistent, surprised me he scored this high.
Harvey: Couple of fans helped his score a bit, not much though.
Bayless: Nothing too surprising here.
Webster: Lot of people didn't vote, his work ethic scored him a lot of points I guess.  (Throw out his high score and he got a 2.33.)
Randolph: Not too shocking given his PT.
Ruffin: Managed a couple of 3s... that was surprising!

Nicest Fan (Who voted on at least 16): The Natural Ala Mode- 7.1 average.
Meanest Fan (Same criteria): pdxer- 5.0 average.

Rate your Blazers on a scale of 1 to 10.  Rate them on whatever criteria you see fit, as long as it's not too ridiculous.  You can rate based on how well you think they did, how well they did compared to how you thought they'd do, how well they did + how well they work in the locker room, etc. 

Not looking for long writeups, but if you want to through in a sentence or two as to why you rated each player, go for it.

The one rule is don't rate for ridiculous fanboy reasons.  If I see Sergio 10/10 and Bayless 0/10, or Bayless 10/10 and Sergio 0/10, I won't be counting any of your votes.  (Unless you somehow have a convincing reason why, but I can't see that happening.)  Other than that, have fun with these.  Oh yeah, non players here too!

(Copy and pasting goodness.)

Steve Blake
Brandon Roy
Nicolas Batum
LeMarcus Aldridge
Joel Przybilla
Travis Outlaw
Rudy Fernandez
Greg Oden
Sergio Rodriguez
Channing Frye
Jerryd Bayless
Michael Ruffin
Shavlik Randolph
Martell Webster
Nate McMillan
Mike Rice
Mike Barrett
Rebecca Haarlow
Antonio Harvey
Brian Wheeler

Going to do a story of the Blazer season (with pictures of course), but would like highlights and lowlights from people (with dates, don't have to be exact.)

Some of the more obvious examples.

Draft Day 2008 (Batum and Bayless pickups)

October 28- Amid the hype, we get smashed on opening day by the Lakers AND lose Greg Oden to injury.  Sad sad times.

November 6- Brandon Roy pulls off "the shot" against Houston.  This sparks a 4 game winning streak that includes our most impressive road win of the season.

So yeah, injures, moments, random memories.  Anything works!

Disclaimer:  This is focusing almost purely on the offensive side of the game.  His defensive has improved from "Kevin Durant" level to "Usually lost" level during the course of this year.  Now, onto the offense.

Outlaw came straight out of HS, and as such, made improvements every year like he was supposed to.  This year, he has been downright amazing with his clutch shooting and 4th quarter domination.  Or has he?

Let's review.

His minutes have gone up ever so slightly.  Not enough to make a real impact, but enough that his numbers shouldn't be dropping.  Meanwhile his Scoring is down, his rebounds are down, his assists are down, his blocks are down, and his steals are down.  His FT% is down, but not enough to matter. Finally, his 3pt% is actually down, despite the rave reviews he is getting.  Sure he is shooting more of them this year, but the offense allows it. 

Basically, Outlaw is protecting the ball a bit better and shooting better.  When you figure how many more 3s he is taking, the jump in TS% is actually pretty nice.

Pace could be a factor in this, but it's not like we were a running team last year.  The added offense that Rudy brings might also be a factor, but with that being said.  Has SuperTrout peaked?  Sure, we see 20 points games, but even during those he hurts on defense.  Does anyone have any doubt that Webster can average 13pgg with better defense in a year or two?

Basically, all I read is that Trout is improving so much and having a great year, but is he?  The guy needs to be an offensive beast to make up for his defense, and these numbers don't show signs of that.  Outside of being able to swing PF, something that I can't see MW or NB doing, Outlaw really doesn't seem to have many upsides.

Most people might not get a lot of these, if you do props to you!  I even had to get help on some of the Trail Blazers.  They span movies, tv shows, video games, etc.  All seem to fit pretty well!  Nerds can love basketball too!

Roy: Drizz’t- Doesn’t look like much of a threat, but if you go against him, he will kill you with both hands.

Przybilla: Zanghief- Finesse?  Who needs finesse, I will just overpower you!

Aldridge: John McClane- Does what is needed, battles through everything, and still gets no love from the outside world.

Batum: Guile- Who says a Frenchman can’t be an American hero?

Blake: Tortoise- Slowly and steadily getting better, knows that flashiness isn’t the way to victory.

Oden: Barrett- Big, scary, and effective even with one arm.  Deep down he is a softy though.

Outlaw: Master Chief- Gets into impossible situations of his own accord, but makes it work every time.

Rudy: Chief Inspector Lee- Crazy foreigner that you can't understand who comes in, but he takes no names, and kicks lots of butt.

Sergio: Jude- Seems childish and really doesn't look too threatening… but with teamwork and the help of his friends, he will beat you.

Frye: Gordon- Likeable comic relief “hero” but actually fairly useless to his teammates.

Bayless: Raphael- Always seem serious and angry, but is a good teammate and there when you need him.

Webster: Ukitake-  Always down with some kind of injury, but when he is healthy… look out!

Shavlik: Minsc- Not that good at what he does, but he's happy to be here and good for some comic relief.

Ruffin: Bowser- Big scary looking guy, but everything he does is pretty hapless.

Nate: Tactician (You)- Doesn't actually fight, but commands the army efficiently.

KP: G-Man- Stays in the shadows, but you know he’s up to something.

It's that time in the season when we've discussed everything that can be discussed.  Almost.  Now for some completely irrelevant relief from serious discussion.  If you are here for some serious discussion about the Blazers past/present/future, I suggest leaving now and giving yourself some electroshock therapy so that you can forget about the existence of this fanpost.

Also, add more if I left some good ones out.  (Gregzilla doesn't count because we all know that comparing those two to Godzilla is giving Godzilla way too much credit.)

Here in Blazerland we are never please.  We can find faults about all of our players, coaches, managers, medical staff, and even announcers.  We bring these up on a regular basis as well, but which one do we bring up too often?

(In my fantasy land people realize what other people are getting sick of hearing about!)

Other things to discuss:  Which of these should we discuss more?  Which is the biggest problem? And why is it so hard to find faults with Joel and Nic?

I know we're supposed to make 1 of these a week max.  I'll take the next few weeks off!

In another thread I said that PGs and SFs don't win titles, but I guess I was wrong.  Looking at the top 3 players on teams since 1980, it turns out that Power Forwards do not win titles (followed by PGs and SFs.)  Here was my list of top 3 since 1980.  Obviously there can be debate about some of these, especially the 3 spots, but I figure I'm close to general consensus.

Keep in mind I have Duncan as a PF, which is up for debate, but it makes the results a bit closer.  Also keep in mind that this is the season leader, not who did good in just the finals.

So here are the results.  These are the raw number of players from each position, and then a score for each position.  The score is just 3 points for 1st, 2 for 2nd, and 1 for third.  The () is how many differeny players it is.  Despite there being 7 Shooting Guards who were their team leader, it is only 2 different players.  (MJ/Wade)

So SG > C > SF = PG > PF.  However, if you look by position you'll seer that Centers lead best, Shooting Guards are best backup men, and Power Forwards are the best 3rd stringers.

This leads to the question.  Can we win a title with Oden/Roy/LMA as our big 3, even if we never improve at PG and SF?

Final note: The only 4 guys to "lead" their team to a title only once are Moses Malone, Billups, Wade, and Garnett.  The last 3 all have chances to do it again.  (Garnett being the most likely.)

Good read from NBA.  Whoever does the adding on their side is wrong at times and also inconsistent in when they use + and - though.  This also doesn't take into account opponents, other injuries, etc, but still cool.

 http://www.nba.com/2009/news/features/john_schuhmann/03/11/injury_update.numbers.game.20090311/index.html

I'll break it down real quick.  He just looks at teams Offensive and Defensive efficiency with and without certain players.  All this stuff is points per 100 possessions.  My +/- is improvement based.  (+4.9D is good, even though on their site it's bad.  I don't like their setup.)

Jameer Nelson +1.7O and +4.2D = +5.9
Amar'e Stoudamire -4.9O and +8.9D = +4.0
Ben Wallace +6.5O and -2.5D = +4.0
Andrew Bynum +1.5O and +2.1D = +3.6
Kevin Garnett -4.7O and +7.2D = +2.5
Mau Ginobli +1.6O and -2.1D = +0.5
Greg Oden -1.6O and +2.1D = +0.5

Now for players who "hurt" their teams!

Peja Stojakovic +4.4O and -4.9D = -0.5
Josh Howard -1.4O and -0.8D = -2.2
Tracy McGrady -3.7O and -1.7D = -5.4
Kenyon Martin -2.1O and -3.8D = -5.9

And our winner...

ALLEN IVERSON -10.1O and 0.00D = -10.1

My thoughts:
-Amare helping defense and hurting offense is a bit odd because he went down shortly after injury to coach.  Does this mean Phoenix was better with Amare or with Porter?  Who knows!
-Ben Wallace helps on offense and hurts on defense?  Say what now?  My only guess here is that when Wallace is in the game Lebron does more himself?
-Oden helps us a little.  Considering he is a rookie and still now 100% healthy that is a positive.  In years to come that should be a positive on the O side and a great positive on the D side.
-Our T-Mac and AI suspicions like this thread.

This isn't related to the Blazers at all, but it could be one of the most epic achievements in NBA history.

As of now, the Sacramento Kings are 0-23 against the Eastern Conference.  The second worst team in the NBA against the opposing conference is OKC at 5-17.  Now 5-17 is bad, but it's not 0-23.

Has a team ever gone winless against the other division?  If they have was it in a full season?  This is pretty epic and I'd heard nothing about it, and I typically love random stats like these.

So that's your poll.  Will the Kings beat a team from the Eastern Conference this year?

Games Left

Home: Pacers, Cavs, 76ers.

Road: Wizards, Hawks, Bobcats, Knicks.

The home game against Indiana and the road game against Washington look to be their best chances, but who knows with this team.