I was pretty surprised on Tuesday to see that the Blazers had decided that none of their preseason games were "viable" enough to televise, especially considering the enormous amount of interest the team has generated both here in Oregon and in places abroad.  The signing of Miller, the development of our young talent (especially Oden), and our already tight team chemistry have contributed to making this the most highly anticipated season in recent memory. From the highlights I was able to get of our first two preseason games, we missed some pretty good stuff.  We missed Oden destroying the opponent's center, we missed Andre's seamless integration into our offense, and we missed out on Bayless going above the rim.  Suffice to say that the Blazers organization needs a pretty big ice pack to help with the swelling from the verbal shiner that they took for making such an incredibly shortsighted and asinine decision.

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Much has been written about Greg Oden this past month and I noticed that most articles had something to do with Oden's shortcomings and the areas he has to improve this summer. While I think these articles are on target (Oden needs to get slimmer, work on his post game, get his mind right, etc), they are dangerously close to implying that Oden's rookie year was a failure. I think this is the case because of the expectations that were heaped upon him. The national media, as well as us Blazer fans, were hoping to see a force of a man: A guy who could block every shot in sight and humiliate any defender who dared to challenge one of his thunderous dunks. We fans wanted another Blazer to be the Rookie of the Year. Obviously, that did not happen and now we are left to figure out reasons why our expectations were not met. All of those excuses for Greg's performance snowballed and now we are at a place where the perception of truth (Greg was a failure) is more influential than the truth itself. So, let's press the reset button on what we think about Greg's rookie year and let an objective analysis frame our opinion about him.  

I think the best way to view Greg's first season is to compare it to other center's rookie years. I went back to the 1988 draft and evaluated the rookie year for every center (there were 41 of them) drafted in the top 10. Using those parameters, I settled on using a rating system called the linear weights PER (lwtsPER). Essentially, it simplifies John Hollinger's very long and taxing PER. The only thing it does not do is adjust well for pace, but in the absence of anything else that would not take 1,000 years to calculate, I went with it and threw the results into a graph.

Overall, you can visually break this graph down into 5 tiers. Tier one has the certifiable studs (O'Neal, Duncan and Mourning), tier two has the solid starters who may explode into the stud category (Yao and Howard) or who may flame out with injuries (Camby and LaFrentz.) Side note: The Lafrentz case is an interesting one because he played in less than 20 games as a rookie. I believe that he is ranked higher than he would have been had he played more than 40 or so games. Tier three has players who may be starters (Emeka Okafor down to Bryant Reeves) but will never be anything more than that. Tier four has one dimensional players who are marginal starters at best (Tyson Chandler) or franchise killers at worst (the Kandy man.) Tier 5 has projects that may turn out fine (Bynum and Przybilla) or may just stink (Sene).  

Speaking specifically about Oden, his season ranked as the 10th best one for rookie centers since 1988. Moreover, his rating of 17.38 was within 0.50 points of the 6th rated center, Brook Lopez. Interestingly enough, Oden's pace-adjusted PER was 18.13 compared to Lopez's 17.94. Given this information, I believe that people have been too harsh in evaluating Oden's play in his first year. Consider this: he was returning from surgery, had only one year in college, didn't get much defensive help from his guards, and was not used to the pace in the NBA.  Note that these are not excuses, they just some factors that we should consider when we are discussing Oden's first year performance.  This analysis shows that Oden managed to turn in a rookie season that placed him in the top ten of the last twenty years, and that is not disappointing...not disappointing at all.

About a month ago, Dave finished his assessment of the Blazers by saying: "We have not seen a sense of wonder like this since the late-80's Drexler-led teams started to emerge.  That's quite an accomplishment.  This was quite a season." That final statement got me thinking about more than just this season. I wanted to know if, from both a franchise and an NBA perspective, a team like Portland had ever "risen" (as defined by three straight years of win percentage improvement) like this before. I found the following: 

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One common truth that seems to have been totally disregarded in this whole Miles saga is that Portland helped Darius Miles by medically retiring him.

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After watching Portland play and win several close games this season, the question of whether Portland was a clutch team entered my mind. The problem is that the word "clutch" is invariably a relative term. Therefore, I made an assumption that any game that ends with Portland winning by a maximum of 2 possessions (six points or less) or goes to overtime, is evidence that the Blazers are clutch. Using that assumption, I went back 4 years (2 years with Pritchard making the decisions and 2 without), and analyzed all of Portland's games.

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I have been thinking about it for a while and here are 9 ideas that will improve the quality of the draft and its coverage. All of these ideas can be initiated by the NBA and really add value to its product. 

1)      Add more pre-draft coverage.  The NBA needs to capitalize on the fact that only 60 players are drafted each year and even less actually make it into the league.  Why not profile them in a “60 prospects in 30 days” fashion? The average fans would be able to see more than just 15 seconds of highlights on a given prospect and the interviews could be a bit more in-depth.

2)      Move the draft from the weekday to the weekend. Right now, the draft forces NBA fans (who hold down an 8-5 job) on the West Coast to either join late or skip a bit of work. The same can be said for fans on the East Coast who have to stay up until the wee hours of a weekday night to watch the end of the draft.

3)      For the sake of David Stern, his cohort Adam Silver and the viewers, spell the prospects names phonetically on the draft cards. Darrell Arthur’s name should appear as “Dah-rel Ar-thur”. Its simple and would eliminate a lot of confusion.

4)      Speaking of the fans, revamp the draft coverage. This starts with eliminating the in-draft interviews of the prospects. No one learns anything from the interviews and they detract from the actual coverage of the draft. Form a team consisting of Jay Bilas, Chad Ford and Snapper Jones. Let them lead the draft coverage. Add more speculation. I found out about all of the trades via the internet, and not during the broadcast.  Add more highlights of the draftees. Fire anyone who is not prepared to talk about a player who was chosen 12th overall.  

5)       If a prospect falls past the 19th pick, they should be taken backstage, away from the media. It is agonizing to watch a guy slip and it actually detracts from the players that are being selected before him. Take him backstage, to an out of sight out of mind place.  

6)      Allow teams to trade draft picks for cash. Currently, the NBA allows teams to trade draft rights for cash, but not draft picks for cash. The difference is miniscule and it leads to more confusion on the part of the prospects, the fans and even the broadcasters. Also, changing this rule would allow for teams to take immediate possession of the draft pick, instead of being forced to call another team to make the pick on behalf of them.

7)      Allow teams to trade picks in consecutive years - I call this the Phoenix Suns rule. As it is, teams must wait to draft a player and then make a trade. It unnecessarily slows down the trade process and does not add any value to anything. Finally, the rule does not accomplish anything as seen by the fact that the Suns did not make a first round selection for several years in a row.  

8)      Speed up the trade approval process. If necessary, have the arm of the NBA that approves trades work around the clock on this one to make sure that trades can be completed and announced in a timely fashion. As it stands, trades simply take far too long to be completed.

9)      Create a period of time between the day before the draft and the beginning of the next fiscal year called “Period 13.” This is the last, and most important change because Period 13 would allow teams to make trades using either salary values from the current NBA season or the next NBA season. Essentially, trades that will not work for salary purposes in 07-08 but will work for 08-09 would be immediately approved. It should be noted that only one time period (07-08 OR 08-09) could be applied to the trade.

I wish I could have shortened this post, but I think all of the ideas would make the draft a much more enjoyable event.