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I became a Blazer fan in 1970. However there was a small impediment for me to see that first season. There was really terrible TV reception in the jungles of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Thailand, next door was not much better. I returned to Portland in 1973 and immediately began attending games with continuous season tickets until 2000. In tose early years we were guilty of attending to watch other team's stars. Then Walton was drafted and it seemed like the playoffs were possible. TMY attendance string stopped because I became medically (from war) unable to live in the metro area (1997) and medically unable to travel back from Sisters to Portland by 2000.

Fortunately the Blazer games were aired eventually by Bendbroadband here and I have been a subscriber since that day. The games are tense for me because I take a personal approach with each player and have a strong desire for each one to succeed in every game. Of course this is not possible and I endure the disappointment with continued wishes for the next game. You might notice I do not use the word ‘hope' towards the Blazers as what I hope for is my personal relationship with my God. But wishing for success has helped me to cope with my pain. I read the stories every day on Blazers Edge. I used to read every day on Oregon Live and have largely come to depend on BE for all my Blazer news.

I do read national publications daily including CBSSPorts.com (shout out to Ben, who joined there this year, for excellent input), Hoopshype.com, Hoopsworld.com, and NBA.com. In addition there are many national blogs that have interesting product but rarely anything not covered in depth in the aforementioned sites. Reading in restful for me as I am able to use the keyboard suspended from one side and the screen suspended from the other side with mostly mouse direction. It soothes me to digest what is happening. Incidentally, in case you are not a CBSSports,com regular, the blogs have the most information and the best articles. You have to hunt on the main page for the NBA (or the other main pages) for the link to the related blog. The national perspective is there while the local Blazer perspective is so completely covered here on BE that there is no need to search much more locally.

Nicolas Batum is my current favorite player. He is gaining and becoming more diverse and productive each year. His play on the French National team has really opened up his offense. I am rooting for France in the current EuroBasket Olympic qualifier and European Championship. I am also a big fan of Joel Przybilla and hope he can return when the lockout ends. I am an optimist and see the positive far more readily than the negative. I am appreciative that the Blazers are owned by a man who is determined to win and now is also determined to maintain good character among team and management members. I am analytical by former profession and approach many questions by referring to the best site for historical statistics - Basketball-reference.com. This site is a gold mine for such work.

As for all-time Blazers, Jerome Kersey is my favorite. Although not the best player we have had his hustle and amazing athletic ability were captivating. I was able to attend the Blazer training camp when Jerome was a rookie and my eyes seemed to follow him throughout the drills and scrimmages. In those days there was no security and bleachers in the gym were set up for viewing. It was a great week+ to watch and gauge.

The message I have for anyone who wants it is to take sports as a distraction from some of life's harder tasks and events but not to ever put it before people, as fellow humans, no matter what they may say. I feel neither need to defend or attack but only appreciate the many who come here and read and post and make it possible for us all to experience this amazing site (BE).

The realities of an NBA roster is that players change each year. For a healthy team, new players must be added and integrated each year, especially young players. The balance needed between young and veteran players is to keep enough veterans to provide the star power and the wisdom of how the game is played while adding enough young hungry players to push the veterans to play harder and better. This balance is also needed for a healthy salary-cap status.

What this must do, therefore, is to pit veteran against youth in practice and to provide a path for the younger players to grow and expand. When the talent level evens out between veteran and youth, for a particular position, the team must be prepared to trade or release the veteran to keep from stopping progress. I first heard this theory as applied by coach Bill Parcells to the Dallas Cowboys. Since, I have seen how much sense it makes in use by the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA and to nearly every NFL team as the NFL has a hard cap. Should the NBA adopt a hard cap it will become essential.

What does that mean for the Blazers? It means that Andre needed to be displaced by Raymond. It means that Nolan Smith likely displaces or challenges Patty and Armon for backup point guard duties. It does not mean trading LMA. It does mean acquiring a young PF (Pendergraph ?) to push and relieve him for rests. Luke Babbitt has some growing to do so it probably does not mean trading Wallace. But Batum and Babbitt need to play better to push Wallace for playing time. It means Roy needs to prepare his game and body to re-challenge Matthews for playing time while Diebler learns the NBA. Without Rudy (who was stopping progress) there is additional time for Batum.

Some believe Roy is stopping progress. Should he return next year without improving his outside shot or being able to penetrate as of old, perhaps that is true. But Roy’s game is more cerebral than athletic and with a better outside shot he can be an effective and efficient playmaker. Now that Miller is gone Roy may be freed up to return to star-quality production since it was Roy's contention that he could not play his game.

Still another player who may be stopping progress is Marcus Camby. Should Oden return and play with health, Camby’s minutes can be diminished. In this case a veteran will more likely accept his decreased role to lengthen his career. Perhaps, also, Chris Johnson can earn some minutes at the 5 position.

So what is your take? Are there aspects of draft day changes to support this theory? Do the Blazers need to do more?

Last summer the decision by LaMarcus Aldridge to skip the USA Basketball FIBA world championship team participation brought growls of discontent from Coach McMillan and many of the Blazer fan faithfuls. There was an expectation that LaMarcus would have gained international exposure and increased training and skills from that team. Now, six months later a reassessment is revealing a different perspective.

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The idea is being floated about that Brandon's play is like Kobe's ball-dominant play before the L*kers acquired Pau Gasol. It does not feel right. I wanted to examine this premise with data to see what validity this idea might have and this is what I discovered.

I compared Kobe and the L*kers from 2006-2007 to Brandon and the Trail Blazers from 2008-2009. I used the most recent complete year for Brandon against the most recent year for Kobe prior to the acquisaiton of Pau Gasol. By most accounts that acquisiton and perhaps the USA Basketball team experience for Kobe changed his style to being unselfish. In 2006-2007 Kobe played 3140 minutes. In 2008-2009 Brandon played 2903 minutes or 92% of Kobe's minutes. We will adjust raw numbers when head-to-head comparisons are made to equalize.

Since we are talking about unselfish, I started with assists. Kobe had 413 assists to Brandon's 400. With equal minutes Brandon gets 435, advantage to Brandon. Kobe had 22% of the L*kers assists while Brandon had 24% of Blazer assists. So far so good.  

How about FGAs? Kobe had 1757 while Brandon had 1318. Again, equalizing for minutes, Brandon would get 1433 or just 82% of Kobe's attempts. So what about usage (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor).

Brandon's usage was significantly lower than Kobe's indicating Kobe's ball-dominance. Also note that the new Brandon and the old Brandon are nearly exactly the same, last year to the short period of this year.And Kobe's usage is even higher this year than last or in 2006-2007. This is likely higher this year with Kobe adjusting to the injury to Pau. But last year was nearly even with the old Kobe in 2006-2007.

I then calculated assists per shot attempts (FGA + 0.4*FTA). Kobe was 20% against Brandon's 26%. These shot attempts were 27% of L*kers' total attempts for Kobe and 21% of Blazers' for Brandon.

It would appear that Brandon's 2008-2009 sharing of the scoring and assisting teammates is significantly different than Kobe's for 2006-2007.

Finally out of curiosity I ran the same numbers for Kobe in 2008-2009 to see if the new Kobe was indeed significantly different than the old Kobe in 2006-2007. I was mildly surprised to find that they are not:

So it appears that the old Kobe is about the same as the new Kobe. His team is winning more games in 2008-2009, perhaps because they have more effieient scorers playing with Kobe in 2008-2009, but the inclination to share with teammates for Kobe has not changed.

It also appears that the new or old Brandon is not similar to new or old Kobe. While both are relied upon by their teams to score, the approach and results for the two players appear to be markedly different.

What do you take from these numbers? Is it helpful to bring statistical measurements into this discussion? Can you add additional light to this idea?

The signing of Brandon Roy today heralds the cornerstone of the franchise for years to come. Some think the likely max contract of around $75M is too much for any player. Others think Brandon got jobbed by a down economy. Most of us have never even met someone being paid $75M over 5 years except in a fan line. What is the reality of this contract?

I did some digging and found a good summary of the NBA salary cap and its history at Wikipedia.com. Using their history I worked out what a 5 year max contract (25% of cap) would have looked like over the years. The first year of the cap was 1984-1985 set at $3.6M. That cap would yield Brandon a total 5 year salary of $5.4M under today's rules. In 1988 Paul Allen purchased the Blazers when the cap was set at $7.2M. Taking 5 year intervals here are the estimated totals:

The 09-10 Salary Cap will not be official until July 2010 but NBA officials have indicated the $50M is a reasonable presumption per various news stories.

The 09-10 year at the bottom of the table calculates from an estimate of 8.43% average increase in the period 03-04-through 08-09 what might have been expected when Brandon joined the league. With $23M less, it would seem he did get jobbed by the economy, but wait -

A player given a max contract in 88-89 would get less over the 5 years total than any single year in Brandon's contract.Compared with the superstars who have gone before, Brandon has a gravy train.

On to Part 2 - the impact to the fans:

Ken Berger has written an interesting piece on CBSSportsline.com about the ticket revenue from last season in the league. In there he says this:

Portland, New Orleans and Orlando are great examples of why a better revenue sharing model is needed. All three teams were above the league average in total ticket sales but below average in ticket revenue simply because those markets can't support high enough prices. The Blazers are the most blatant example, selling an average of 17,872 tickets per game (third in the league) but generating only $813,809 per game (15th).

Berger makes the case for revenue sharing to lighten the load. It would seem to help but are the votes there to change ownership practice?

With max contract to Brandon and with LMA likely close behind the Blazers need more money from ticket sales. Hang onto your wallets because the next few years will likely bring significant increases each year. We have seen it before and it will price some fans out of the arena.

I do know the prevailing theory is Paul Allen can afford to lose money. That misses the point. Paul has invested many millions (maybe closer to $1B) in the Blazers. There needs to be a return soon. It is partly about ego - who wants to brag to their friends that you are losing $50M per year (as reported in the past) on an investment. If the Blazers can turn the corner and become profitable and steady in the profits then the fun is multiplied for Paul Allen.

So what do we glean from all this? The question are we willing to be patient with management regarding extensions? Are we willing to pay more to Comcast and for tickets to support these huge salaries?

Storyteller's correction for 2008-2009 is made above. His formula has not been incorporated (more later?).

The media buzz for the past two years has been huge around the free agent class of 2010. We are told that many teams are dumping salary to clear cap space for that year. The draw is, of course, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Chris Bosh among the top players. All are either reported to have opt-out or player option clauses to exercise before June 30, 2010 making them possible free agents in 2010. Sorry folks the party might be over before it starts. In my review below you will see that the max contract players who are offered an extension this year will likely take them or lose huge salary money. The major free agent market in 2010 will instead deflate into mostly lesser players. I recognize that marketing contracts might offset this loss but that is a factor unknown to me so for the sake of discussion I am leaving it out. If you have specific facts that cover this factor you are welcome to cite them below along with the discussion. I also recognize the allure of two of the above playing together and that also is an unknown to be debated but one or both will take a monetary hit to do so. Read the review and consider the discussion questions below:

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With Shaq apparently traded to Cleveland for a $5.5M savings for Phoenix and with Phoenix needing further relief (They still have $73M on the books) and not likely to be a contender in Nash's remaining years the Blazers are primed to get the championship point guard they need and offer $11M $7.5M more in  cap relief (plus luxury tax savings to Phoenix) while offering a young point guard in replacement:

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It is not often that we have gone through the doorway of NBA History so I wanted to mark this moment for all of us. Only an numbers guy would ever take the time to do so but you will find this interesting.

The Trail Blazers under Coach Nate McMillan have improved at least 9 games each season for the past four years. How often has that ever occured? I wanted to find out.

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For many years I remember NBA coaches indicating in various ways that playing rookies meant losing and coaches just don't like to lose now so that the next coach will win. At the most 1 rookie might play (i.e. Tim Duncan)  surrounded by savvy veterans. Otherwise a team blew up the roster and lost miserably. I began to wonder how the Trail Blazers are winning so many games with mega-rookie minutes and if anyone else is able to do that. I looked at the data through Friday, Feb 6, to compare:

Portland this year plays more rookie minutes than any other team except Memphis by a substantial margin. And, Portland is winning far more with substantial rookie minutes than any other team. Here are the top ten teams in rookie minutes as a percentage of team minutes and their records:

• Memphis 36% rookie minutes 13-36 record
• Portland 30% rookie minutes 30-19 record
• Miami 23% rookie minutes 26-22 record
• New Jersey 21% rookie minutes 23-27 record
• Sacramento 19% rookie minutes 11-40 record
• LA Clippers 19% rookie minutes 11-39 record
• OKC 16% rookie minutes 12-38 record
• Chicago 15% rookie minutes 22-38 record
• Milwaukee 14% rookie minutes 24-28 record
• Golden State 13% rookie minutes 16-35 record
• Charlotte 12% rookie minutes 19-30 record
• Indiana 11% rookie minutes 20-31 record
• Minnesota 10% rookie minutes 17-31 record
• All other teams are below 10% rookie minutes

So it seems that only Portland and Miami have winning records with high rookie minutes. Moderate use of rookies has been successful at Orlando (8%), San Antonio (9%), and Cleveland (6%). No other top-ten teams (by winning percentage) uses even 1% of minutes for rookies. It is small wonder that the league is becoming afraid of Portland. As  this group matures and develops it promises to become the team that every team desires - combining youth, talent, culture and a winning mentality. Kevin Pritchard and Nate McMillan and staff have received early praise and, more recently, Coach Nate has heard stinging criticism for the use of players in the games. It looks to me as though we can have our cake and eat it too. We can win with rookies and early-career players and develop them with heavy playing time as well. A point to note: All five teams mentioned in this paragraph are anchored with superstars. Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan, LeBron James and Brandon Roy all facilitate the use of rookies while still winning. Only San Antonio has an aging superstar in this group. I begin to think Portland, Miami, Cleveland and Orlando are the future class of the league (assuming they all keep their superstars and healthy as well).  Obviously rookies are not the only young players on teams and there is nothing scientific in this study - only food for thought.

For me, personally, It gives me the feeling that I want to stand and applaud this terrific team and organization called the Portland Trail Blazers.

What are your thoughts? Do you see other areas to explore  here or other conclusions to draw? Discuss freely....

The Question:

The recent excellent post by Dave responding to Henry Abbott has started all of us thinking about how to measure Greg Oden's becoming a significant factor on behalf of the team.

In my analysis of the games through 11/19/08 I found several measures that say he has definitely boosted the team. His effect is not seen in how many points or rebounds he gets or even his plus/minus. It is seen in improvement in overall team defense and overall team production and from production from the Center position.

Joel Przybilla is playing his best basketball. Why? Joel tells us why: He can finally be aggressive and risk some fouls because Greg is his backup. But even more so these two Centers are (one of) the best pair in the league on defense. They are intimidating. Teams that want to beat the Blazers have to hit outside shots. Perversely the Blazer perimeter defense has improved as well forcing them inside.

Data derived from NBA.com and ESPN.com box scores of each game.

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The New York Daily News has published an interview with Philip Scala, recently retired FBI supervisor who uncovered Donaghy's betting scheme and headed the task force that investigated Donaghy's claims. Scala believes Donaghy told the truth, including about the NBA having other refs that are dirty.

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There has been much discussion about Josh Childress taking a contract in Greece this year including that his income is tax free. This may not be accurate. I assume Greece has waived local income taxes for Josh so this post will not address other countries' taxation. It will attempt to address the IRS regulations on US citizens working and living abroad and paying tax to the US.

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The economics of drafting Europeans in the bottom of the 1st round has shifted dramatically in the past 5 years. Considering 1) European teams paying significantly more to players; 2) the dollar's drop against the Euro; and 3) the NBA rookie salary structure for 1st round picks there simply is not enough money to sign a European talent after he establishes himself in Europe. (Rudy is amazing to be willing to come anyway.) Both Kopenen and Batum will have to sign 4-5 year contracts in order to play in Europe next year (and get pretty good money). By the end of those contracts they will be getting 3-5 times the salary restricted for low 1st rounder (remember that the salary is the amount when they were drafted). So failing to sign both this year probably means we will not see them again. A side note: I believe 2nd round picks are not restricted in what we can pay so 2nd rounders are more valuable than low 1st rounders for Europeans. It is why KP does so well with this currency.

Both show huge upside and both are raw in experience. Both can be worth having on the roster by the end of this year (getting some playing time).

So the real question to me is do you want to keep these guys or toss off Paul Allen's $3M purchase of each of these draft picks? It would appear that error on the side of keeping the player makes more sense. Especially if there is indeed a trade this next year (likely a 2 or 3 for 1 trade). We also have the ability to waive Raef (hate it if we do) and still keep his salary cap value going into next year. With Greg healthy there will not be minutes for him I would think. That would free up a roster slot if absolutely needed.

A number of posts recently have indicated that the repeated success of a team is guaranteed to generate hatred nationally from other fans. I have been thinking about this and believe there are some nationally hated teams that share some characteristics we should consider.

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Hello - This is my first post here but longtime poster on Blazers Edge and a KU alum. The question posed above might be of interest here given the normal interest we all have in our team's draft process. The support for the question comes from a leading NBA draft journalist and evaluator:

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There is so much debate about which point guard we need and so many who passionately believe we need a much better point guard to win a championship. In this light I wanted to look at championship teams in the past and how their starting point guards stack up to Steve Blake for this past year. OK- stop laughing. Even I was unprepared for the results.

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For an entirely different reason I was reading on FIBA.com and encountered a stunning announcement. Perhaps I was asleep and missed the posting here since it is dated April 28, 2008.

As most of us know the USA plays basketball and the world plays an entirely different game with different rules. That disparity is over. FIBA is the rule-making body for the world and the Olympics. FIBA has adopted NBA rules!

World breakthrough as NBA and FIBA put their eggs in one basket

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Most of the draft discussion has been around point guard with occasional mentions (good) of power forward and small forward but almost nothing about Centers. The conventional wisdom seems to be that we have Joel and Greg and we are already good there.

Here is the missing link: 12

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There has been much disparaging of Martell and our selection of him and Jarrett Jack instead of Deron Williams or Chris Paul.  While those two players have indeed become big contributors in year 3 Martell is not so shabby. Martell has those qualities so hard to find with terrific athleticism, wonderful shooting form, toughness and size. Some do not appreciate Martell as a shooter. He compares very well with NBA shooters.

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NFLDraftbible.com is disclosing that the Cowboys have signed a SS in Dowayne Davis of Syracuse.

Link

DRAFT BIBLE SLEEPER: DOWAYNE DAVIS

One of the prospects flying under the radar is Syracuse safety/cornerbacks Dowayne Davis. After starting at strong safety for two seasons, the 6’0, 200-pound Davis excelled as a senior-- making the transition to cornerback and showing vast improvement in his man coverage. He displayed outstanding athleticism and good instincts, not to mention he can also lay the lumber (see insert). A scouting combine snuff, Davis looks to impress scouts at his pro day workout in March where the former track standout is expected to run in the low 4.4-range. With The Orangemen producing such talents as Tanard Jackson (Buccaneers) and Anthony Smith (Steelers) in recent years, look for Davis to garner some attention. A native of Jamaica, he was also an academic achiever in the classroom.

Posted by NFL DRAFT BIBLE at 7:33 AM

That lead-in probably got some snorts of disbelief!

With Utah's win over Denver tonight, all inter-divisional games in the Northwest Division are complete. Portland won 11 and lost 5, a game better than Denver or Utah.

Of course I realize that we play 66 games outside of the division but being able to beat our division rivals this year is a huge step forward. We do not have a losing record against any division team. Nice work Blazers!

Next year? Who knows, but we draft earlier than Denver or Utah and Minnesota and Seattle are not going to get good in one year. With Greg and Rudy already slated to be additions we likely will improve significantly more than any division team.

Many here are incensed by the sale of the Sonics to Oklahoma City businessmen by Howard Shultz as the Sonics prepare to move to OKC. It was Shultz, after all, that sold out the city where his Starbucks started and anchored his empire. There are two developments in the past week that make me want to say there is always someone bigger waiting around the corner to smack the bully.

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There is a timely post here on Basketball Prospectus of Boston's defense this year through the 14th of January. There is some really good content. For those not familiar with Basketball Prospectus it is a fairly new endeavor including Ken Pomeroy of kenpom.com,a college statistics maven for years. This one is by Kevin Pelton on the NBA side.

In light of tonight's game this reading illuminates the defense and its philosophy.

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I have been thinking about what we are seeing here with the Blazers and am struck by the ability of the team to produce without their stars having a good game. What sets the Blazers apart is that they seem genuinely unconcerned to a man (not sure still about Darius) about winning as a team. It is like we dialed up Mars and imported 14 basketball players who had never been exposed to the whole "Star" culture in the USA. The idea is that the hot hand gets fed and the team supports each other win or lose, hit or miss. These are not original thoughts of course but there is a clinic being presented to the country about the game of basketball that does seem to return us to our roots. To sell all these players on this culture and this unity is a tremendous achievement by the coaching staff and the scouting staff as well as KP. Some burning questions:

1. Is this only because we are young and will change as these players see more money and fame elsewhere?
2. Can we really introduce a veteran into this bunch in mid-year and not change the chemistry?
3. Can KP follow up two smashing drafts with a tame one?
4. Will we get to see Green and McRoberts again this year? Ok - that one is not so pressing.