That doesn't seem like a very popular question around Portland. But, what do you think? Is he what he is, or will he hit another level?

Of course, there are a lot of ways this could be measured-- Number of clutch shots, regular stats, and combined stats (like the PER).

To me, it never felt like he was as on this season as he was the two years prior.

Over the past 4 years, his 3 primary stat averages looked like this:

06-07 -- Games Played 57 -- PPG 16.8 -- APG 4.0 -- RPG 4.4

07-08 -- Games Played 74 -- PPG 19.1 -- APG 5.8 -- RPG 4.7

08-09 -- Games Played 78 -- PPG 22.6 -- APG 5.1 -- RPG 4.7

09-10 -- Games Played 65 -- PPG 21.5 -- APG 4.7 -- RPG 4.4

(Note- His PPG was good enough for 12th in the league)

His stats went down in every major category from last season.

He's about to be entering his big contract. If he averages 22, 5, and 4.7 over the next 5 seasons, would that be enough to justify his big contract? How high should our expectations be?

Staying healthy for a full season would also be huge. He's missing an average of 13.5 games per season, and this season it came at the worst time possible. Did it cost us the 1st round of the playoffs? Maybe. A healthy Roy throughout that series would have undoubtedly made a difference. At least Bayless got to benefit from the experience; adding to the team's depth and/or his trade value.

What do we as fans expect to see from Roy in the next 1 to 5 seasons? 

Kobe made a 6 PPG leap going into his 5th year. Will Brandon ever have a jump like that? Will he ever have a 28 PPG season, or is he just not that kind of player?

I'll start by saying I'm not anti Kevin Pritchard, but I just wanted to give Portland fans a little reality check. Granted, from the players he's had to choose from in the drafts, he's done an okay job, but I wouldn't go much further than that. I'll give a few examples by year starting with 2006.

In 2006, the Blazers drafted:

#2 LA - Above average, but soft. I'll be sold on him once he puts the power in his forward.

#6 B-Roy - Very good pick, but just injury prone enough at the wrong times to make him iffy.

#27 Sergio - Bust

#30 Free land - TBD, but it's been 4 years, and still not worthy of the NBA

I guess 50% ain't bad, but not that great either. Especially considering we could have had:

#8 Rudy Gay

#21 Rajon Rondo

#47 Paul Millsap

Did we pass on Rondo because of character? Those other 2 guys would have worked out just fine. I know hindsight is 20/20, but this is how you actually determine the effectiveness of someone's drafting ability. From this one draft, we could have had Roy, Gay, Rondo, and Millsap. That would have been one heck of a core. I stand corrected-- one of those players would have to have been left out. Close though.

2007- TERRIBLE! Arguably KP's worst draft.

Durant/Oden - Moot point? Yes, "everybody" would have picked Oden, and everybody overlooked the youngest scoring champion in NBA history. Missed opportunity to show everybody a REAL Pritch-slap! I'm still hopeful that Oden will have a few injury free years. Double-double seasons from here on out. That would help relieve the sting. 

#24 Rudy - Bust. - Great for repairing face of the franchise and bringing more ladies to the games. Exciting to watch when he's on, but consistently failed to step up when needed. If he stays and steps up, I'll gladly eat my words.

#30 P etteri Koponen - TBD, very possible bust

#37 McRoberts - Bust

#52 Taureen Green - Bust - no longer even in the NBA

I would have rather had these 3 guys:

#26 Aaron Brooks

#48 Marc Gasol

#56 Ramon Sessions

Between Rajon Rondo and Aaron Brooks, Kevin Pritchard passed on two of the best point guards in the NBA.

2008

We did get Bayless and Batum here. Other than the top 10, it was a very weak draft. Batum especially was an incredible pick. If we had taken Brooks or Rondo, our Bayless pick might have been great trade bait.

2009

#22 Victor Claver - TBD - Possibly a very good pick

#31 Jeff Pendergraph - Meh - 2.7 ppg 2.5 rpg in 10 mpg

#33 Dante Cunningham - Meh - 3.9 ppg 2.5 rpg in 11 mpg

#55 Patrick Mills - TBD

I love what these guys brought to the team this past year. JP, DC, and Mills show a lot of promise. Good guys, and fun to watch. Not bad picks.

It will take a couple of years to know for sure, but 5 other players did have promising rookie seasons. None would have been starters for the Blazers, but all are already pretty solid backups.

#23 Omri Casspi SF/PF - 10.3 ppg 5.5 rpg 25 mpg

#26 Taj Gibson PF - 9 ppg, 7.5 rpg in 27 mpg

#37 DeJuan Blair PF/C - 7.8 ppg 6.4 in 18 mpg

#39 Jonas Jerebko SF/PF

#44 Chase Budinger SF

He's currently got the #1 True Shooting Percentage in the NBA.

So far this season, he's scored 222 points in 23 games.
Last season, he scored 426 points in 79 games.
That means, he's got 52% of last year's points having played in just 29% of the games.

He's been averaging 11.1 points in his last 10 games. At that rate, he'll have 377 points at the end of the regular season. That's 89% of last year's points while playing just 45% of his total games.

Not bad for a 25th pick's 2nd year of playing, especially after missing most of the year due to an injury. BAT88M!!!

I've read numerous articles and had this discussion at least a dozen times over the past few seasons:

Most NBA fans I've met want to see the best 16 NBA teams make the playoffs. Conversely, the worst 14 teams should receive higher draft picks.

Over the summer, it seemed that many people believed (including myself) that the conferences would be a little more balanced this year. Well, here we are-- over 40% of the way through the season, and it's looking even more uneven than the past 2 years.

2007-2008: One Eastern Conference team made the playoffs after breaking even, and two without even winning half of their games. Two Western Conference teams missed out after winning at least half of their games.

2008-2009: Two Eastern Conference teams made the playoffs for breaking even, and the Pistons earned the 8th seed after winning just 39 games. Meanwhile, in the Western Conference, the 46-36 Phoenix Suns fell four games short of making the playoffs.

40%+ into 2009-2010: If the playoffs were decided today (1/4/2010), three Eastern Conference teams below .500 would be in, while three Western Conference teams at or above .500 would miss out. Additionally, two more teams (The Clippers and Kings) have played some great ball recently, it wouldn't surprise me to see at least one of those teams break even this year.

To gain perspective, I looked at the records the 5 aforementioned Western Conference teams (plus the recently hot OKC) have when playing against the East:

  8. Thunder 11-4
  9. Jazz 10-5
10. Hornets 4-8
11. Grizzlies 7-4
12. Clippers 6-4
13. Kings 6-5

With the exception of the Hornets, every Western Conference team ranked from 8 to 13 has a winning record against Eastern Conference teams. Even Miami (5th in the East) is a ho-hum 5-9 against the West.

The problem is self perpetuating: Several inferior Eastern Conference teams receive mediocre draft picks and remain subpar. Last season, the Suns drafted a higher pick than the 8th seed Pistons, even though the Suns won 7 more games. Where are they now? The Suns are currently tied for 3rd in the Western Conference with a record of 21-13, and Detroit has a record of 11-21, and are still just 3 games out of 8th place in the East. Sad.

Granted, moving up one spot in that draft probably wouldn't have helped the Pistons much this season, but it's looking like it could be much more of a factor this year. Additionally, the Pistons made the playoffs only to be swept by the Cavs. That's not as interesting as it would have been to see Phoenix play Orlando in the first round, considering they split their series last year. I say Phoenix vs Orlando, because that's who they would have had in the playoffs last year if it were decided by ranking the top 16 teams in the NBA, #1 team plays #16, and so forth.

Come on, NBA! Show us something more amazing!

So, everyone knows that Bayless can put his head down, drive to the basket, score and/or pick up a foul. The question has been more if he can work as a point guard.

Nate claims that he's going to give Bayless 5-10 mins a game, see how he does with it, possibly earn more minutes from there. Bayless seems to have seized the opportunity. He currently leads the team with 10.4 AST, and has a respectable 35.5 PTS per 48 minutes. Granted, he's only played in 2 games averaging 11.5 MPG-- he's on the right track. I expect/hope to see that trend to continue through the 5 game road trip. 

If Bayless can get twice as much playing time over the course of the season and not drop off in average prooduction per minute, his stats would be at 16 PPG, 5 APG, in 23 minutes of playing time. I believe those numbers are feasible. I would love to see his season go that way. He still has a very high ceiling.

5 games in, and already the hand wringing is ridiculous. I'm sensing the need for a little perspective. It's still early in the season. Some of the best teams are still working out the kinks.

There's just a period of adjustment-- Batum (our assumed starter and best defender) is out, the return of Webster, Miller and the team are still getting used to each other, and those are just the "big" things. They'll adjust. Maybe it will take them 20 or 30 games, but this team is going to be very good, and I believe most of us still believe they're going to at least make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

Additionally, a lot of comments I've read both here and OregonLive make it seem like nobody here pays attention to the rest of the NBA. For example:

The Lakers are widely considered one of the very best teams in the NBA this season. Well, they had to go into OT tonight just to beat the Thunder by a mere 3 points. The Thunder are currently showing up in most power ranking at around 16-20.

The Pistons (ranked at about 21) just beat the Magic (top 3 in the Eastern Conference) by 5. And the Bucks (ranked as low as 28) just beat the Pistons by 11 on the second night of a back to back.

All is not lost.

Everybody's got their own way of putting things. Here's how they're saying in OKC:

"Tossing the ball through the hoop from every corner of Oklahoma County seems to come natural for Durant, but Sunday night he couldn’t have hit a Del Rancho chicken fry if you’d have spotted him the gravy."

"Sunday night’s lesson for Durant? Don’t quit, even when the rim becomes an upside down peach basket."

Read the rest here

Other points of interest:

"Don’t laugh. You might see an 82-0 season before you see a superstar go 3-for-21 again. The last NBA player to take at least 20 shots and shoot worse than 14.3 percent was Detroit’s Rip Hamilton, who was 3-of-22 (against Portland) in December 2004."

"Meanwhile, Oden, the star-crossed 7-footer picked ahead of Durant in 2007, showed why one day he will be an all-star. Oden had 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting, 10 rebounds and a blocked shot."

According to Hollinger, the current PER for LaMarcus is 3.22. Only Blake is lower, and most Blazers are over 8. He's only at 10 PPG, when he should be closer to 18. 

It would seem that his production should be a bigger concern than that of defensive minded Oden. According to Nate, Roy and Aldridge should be our top 2 scorers.

Granted, I haven't read all the comments on every post, but I'm surprised that Aldridge isn't catching more flack.

Meanwhile, Oden's currently got a PER of 10.6, with 10.5 RPG and 3.5 BPG. If he can just maintain the blocks and rebounds (which should come easy), he's going to be fine. I believe his points will come, averaging a double-double for the season.

Aldridge could be a 20-10 guy this year if he would just be a little more aggressive. Maybe someone needs to tell him he's "soft". TAKE IT TO THE HOLE!

If L-Train can muster 20+ points against Houston tonight, I say we win the game.

"Follow your favorite team no matter where you live!"

That was the exact quote from an NBA League Pass commercial that just aired. What a load of crap! I'm sure there must have been some very fine print there somewhere, because my favorite team (like most of you) is the Blazers, and I can't use the League Pass to watch them here in Portland.

Had to vent for a moment since it felt like they were rubbing salt in a Comcast hating Blazers fan's wound.

NBA League Pass advertisement-- FAIL!

Blake - Aldridge - Miller - Batum - Oden

That starting lineup could hold its own against any team in the NBA. Looks very strong defensively and offensively.

I realize this will not be a terribly popular idea, but hear me out. More than anything, I'd just like to actually see it a few times.

This team has insisted over and over that the starters are not necessarily the best 5 players, and they are also not necessarily closing out the game. Apply that logic to Brand Roy. I've never heard anyone consider taking Brandon out of the starting roation. Is it really that ridiculous? Roy knows he's the man. For him, starting shouldn't matter-- he'll still get his minutes.

I've been surprisingly impressed with the Miller / Blake combo that we've seen in the games so far. Neither of them would have to stay in long. Just pull one of them out half way through the 1st quarter Roy would also potentially be getting more minutes against some of the opposing team's bench players, whom he would shred.

Regardless, once this team gets its rhythm, their depth is going to earn a lot of Ws this sesaon. If they can find their balance / groove / chemistry within the first month, they're looking at a 60 W season. 35 Home (just 1 more than last year) 25 on the road (just 5 more than last year).

Good article: http://mvn.com/bucksdiary/2009/10/the-hidden-value-of-joel-pryzbilla.html

I really like these stats they've thrown in:

NBA Rebounding % averages by position
   
              Defensive     Offensive

PG:            8.3%          2.0%
SG:            8.7%          2.3%
SF:            12.1%         4.1%
PF:            16.8%         7.5%
C:              18.8%         9.0%

Converting Pryzbilla's Boardwork into added points

So how do Pryzbilla's conversion rates compare to the average center's?  Very well.  He had the best defensive rebound conversion rate among centers last season (29.0%), and his offensive conversion rate was above average as well (11.6%).  

Greetings, Blazersedgers!

I finally got an account set up on here. Just wanted to go through the posting motions. Seems like a pretty nice setup!

I've been trying to figure out who Kings guard Kevin Martin reminded me of for the past two seasons. It finally hit me while I was at the game this past week. It's Digital Underground's Humpty Hump! He hails from Oakland, just 90 miles from Sacramento. Draw your own conclusions.

via farm3.static.flickr.com