I apologize for not posting this during the "Expectations for Batum" post a while back. I was busy and didn't have a chance to write my thoughts down in time to participate in that thread. I did read much of the thread, and the vast majority echoed Dave's sentiments that we would see Batum begin to showcase the skills he put on display as a leader of the French national team.

Is there anyone out there who is, like me, a bit nervous about Nic Batum taking on a larger role on offense? I realize that he has potential to be a more complete player than he currently is, but does the team need him to be a more complete player this season? I don't think so. I think the Blazers just need more of what he already provides.

Batum earned his starting role by doing two things: 1) being a guy you can stick on your opponent's best scorer; and 2) nailing the three point shot. Isn't this 90% of what we want from him this season as well? Why not have him conserve energy on half court sets, and save his energy for transition sprints and tenacious D.

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One of my favorite hobbies is taking worthless numbers and extrapolating even more worthless numbers from them. In that spirit, I took Dave's breakdown of playoff seeding possibilities and combined them with game predictions to compute the probability that we will face a given opponent in the first round.

I really don't want to play Utah. That team has played Portland well (we're 0-4 this year, as most people know). Of course, Portland will struggle against any playoff team without Brandon Roy. It's much harder to disguise the lack of a multi-dimensional star in the playoffs, when defensive gameplans are so finely tuned. But Utah under Jerry Sloan can really execute. My analysis does not make much distinction between Phoenix and Dallas. I think Phoenix would be more entertaining, but we match up slightly better with Dallas. For me, it's a wash.

INPUTS

DALLAS beats San Antonio: 53.5%
PORTLAND beats Golden State: 79.0%
UTAH beats Phoenix: 68.0%

My estimated probability of winning is the average of estimates published by Accuscore and www.basketball-reference.com. I don't have a good idea of how accurate these estimates are in general. They are probably even worse predictors for the last game of the season, because I'm sure the algorithms do not take into account the different incentives to win depending on seeding strategy and lottery considerations.

Neither Accuscore or www.basketball-reference.com publish their prediction algorithm. I am not aware of any empirical evaluations of their respective accuracy. With all that in mind, taking the two and averaging seems like a safe bet for something as meaningless and conjectural as this.

These numbers do not take into account Aldridge being out with a stomach. The way Maggette plays Aldridge, this may actually increase our chances of winning our game.

LIKELY FIRST ROUND OPPONENT

Utah: 43.0%
Phoenix: 28.9%
Dallas: 28.1%

The bad news is that we are far more likely to play Utah than any other opponent. The good news is that we have a 57% chance of avoiding Utah.

LIKELIHOOD WHERE PORTLAND INFLUENCES ITS OWN FATE (if San Antonio beats Dallas)

Dallas: 60.4%
Phoenix: 25.3%
Utah: 14.3%

It's worth examining scenarios where San Antonio beats Dallas for two reasons. First, the game starts two and a half hours before the other games, so we will have a good idea of what we're up against by tipoff. Second, if Dallas beats San Antonio, our fate is out of our hands. We're locked into the 6th seed and Dallas is locked into the 2nd seed, and the winner of Phoenix-Utah will be our first round opponent. In that case, Nate should rest his starters and stick pins into his D-Will doll. If you believe in internet prediction sites more than you believe in voodoo (you could make arguments either way), Utah has a 68% chance of beating Phoenix and facing Portland in the first round.

If San Antonio beats Dallas, we can eliminate Utah as a 1st round possibility by beating Golden State. In that case, if Phoenix wins (32%), we play Phoenix. If Utah wins (68%), we play Dallas. However, if Portland loses, then PHOENIX is eliminated as a first round opponent. There, if Phoenix wins (32%), we play Dallas. If Utah wins (68%) we play Utah.

Therefore, if San Antonio beats Dallas, it is very important that Portland beat Golden State.

I generate the numbers I use for Strength of Schedule off of my own spreadsheet. They are just slightly different than Hollinger's. I calculate the SoS for a given team my looking at the winning percentage of the opponents when they DON'T play that given team. I don't know if Hollinger does that, but it might explain the slight discrepancy. Anyway, by my numbers, Portland has had the toughest SoS in the Western Conference (fifth overall, as the Eastern Conference is stronger overall this year--fewer outright dogs). More importantly for us hoping for the Blazers continued success, we have the easiest remaining SoS for the 2009 year.

 

Team	W	L	%	SoS	Sos so far	Remaining SoS
Portland	20	12	.625	.496	.535	.472
Phoenix	18	12	.600	.493	.524	.476
Chicago	14	18	.438	.507	.555	.477
Denver	21	12	.636	.497	.519	.482
Sacramento	8	24	.250	.501	.526	.485
Indiana	10	21	.323	.516	.559	.491
Washington	6	24	.200	.512	.548	.491
L.A. Lakers	25	5	.833	.494	.493	.494
Toronto	12	20	.375	.510	.536	.494
Golden State	10	24	.294	.496	.497	.495
Minnesota	6	25	.194	.499	.507	.495
New Orleans	19	9	.679	.498	.504	.495
Milwaukee	15	18	.455	.510	.533	.495
Oklahoma City	4	29	.121	.496	.496	.496
Charlotte	11	21	.344	.502	.508	.498
San Antonio	20	11	.645	.490	.470	.502
Utah	19	14	.576	.492	.473	.504
Dallas	19	12	.613	.495	.477	.506
Houston	21	12	.636	.499	.484	.509
L.A. Clippers	8	23	.258	.502	.489	.509
New York	12	18	.400	.510	.507	.512
Philadelphia	13	18	.419	.502	.485	.512
Atlanta	21	9	.700	.507	.496	.513
Memphis	10	22	.313	.503	.482	.516
Cleveland	26	5	.839	.504	.479	.519
Detroit	19	11	.633	.503	.470	.522
Boston	28	5	.848	.514	.495	.527
New Jersey	15	17	.469	.504	.462	.530
Orlando	25	7	.781	.499	.449	.530
Miami	17	13	.567	.513	.466	.539

I had a little fun with Excel today, and calculated the Strength of Schedule for the three Northwest contenders, based on current records and subtracting out the games played by that team. The numbers echo what Dave and others have been saying. One thing to note is, that in terms of difficulty of opponents, the Nuggets season closely mirrors our own. One big caveat is that I did not factor in the effect of home vs. away, and the effect of back-to-back games.

SoS for the season--

Portland: .491

Utah: .484

Denver: .491

SoS so far--

Portland: .532

Utah: .412

Denver: .516

Yeah, I know these numbers are different from what Hollinger gives. I don't know his methodology. But my numbers do match up with the numbers at playoffstatus.com.

SoS for the remainder--

Portland: .479

Utah: .504

Denver: .484

SoS for December--

Portland: .547

Utah: .535

Denver: .524

SoS after December--

Portland: .460

Utah: .495

Denver: .472