So… are we really gonna be THAT bad?

[LewisnotMiller]

It does depend on Ayton for he has all the physical skills to be a top 10 center.

And Rob Williams knees/role if you keep him. He was great when healthy for us as a defensive hub, and a roll man. I would trust his knees one little bit, but he can play.

[LewisnotMiller]

I guess I’m the one a bit too rosy here lol

I respect everyone’s opinions and am not surprised the majority view us as being on the outside looking in.

I am a little surprised how many think we’ll be in the 20–25 win tier. That’s a baaaaaaaad team lol… like Telfair era Blazers bad. Back when our best player was a black hole that astrologists eventually named Z-BO50.

I just don’t see how a Simons, Grant, Ayton baseline, plus some other decent rotational pieces will be that bad.

Out of curiousity, if we switched Dame with Scoot, how many wins would this current team get? Whatever your response to that is, subtract -12 (based on Dame’s Wins Above Replacement Average). The number u get is roughly the number of wins you would expect to get from this squad going from Dame to Scoot.

I'm guessing it factors in the chance you trade Grant, Rob and Brogden for youth/picks and just end up pretty unstructured and defensively challenged.

Also the depth of the Western Conference. You look more like a 30-36 win team to me, but that assumes half a season of healthy Rob, a full season of Grant, and a good rookie season of Scoot. And a decently motivated Ayton (which I think you'll get)

[DC_Melo]

Yes this season is a learning season and I'm hopeful to pump up the value of Ant and Grant. I don't personally see Grant lasting here past the trade deadline or draft. I'm hoping we can get a protected pick from a contender for him at the deadline.

I think we all know how I feel about Ant - think he'd be great sixth man, don't think they want to use him that way, I don't think he can run the offense and I don't want to rehash the Dame/CJ experience but with Scoot/Ant. So I just say I'll hope we can find him a home where he can shine for who he is and get some value.

I totally agree that Simons would kill it as a sixth man… less starters to share the ball with so he can have more scoring freedom, he’d be up against inferior bench players, and there would be a decent chance our margins grew while the starters rested.

Plus it allows us to have a larger backcourt with Sharpe stepping in as the starter.

I’ve given up on that hope, but I couldn’t agree more that 6th man would be the ultimate role for Simons.

[mojomarc]

I think the 28 Draft Kings has is a bit low, but the problem is the West is a murderer's row. We like to think over the last week that the center of gravity for the league shifted East with the Dame and Jrue trades (and Philly/Miami), but in reality there are probably 11 teams in the West that are definitely better than us even if we mesh early. Just taking the DraftKings rankings, these are teams that are all expected to have a winning record next year:

Nuggets
Suns
Warriors
Lakers
Clippers
Mavs
Grizz
Wolves
Pelicans
Thunder
Kings

I don't care if we do better than expected--we aren't going to have a winning record next year, so we aren't going to be in any real chance at the play-in.

[Dzon Dilindzer]

be as bad as you can be, its all about getting top 4 pick (and hopefully getting lucky there)

we gain absolutely nothing from winning meaningless games, theres plenty of time for scoot, sharpe & co to start winning

[Pattycakes]

We’re def a playin team at least. People forget we will start 2 20 ppg potential front court players for the first time in… have we ever had that?

Guards are as elite as rookies/2nd 3rd year guys can look considering their likely borderline all star potentials (scoot I think has most potl out of all 3).


Said it a week ago, people are going to eat a lot of crow including even disappointed blazers fans, and I’m here for it. Will take sig bets with anyone

Loyal fans like me deserve moments like this.

Please if you think we’ll win 17 games and get slaughtered all year, quote this and quote it hard.

[DC_Melo]

We’re def a playin team at least. People forget we will start 2 20 ppg potential front court players for the first time in… have we ever had that?

Guards are as elite as rookies/2nd 3rd year guys can look considering their likely borderline all star potentials (scoot I think has most potl out of all 3).


Said it a week ago, people are going to eat a lot of crow including even disappointed blazers fans, and I’m here for it. Will take sig bets with anyone

Loyal fans like me deserve moments like this.

Please if you think we’ll win 17 games and get slaughtered all year, quote this and quote it hard.

Lucas and Walton were close… Lucas had 20.4 and Walton had 18.6 in 1977-77… although they obviously contributed far more than 20 a night and were head and shoulders above the current front court.

But Im not sure of any others off the top of my head. Aldridge and Oden would’ve likely gotten there if the basketball gods weren’t still still pissed about us not drafting Jordan.

Regardless, I love the optimism! Especially now that it appears we’re keeping Brogdon… we have some legit nba talent on this roster

[DC_Melo]

I think the 28 Draft Kings has is a bit low, but the problem is the West is a murderer's row. We like to think over the last week that the center of gravity for the league shifted East with the Dame and Jrue trades (and Philly/Miami), but in reality there are probably 11 teams in the West that are definitely better than us even if we mesh early. Just taking the DraftKings rankings, these are teams that are all expected to have a winning record next year:

Nuggets
Suns
Warriors
Lakers
Clippers
Mavs
Grizz
Wolves
Pelicans
Thunder
Kings

I don't care if we do better than expected--we aren't going to have a winning record next year, so we aren't going to be in any real chance at the play-in.

A winning record isn’t always necessary. Both 10 seeds made it in last year with 40 wins, and 2 seasons ago Spurs got in with 34 wins.

If we can get above 35 wins, we got a shot!

Edit: And I should add that even though all those teams are projected for winning records, the odds of 11/11 teams making the over is near impossible. One if not multiple teams will hit the under. There’s always 1-2 teams underperform, and a couple others snakebit with injury.

[DaVoiceMaster]

I know everybody thinks I'm negative about the Blazers all the time. If I was I'd predict 24 wins. I'm predicting 33 wins. Same as last year although Portland won't have to deliberately tank to hit that mark

I'll take 27 wins.

27-55

[DaVoiceMaster]

I think the 28 Draft Kings has is a bit low, but the problem is the West is a murderer's row. We like to think over the last week that the center of gravity for the league shifted East with the Dame and Jrue trades (and Philly/Miami), but in reality there are probably 11 teams in the West that are definitely better than us even if we mesh early. Just taking the DraftKings rankings, these are teams that are all expected to have a winning record next year:

Nuggets
Suns
Warriors
Lakers
Clippers
Mavs
Grizz
Wolves
Pelicans
Thunder
Kings

I don't care if we do better than expected--we aren't going to have a winning record next year, so we aren't going to be in any real chance at the play-in.

Those last 4 teams are questionable. You would think so, but they all have a history of falling short. I hope the Blazers do worse than them though, at least for another year anyways.

[JasonStern]

2-3 year rebuild. Bad this year, but a pretty kick ass core to rebuild around. Even knowing we're going to lose a lot of games, I'm more excited about Sharpe/Scoot/Ayton/Little/Timelord than I was the treadmill Dame/CJ/Olshey Duct Tape teams of the past.

[Norm2953]

it’ll be interesting to see if Chauncey is the coach that fits this group of players moving
forward.

Team still lacks the SF but has more size to match up with most teams and is deep in its BC.
We’ll likely see lots of 3 guard lineups in order to get our best players more PT but at least
we have the bigs to match up when go small.

Going to be some ugly games in November and December but if they can hover around .500,
things could be interesting by March

[Pattycakes]

The blazers didn’t get worse. I’m reading that a lot right now by this thread. Are you guys even fans or analysts?

Losing Dame was an L on the court? You clearly didn’t understand our flaws his entire tenure here. Get ready for actual depth and team basketball. I’ll continue saying it, noones used to a Blazers squad like this.

Step your predictions up, 33 wins should be absolute worst case scenario. 45 is where I’m at. The league just doesn’t have powerhouses anymore like that, it’s a parity game with ageing superstars. We’re the next grizzlies come up.

[DC_Melo]

The blazers didn’t get worse. I’m reading that a lot right now by this thread. Are you guys even fans or analysts?

Losing Dame was an L on the court? You clearly didn’t understand our flaws his entire tenure here. Get ready for actual depth and team basketball. I’ll continue saying it, noones used to a Blazers squad like this.

Step your predictions up, 33 wins should be absolute worst case scenario. 45 is where I’m at. The league just doesn’t have powerhouses anymore like that, it’s a parity game with ageing superstars. We’re the next grizzlies come up.

I see us at 38-40 and sneaking into the play-in. I agree with many of your points, and don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that all the teams expected to be better than us will be as good as advertised.

Although many on this thread have also expressed legit concerns, including time to build chemistry, inexperience, and lack of a true star, I think Scoot will surprise people at how well he can run an offense and the impact that will have on our team play.

My biggest concern lies in our deeper bench depth. Our top 8 guys- Ayton, Sharpe, Simons, Scoot, Grant, Brogdon, Timelord, Thybulle -will contribute meaningful minutes and gives us more top 8 depth than we’ve had in a while. But after that it reaaally drops off. Jabari Walker is probably the most proven/talented of the remaining bench.

We have enough depth to play a competitive 48 minutes against any team, but not much depth to absorb rotation guys getting injured/missing time.

[Red Robot]

28 wins. Lots of talent for a rebuilding team but with so little experience I don't see it coming together anytime soon.

This isn't normally the kind of thing I pick up on when analyzing teams, but I feel like a lack of leadership will be an issue this season. Just a hunch based on the combination of personalities that we have.

In an average season I'd say 32 wins but I expect the depth of the conference to drive down the win totals. There won't be as many other bad teams to get wins against.

[Norm2953]

I do think Portland could win 35 or so games but if they are above water in January,
they could surprise. It's likely they will be better in March after Scoot gets his feet
wet

[Pattycakes]

The blazers didn’t get worse. I’m reading that a lot right now by this thread. Are you guys even fans or analysts?

Losing Dame was an L on the court? You clearly didn’t understand our flaws his entire tenure here. Get ready for actual depth and team basketball. I’ll continue saying it, noones used to a Blazers squad like this.

Step your predictions up, 33 wins should be absolute worst case scenario. 45 is where I’m at. The league just doesn’t have powerhouses anymore like that, it’s a parity game with ageing superstars. We’re the next grizzlies come up.

I see us at 38-40 and sneaking into the play-in. I agree with many of your points, and don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that all the teams expected to be better than us will be as good as advertised.

Although many on this thread have also expressed legit concerns, including time to build chemistry, inexperience, and lack of a true star, I think Scoot will surprise people at how well he can run an offense and the impact that will have on our team play.

My biggest concern lies in our deeper bench depth. Our top 8 guys- Ayton, Sharpe, Simons, Scoot, Grant, Brogdon, Timelord, Thybulle -will contribute meaningful minutes and gives us more top 8 depth than we’ve had in a while. But after that it reaaally drops off. Jabari Walker is probably the most proven/talented of the remaining bench.

We have enough depth to play a competitive 48 minutes against any team, but not much depth to absorb rotation guys getting injured/missing time.

I might be the rosy eyed guy, but I seriously am over the depressed pessimism state that blazers fans just default to. There was a time this forum was excited about martell Webster. Where are those guys?

Anyway, hoping Moses Brown takes on a little role off the bench, he always takes off in my nba 2k franchises about now, and sometimes those random things actually happen irl. He has the chance. 6-8 points and 6-8 rebounds here and there with a couple blocks is just one more big guy to help allow DA and RobW to do more on offense in their roles.

I’m pretty up. Not as concerned about depth as much as understanding we have major X factors kind of all across the board.

Shaedon and DA are those two guys that obv have all star potential, we’ll need them to be those guys and not what could have beens.

Either we will get that boost sooner than later, or they need much more time/training.

[DC_Melo]

I might be the rosy eyed guy, but I seriously am over the depressed pessimism state that blazers fans just default to. There was a time this forum was excited about martell Webster. Where are those guys?

Anyway, hoping Moses Brown takes on a little role off the bench, he always takes off in my nba 2k franchises about now, and sometimes those random things actually happen irl. He has the chance. 6-8 points and 6-8 rebounds here and there with a couple blocks is just one more big guy to help allow DA and RobW to do more on offense in their roles.

I’m pretty up. Not as concerned about depth as much as understanding we have major X factors kind of all across the board.

Shaedon and DA are those two guys that obv have all star potential, we’ll need them to be those guys and not what could have beens.

Either we will get that boost sooner than later, or they need much more time/training.

Honestly, the optimism is refreshing.

We’re a franchise that’s been through a lot… Whiffed on Bowie, haunted by Jordan in the finals, had a 16 point 4th quarter lead collapse in the WCF, endured the jailblazer era, passed on CP3, whiffed on Oden, had Roy snatched from us prematurely, lost LMA for nothing… sometimes it truly feels like we’re cursed.

So I get why many blazer fans are quick to resort to pessimism.

But we have a fun, young team that I truly believe is more talented than many give us credit for. We’re gonna cheer for them regardless, cuz we are some of the best fans in the world, so it’s ok to dare to hope a little.

Either way, I’m glad at least one other person on this board shares my optimism for how awesome this year could be!

[Pattycakes]

I might be the rosy eyed guy, but I seriously am over the depressed pessimism state that blazers fans just default to. There was a time this forum was excited about martell Webster. Where are those guys?

Anyway, hoping Moses Brown takes on a little role off the bench, he always takes off in my nba 2k franchises about now, and sometimes those random things actually happen irl. He has the chance. 6-8 points and 6-8 rebounds here and there with a couple blocks is just one more big guy to help allow DA and RobW to do more on offense in their roles.

I’m pretty up. Not as concerned about depth as much as understanding we have major X factors kind of all across the board.

Shaedon and DA are those two guys that obv have all star potential, we’ll need them to be those guys and not what could have beens.

Either we will get that boost sooner than later, or they need much more time/training.

Honestly, the optimism is refreshing.

We’re a franchise that’s been through a lot… Whiffed on Bowie, haunted by Jordan in the finals, had a 16 point 4th quarter lead collapse in the WCF, endured the jailblazer era, passed on CP3, whiffed on Oden, had Roy snatched from us prematurely, lost LMA for nothing… sometimes it truly feels like we’re cursed.

So I get why many blazer fans are quick to resort to pessimism.

But we have a fun, young team that I truly believe is more talented than many give us credit for. We’re gonna cheer for them regardless, cuz we are some of the best fans in the world, so it’s ok to dare to hope a little.

Either way, I’m glad at least one other person on this board shares my optimism for how awesome this year could be!

Likewise, sir! It’s far from blind optimism that’s why I’m a little shocked at the lack of fandom and true analytical understanding around here but whatever.

Go Blazers always. Highlight reels incoming like clockwork.

[Wizenheimer]

I might be the rosy eyed guy, but I seriously am over the depressed pessimism state that blazers fans just default to. There was a time this forum was excited about martell Webster. Where are those guys?

Anyway, hoping Moses Brown takes on a little role off the bench, he always takes off in my nba 2k franchises about now, and sometimes those random things actually happen irl. He has the chance. 6-8 points and 6-8 rebounds here and there with a couple blocks is just one more big guy to help allow DA and RobW to do more on offense in their roles.

I’m pretty up. Not as concerned about depth as much as understanding we have major X factors kind of all across the board.

Shaedon and DA are those two guys that obv have all star potential, we’ll need them to be those guys and not what could have beens.

Either we will get that boost sooner than later, or they need much more time/training.

Honestly, the optimism is refreshing.

We’re a franchise that’s been through a lot… Whiffed on Bowie, haunted by Jordan in the finals, had a 16 point 4th quarter lead collapse in the WCF, endured the jailblazer era, passed on CP3, whiffed on Oden, had Roy snatched from us prematurely, lost LMA for nothing… sometimes it truly feels like we’re cursed.

So I get why many blazer fans are quick to resort to pessimism.

But we have a fun, young team that I truly believe is more talented than many give us credit for. We’re gonna cheer for them regardless, cuz we are some of the best fans in the world, so it’s ok to dare to hope a little.

Either way, I’m glad at least one other person on this board shares my optimism for how awesome this year could be!

I think there's a lot more percolating than just Portland starting a rebuild, possibly with a leg up in Scoot

Divorces generally get messy. The Dame/Blazer divorce got messy. Setting aside (or not), the actions of Dame's agent and the likely back room maneuvers of Pat Riley, there's a pretty stark reality staring at Blazer fans:

...that being that Portland had arguably the best player in franchise history, all things considered. Certainly the best leader and the most loyal franchise player they've ever had. And the Blazers utterly failed to capitalize. And it wasn't just the ego-blind incompetence and idiocy of Olshey, with a small assist by Cronin; it was Blazer ownership that enabled, year after year, the blatantly obvious GM malpractice of Olshey. That enabled the wasting of Dame's prime. That cut pennies and dodged taxes.

it was that ownership that actually considered NOT sending broadcast crews to road games. GEEEEEEZUUUZZZ. And that ownership is still in place

I like the promise of Scoot and Shaedon; and the possibility however small that one of the 4 or 5 forwards they have off the bench might become starting level. I don't like that Portland, for the 9th straight season, is stubbornly insisting on plugging an undersized no-defense chucker into the starting SG role. I don't like that the Blazers may very well have the worst rebounding SG-SF-PF starting combo in the league. I don't like that the Blazers are trying to zig with a 34M/year C while most of the NBA is zagging away from high paid offensive C's. I don't like that Portland has a coach I have no confidence in

maybe I'm wrong about all those concerns, or at least most of them. But at this point, I'm skeptical about ownership, I'm skeptical about coaching, and I'm skeptical about significant parts of the roster. My hunch is that by some time in January most Blazer fans will be looking at 2024 draft prospects and calculating lottery odss while hoping for major trades at the deadline