But that’s what I like about the site. You keep our expectations realistic. It makes the great things that happen even better.

Normative and positive. Positive economic analysis is the study of what is. Normative analysis is, essentially, the study of what can be.

Dave, you are the epitome of a positive analyst, while Ben is more of a normative thinker. I think that is what makes Blazersedge such a great blog. It has a wonderful mix of analyzing the present and looking toward the future.

only got a top 4 seed for sure. I thought it was all division winners and the next best record in the top 4 seeds with the order being decided by best record.

Also, I think you should include a prediction for the opener and home opener. I mean, that’s what I’m most concerned about right now. I can’t wait for the season to start.

I’m going to go positive:
Blazers 105
L*kers 99

Blazers 92
Spurs 89

45 wins 7th seed
1-4 against Hornets in the first round

the Blazers will start slow, finish strong, and really scare someone in the first round of the playoffs.

a good pick for a lakers hater, but I will go with the lakers as I more indifferent to them (possibly making me less likely to love them in the future?) as I think Bynum will be able to take away some of Chandler lobs that make so much hay for the Hornets and are really only defendable by a few high jumping centers.

Brandon Roy is the leading scorer. I thought Aldridge would be the leading scorer by a lot last year, but Roy is more consistently good and that makes the difference.

last year it was very clear, blazers fans should root for the (elti(s, because they were playing the l*kers who we were raised to dislike, milesgate has somewhat leveled the playing field, if we had to replay last years finals again, any satisfaction gained by seeing the l*kers lose, would be somewhat offset by seeing the (elti(s win.

I think dave is just cleaverly avoiding controversy,

I’ll predict the boring-as-paste l*kers vs (elti(s and it goes to 7 games, at which point some time early in the 4th quarter, one of the teams goes up by 20, and either KG’s or Kobe’s ego detonates killing both sides instantly, one side claims victory while the other claims Kobe or the ghost of Red Auerbach would have brought them back, but no one ever truly knows, Chris Paul and Lebron feel guilty for having lost in the conference finals and go cuckoo becoming shells of their former selves until KP picks them up in exchange for the return of New Orleans and Clevelands own second round picks, and explains to them that it wasn’t their fault. Lamarcus Aldrige and Greg Oden get traded for Zach Randolph and Shawn Bradley and the ’Zers dominate with the All-NBA first name is a last name lineup of paul/roy/james/randolph/bradley

It won’t be as unanimous as Roy’s win, but Oden will get all the bestest votes.

Beasley: everyone hates him, won’t get enough shots, his coach will try to make sure he is playing right to make him grow up.

Rose: Rookie PG, so-so teammates, only one year in college. Will be great, needs more time.

OJ Mayo: Will shoot low 40% or lower, share the ball with Rudy Gay, and the team will suck. Even if he scores 18ppg, everyone will point to his horrible percentage and bad team.

Kevin Love: He’ll be solid, but I can’t see him having better pure numbers than Oden and we know his team won’t be as good.

No one else is a serious candidate for ROY, if ya ask me. Oden will get the minutes, be on a team that gets MAJOR national attention, and every media writer (and they’re the voters) already loves Greg and WANTS to give the award to him as properly scripted. The buzz will be how the award usually goes for best stats, not best player, and that this will change dangit! Oden made this young team lots better and will easily win ROY, even if his numbers aren’t outstanding.

HOWEVER, I think Oden will actually have the best pure stats out of the entire group. An easy double/double, at least 2 blocks, and perhaps 1.5 assists or up. Only OJ Mayo will be able to get enough shots for big numbers, and he is an undersized SG (and not quick and explosive like similarly undersized Wade). He’ll be good, but have a rough shooting rookie year (I state it as a fact because I have seen the future but only use my powers for NBA prognistication.)

Love could do a double double, but he’ll have his own problems being a super slow, SUPER undersized and out of shape 6’8"-on-a-good-day PF in the NBA. Plus, no one will see the Wolves this season.

All eyes are on us. Even if Oden ONLY plays as well as he has played this pre-season (which I highly doubt; he’ll continue to get in better shape and more confident), he’s got the ROY sewed up.

Of course, this all doesn’t really matter. As long as he’s healthy and we’re winning, I honestly don’t care that much about ROY. It still is a cool award and really helps a player’s confidence, and starts the first chapter in Oden’s legend off on the right foot. But really— I’m cool with him not getting the award.

Oh… and Rudy will get votes, and everyone loves him, but he’ll only be able to win the award if his numbers are OUTSTANDING. They very well might be, but I don’t think he’ll get those numbers consistently— though we’ve already seen how Rudy can have a terrific, game altering performance and not have it completely show up in the box score. 12 ppg and 3 assists and a steal would be a TERRIFIC rookie year for him, and he’ll be more valuable than even those numbers.

If Raw as Cookie Dough pre-season Oden can do 13 and 8 in 23 minutes a night, the Oden that has some more time to bake in the oven and get used to the NBA will be able to top it.

My bold, homerish prediction: 51 and 31, 7th seed. If we face the Lakers in the 1st round, we murderalize ‘em. If we face the Hornets, it goes 7 games and we lose in New Orleans. If we face the Spurs, we lose in 5. They’ll out veteran us to pieces.

For the award races, we can’t underestimate how much we’ll be in the national spotlight, on TNT, how popular Oden already is, and our record that will be directly tied to adding Oden to the team. The award is his to lose and I doubt he loses it.

Obviously, like always, I still pretty much agree with everything else Dave says.

Mortimer

I’ve looked at our schedule pretty closely, and all I see are *W*s, no *L*s at all. So that puts us at 82 wins, which means 2nd round of playoffs at least.

An even assessment?

I’ve been working on a prediction post for a while. ah well. I will attempt to copy and past over and hopefully this will work.

My predictions:

Steve Blake stays our PG.  Bayless hasn’t shown he has it yet and Sergio isn’t that good yet, but fills a nice energy role.  Rudy and Roy may take time at the point, but I think Steve is the Starter.

The Small Forward Position will go to Webster.  Batum will be the back-up and Roy will see some time in this position as well.

Sergio is our #2 PG.  This is coming from the guy who predicted that Bayless would be a starter half way through the year.  Bayless seems to be trying to hard, and that never works out well.  He needs to find his rhythm.  Until he does, Sergio will definitely be the better Point Guard.  His chemistry with Rudy wil also help him out.

Oden will play only 20 minutes a game for the first month of the regular season.  Even with that he’s going to be tired and drained.  Despite this I think that 15 pts and 10 rebound average is perfectly doable.  I don’t see his minutes increasing by more than 30 very often.

Wins will be abundant.  I’ve been in the 48-52 camp for a while now.  I believe the only thing holding us back from more will be the fact that this is a BRAND NEW TEAM, yet again, and Oden’s conditioning.   Because we’re a new team again, we’ll be learning where team mates go, move, and how they think.  This will cost us some games.  Other teams can run plays with their eyes shut.  We can’t yet.  Oden’s conditioning will effect how tired he is, how long he can last, and whether he’ll play more than 20 minutes. 

Webster will show why he’s the starter.  He’s not going to impress with a high scoring average, but he’ll do the little things that help teams win.  This is his year, but if he does it right, it’ll be a quiet year because what he needs to do doesn’t all fit the stat lines.  You’ll see it on the floor though.

Rudy is going to tear it up.   He’s also going to have minor injuries during the year.  He doesn’t hold back and that’s why we love him, but that sort of play can also grind up the body with little knick knack injuries.

Aldridge will average over 20 points a game and 9 rebounds and 1 block.  He doesn’t make the all-star team, but he does get media recognition for being better than expected.

Roy’s scoring goes up a little, and he averages one more assist this year.

Nate‘s job wouldn’t last more than four losses, if it were up to the vocal blazer fans.  People will be calling for nate to be fired again despite the fact he has ANOTHER brand new team to deal with.

This is the last year for brand new teams.

We win in LA the first game.

We win against the Spurs at home.

We will have win streaks and losing streaks.

So, those are the things that I posted and I wanted to wait until the Jazz game so I could get a feel of people in person.

So, final predictions for the wins? I’ve been in the 48-52 camp for a while then I watched the jazz game and watched Blazer scrubs build a ten point lead… I began to wonder… then they lost a ten point lead. We have a team with the potential to win 60 games. I don’t think we will. We’re young and still learning and 60 games really requires experience from everyone. It’s about how the ball bounces, but also that quick second decision and that little inch that makes a difference, and the blazers just aren’t that fine tuned yet. Even with great chemistry, I don’t think they will be.

I look out at the teams out there, and I’m not afraid of any of them. all of them are beatable for us.

Regular season prediction: 52 wins. I’ve been dead on or only one off the past three years, let’s hope that trend continues. The assumption is that we avoid major injury. If we have some short term naggging injuries we could see that number fall to 48. Major injuries and we could fall down to 44.

I have no illusions about the Blazers going deep into the playoffs – if they get into the first round, I’ll look upon that as ‘missi