I think Hollinger is getting his Pythagorean win prediction (37 vs 41) confused with a real analysis of what we can do this year. We did win a lot of close games, more than we should, statistically speaking. That could be because we have 2 really clutch players or it could have been luck. Hollinger says luck because he’s a pure numbers guy and that’s fine, there’s really no way to prove it one way or the other.

But, he assumes everyone who improved a lot last year is going to have a down year in comparison. And that really has nothing backing it up, other than, apparently, everyone who improves a lot is playing beyond their actual abilities. He’s not that hard on the young guys, but he’s not exactly on their side either. He’s really down on the vets, Pryz and Blake. Could it possibly be that playing with Roy and Aldridge makes these guys better? Or that Nate knows how to get the most out of his players?

So he gives the Blazers a downgrade without Oden and only a minor improvement with him. I think Pryzbilla playing against 2nd units is going to make him more dangerous. Same thing for Blake, he’s going to get a lot of open 3 pointers again with Oden being doubled all the time.

Even if Oden wasn’t back, another year of Brandon Roy and company playing together plus Rudy? C’mon.

Nice

It’s a pretty big trend in those ESPN chats.

It’s in drawing conclusions from them that one gets in trouble.

There aren’t yet enough stats in a sport like basketball to render meaningful conclusions and Hollinger and others tend to rely too much on some stats and too little on others.

I, like shwa, hope Hollinger got to watch the game last night. If he did, his gut has to be screaming at his neocortex to stop thinking it knows everything.