A Statistical Review of the Season

by Dave on Apr 20, 2008 11:53 PM PDT

Here's a statistical rundown of 2007-08 as compared to 2006-07. In the "Change" column gains are posted in green, losses in red, and anything basically neutral in terms of change or effect on the game (shots taken) remains in black.

Wins-- This Season: 41 Last Season: 32 Change: +9

Points Scored-- This Season: 95.4 Last Season: 94.1 Change: +1.3

Points Allowed-- This Season: 96.3 Last Season: 98.4 Change: -2.1

Point Differential-- This Season: -1.0 Last Season: -4.3 Change: +3.3

Field Goal Percentage-- This Season: 44.8% Last Season: 45.0% Change: -0.2%

Opponents’ Field Goal Percentage-- This Season: 45.1% Last Season: 47.1% Change: -2.0%

Three Point Percentage-- This Season: 37.8% Last Season: 34.6% Change: +3.2%

Free Throw Percentage-- This Season: 76.7% Last Season: 76.9% Change: -0.2%

Shots Taken-- This Season: 79.8 Last Season: 78.0 Change: +1.8

Offensive Rebounds-- This Season: 11.0 Last Season: 11.3 Change: -0.3

Defensive Rebounds-- This Season: 29.7 Last Season: 28.0 Change: +1.7

Overall Rebounds-- This Season: 40.7 Last Season: 39.3 Change: +1.4

Rebounding Differential-- This Season: -1.0 Last Season: +0.3 Change: -1.3

Assists-- This Season: 21.1 Last Season: 18.5 Change: +2.6

Steals-- This Season: 5.6 Last Season: 6.8 Change: -1.2

Blocks-- This Season: 4.4 Last Season: 4.6 Change: -0.2

Turnovers-- This Season: 12.1 Last Season: 14.3 Change: -2.2

Turnovers Forced-- This Season: 12.1 Last Season: 13.3 Change: -1.2

Assists-to-Turnover Ratio-- This Season: 1.74 Last Season: 1.29 Change: +0.45

Even a cursory look shows our gains were mammoth compared to relatively minor losses. The biggest number was the 9 extra wins. The +3.3 in point differential, reflecting the growth in offensive and defensive effectiveness, was also huge. The gains in assists, turnovers, and assist-to-turnover ratio were large, as was the gain in three point percentage.

The losses came in rebounding differential and steals, neither of which should be a surprise to anyone who watched the team. We didn’t force turnovers and we didn’t do a great job keeping opponents off of the offensive glass. Those are areas to work on.

Though we’ve repeated it often it bears mentioning again: this all happened after trading away our primary option and having the guy who was going to replace him go down for the season without playing a single game. The significant additions to the roster were Steve Blake, Channing Frye, and James Jones. In other words, in terms of overall talent (counting players, not player development) we were no farther ahead than we were last season. Perhaps we were behind. This happened because:

A. Our players grew.

B. Our team played together.

C. The coaching staff gave the team the tools and plan needed to succeed to this level.

The negatives of the season come largely under the heading of individual performances, which we will discuss on a player-by-player basis in the coming days. The general negatives have to do with known weaknesses, such as:

--Even though we had a regular starting lineup, we played them fewer minutes than all but four teams in the league. They generated fewer points than any starters outside of San Antonio and Chicago. They were among the worst rebounding lineups in the league and generated few steals. They ended up with a negative plus-minus.

--Our bench reversed many of these trends, playing more minutes, scoring, and rebounding more than most. They also ended up with a negative plus-minus however.

--We dominated the shooting guard position and had a decent advantage at power forward but had clear disadvantages at center and small forward and got absolutely toasted at point guard.

When you step back and look at it with some perspective this season was an unqualified success. In fact it was, as the kids say, Da Bomb. Anything else is not seeing the forest for the trees.

What are your thoughts on the season? Share them below.

--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)

1 recs | Comment 16 comments

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Comments

Rebounding Differential

-1?

I would have thought it was much, much worse.

All in all, a great season. It’s really fun to be a Blazer fan again.

When I rule the world, Isiah Thomas will be coach and GM of the L*kers, who will be owned by someone who no one respects whose first initial is "J".

by jscot on Apr 21, 2008 12:09 AM PDT 0 recs

no says 'da bomb' anymore

chill, legit, or maybe sick would be accepted :)

Woof

by Charles Barkley McLovin on Apr 21, 2008 1:30 AM PDT 0 recs

Additional Stats

2007-2008
Offensive Efficiency: 107.3 (14th)
Defensive Efficiency: 108.4 (17th)
Pace: 87.9 (29th)
Projected Record (basically pt differential): 38-44

2006-2007
Offensive Efficiency: 105.1 (19th)
Defensive Efficiency: 109.9 (26th)
Pace: 88.3 (29th)
Projected Record: 29-53

Note: League average efficiency increased from 2006-2007 to 2007-2008 by a full point from 106.5 to 107.5.

Point differential tells the same story as win differential with a difference of exactly 9. The lack of change in pace makes PPG differences tell an accurate story of how we improved on both ends.

Our team was roughly average in offensive rebounding, but it was pretty weak in defensive rebounding. Rebounding improved towards the end of the season just to make it to a -1 differential.

The team was statistically very average overall. That’s a huge improvement from being a cellar dwellar two years ago. It’s hard to imagine the team not improving next year as well. The addition of good new blood in Oden and Rudy in addition to the internal improvement…I can only see injuries as a cause for concern.

I can’t think of much else to say. There aren’t a lot of oddball team stats to look at.

by poster on Apr 21, 2008 5:21 AM PDT 0 recs

The info is interesting

but the font is awfully small and the green for the changes is too light to see the difference between + and -.

Fortunately my keyboard has a zoom and I keep a pair of reading glasses nearby, but I hope that this kind of font changes in posts won’t occur too often – at least the “harder to read” kind of changes :-)

by jorga on Apr 21, 2008 8:02 AM PDT 0 recs

Oops

I see that positive changes are in green – even with the zoom and the glasses I didn’t read all the greens as pluses…. I wondered why there was red further down the list. :-) Sorry about missing the explanations – I probably skimmed them before using the zoom.

by jorga on Apr 21, 2008 8:07 AM PDT up 0 recs

Use Ctrl + Scroll Wheel

It ups the text size or zoom level (dependent on browser).

Agh typing with one hand and one finger on the other hand takes some getting used to. I burned my right hand on a hot skillet (idiotic move) yesterday, blisters all over.

by jamon51 on Apr 21, 2008 12:07 PM PDT up 0 recs

Thanks

Learn something new every day.

Ouch on your blisters! I’m healing from my idiotic move a week ago – sliced a nice v shape in my left thumb with a serrated bread knife…

by jorga on Apr 21, 2008 4:18 PM PDT up 0 recs

Report

I really liked the format of your report Dave – easily and quickly assimilated …. not tedious at all. And I don’t know why, but unlike Jorga, the font was very easy for these old eyes to read. Maybe it’s screen size?

by TwoDeep on Apr 21, 2008 8:33 AM PDT 0 recs

Can we just make the fonts for all articles the same?

Having some in serif and some in sans-serif looks ugly and unprofessional, which is far out of keeping with the regular high standards of this site.

by pualo on Apr 21, 2008 10:27 AM PDT up 0 recs

Could be -

when I bought the monitor my budget allowed a small flat screen or a larger CRT – I went for the flat… I can’t use the “wide screen” button here – it slices the fanposts in half.

am starting to think wireless laptop … this one is starting to show his age and driving me nuts.

by jorga on Apr 21, 2008 4:22 PM PDT up 0 recs

I haven´t seen enough,

Trust in you. Very interesting report.
This confirm that we´ll have a trade for a PG this summer.

Tell me with whom you walk and I will tell you who you are.

by amlmart1 on Apr 21, 2008 9:23 AM PDT 0 recs

Thanks for the stats, Dave

The increase in assists was great to see, though not surprising. The drop in rebounding differential was also not surprising.

One thing you didn’t mention is that the Blazer improvement seemed to be almost entirely focused on their games played at home. Their road record was almost exactly the same as in 2006-07 (in fact, they won 1 more game on the road in 06-07), while the team won 10 more games at home this past season than they did the year before.

If the team is going to take another stride forward in 2008-09, they’ll have to improve their play away from home.

by Storyteller on Apr 21, 2008 11:37 AM PDT 0 recs

This is true.

But then again anything else is probably too much to expect of a young team. Gift horse…mouth…you know. When teams are learning to win they always play markedly better at home.

Another way to put it is that, win increase aside, there’s still a difference between the Blazers and a really good team. But we’re about the best darn non-legitimately-good team there is and are poised to make that leap. The leap will involve several factors, one of which is winning on the road.

—Dave

by Dave on Apr 21, 2008 3:19 PM PDT up 0 recs

hear hear

“there’s still a difference between the Blazers and a really good team”

i felt this in spades during the suns/spurs game….....

"Honor Terry Porter." Email me with your TP stories and memories.

by Ben. on Apr 21, 2008 3:43 PM PDT up 0 recs

Winning on road yes

up to about .500. Another thing to watch for is how we start handling “teams we should beat”. I wouldn’t be suprised to see that as one of the next milestones. Beating inferior teams at a 90% percent clip regardless of location (home or away) and regularly beating playoff teams at the Garden. That should be how we get to 50+ wins

"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss" Robert A. Heinlein

by 92wastheyear on Apr 21, 2008 7:32 PM PDT up 0 recs

Coaching

I would have to say, looking back on the entire season, that Nate and his staff did an excellent job of preparing the players, making adjustments, and coaching the team to more wins than they should have had this year. He has done it two years in a row now and that is a great sign for the future of the team.

I think people will see in a few years that Nate took the time to build a solid foundation with this young team and it will pay huge dividends when they begin contending for division, conference, and league titles.

PTB Liberation Day - 2/10/04

by tssbro on Apr 21, 2008 3:45 PM PDT 0 recs