for sure.

Eighth in the West is more realistic… but I still think we get 50 wins (or darn close).

Not that ESPN’s experts are always correct, but I’ll go with their committee of 25 over USA Today’s committee of 1.

I don’t think we finish the season with the 5th best record overall, no way. But I do think we get a better seeding in the west than 8th this year, I really do. Depending on how tight the west is, with the 50 wins I think we’ll get, I think we can get a 6th or even 5th seed.

my predictions are this, for playoff seeds not overall records

1. Lakers
2. Hornets
3. Jazz
4. Rockets
5. Spurs
6. Blazers
7. Suns
8. Mavericks

that would be exiting, and a mathup i can see us winning.
Some good matchups.
-dallas
-LA
-utah-we been able to beat these teams on a consistant basis last year.

Tough matchups
Hornets-we split with them last year, but they will be hard in the playoffs
Suns-we have really struggled against them, but they are getting old, and have struggled in the playoffs with their run n gun.

Hard matchups
-Houston-we couldnt beat houston last year, now they add broys criptonite
-San Antonio-a solid defensive team who we cant seem to beat, and allways seem to get far in the playoffs

5th overall is too high, but so is 8th in the west. Personally… i think USA today is FAR closer.

I’m also being conservative. Hard to believe after all these years, but baring energy… keeping the teamwork… yeah guys… we really ARE that good.

If ESPN was merely publishing their initial Power Rankings, I’d give them a pass here. But what they gave us was their Pre-Season Predictions. In that case, their ranking is preposterous.

I’m actually somewhat astonished to read some of the previous comments that agree with ESPN’s rankings that have the Blazers finishing 8th in the West and with 44 wins.

Did anyone else notice that the comments section on the Blazers failed to mention a certain person named Rudy?

I’m trying hard to take off my homer hat here and look at things objectively. Does any think that the addtion of Greg, Rudy and Jerryd, all of whom have never played one minute of NBA basketball, but in all other respects have shown strong evidence of being able to make immediate positive contributions to the team, will only account for 3 more wins than last year?

Think of our improvement last year over the prior season. Granted, there is some element of diminishing returns when improving toward a fixed upper limit (82 games), which makes it harder to improve your win total the higher you go.

But really? Only 3 more wins than last year?

What specific things happened last year that made a major improvement to the win total? Here are the things I can think of in order prominence:
1. The emergence of running the offense thru Brandon and LMA (the prior year was Zbo)
2. Outlaw breaking out
3. The addition of James Jones
4. The addition of Steve Blake
5. The emergence of good team chemistry (this might be higher on the list, but it’s not very specific and hard to quantify)
6. Generally, other players maturing and getting incrementally better (Martell and Jack)
7. Channing doing some good things

(I’m sure I’m missing something obvious, but that is what I can think of right now).

OK, now throw in the fact that we lost our team leader in Points and Rebounds from the prior season, Zbo. Taken by itself that would have a negative impact on wins, but of course it allowed some of the things on the prior list to happen (especially 1 and 5). So I won’t give the losing Zbo argument must weight in saying that it was a significant event.

Now, in that light ponder what is likely to happen in this coming season.
1. Oden ?
2. Rudy ?
3. Jerryd ?
4. Improvements (Martell and Channing are two in particular that I’m looking for)
5. More depth (Joel especially)

And there are also things we’ve lost (Jack and James Jones).

If you fill in those 3 question marks above with the best evidence available and taking into account any other , how many more or less wins do you think the Blazers will have?

In this scenario, I’m looking at the Blazers in a vacum. I’m not taking into account what other teams in the NBA have done, how the schedule may be different, or anything else I can’t predict (injuries, etc). I understand the risks of doing the analysis like this, but I’m trying to isolate some things and have an honest debate about them.

Here’s my point… Those of you who think Portland will win 44 games and finish 8th in the West are making these assumptions:
1. Greg will be as good or slightly better than Joel was last year.
2. Rudy will be the same as James Jones was last year (and remember James only played 58 games, and arguable was hampered in some of those by injury and was ineffective).
3. Jerryd will be the same as Jarrett was last year.
4. There will be no improvement in other areas (Martell, Channing, Blake, team chemistry, etc.)

Basically, Greg wins us three more games and everything else stays the same.

Are the external factors (injuries and other teams) I’m ignoring that significant, or are these the assumptions that you are making?

The Blazers have only 11 back-to-back games; for the sake of comparison, LAL have something like 18. So, I think that when you consider scheduling, that may translate into a couple of additional wins.

Their stiffest challenge will be to win on the road. Although the additions to this year’s roster are a significant improvement, they’re all young players. So, I’m not sure if they can improve their road record significantly, because winning on the road consistently has a lot to do with experience.

I think 8th in the west is realistic. We have potential to do great things. Teams and " experts " slept on us and we got 41 wins. 41 wins! CBSSPORTS.COM ‘s hoops preview ( which by the way made great reading material as I was in the hospital nearly a year ago. And thanks dad for the mag ) predicted we’d be as bad as the Sonics were. SLAM said we’d be about the same. We opened eyes. We’ll continue. I think we are 8th seeded material. 1st round of the playoffs with upset potential. 5th in the League? Not there yet. Keep the core together it can happen in due time. Sure we missed the playoffs, but teams will be nuts to take us lightly after the surprising 41 wins and 13 game winning streak of last year. The pressure is on to prove.

the early season schedule is rough and how the team responds to the early season adversity could set the tone for the entire season. I cant see with the current schedule being #5 after the first 15 games.

Then again, things might just click and we ride the tsunami.

Patience, grasshoppers. The championships will come soon. This is the year of the first-round exit.

PS everyone here seems to be sleeping on the Suns. Unless Nash breaks down this year they are going to be way better than people think. I mean, now they’re actually going to play defense.