Portland is 21-14. Some scenarios. 47 games left.

Win half (rounding up) our remaining games.
45-37. Solid, but maybe not playoff bound in the West. (Barring a collapse from someone else.)

Continue current pace. (3:2 ball.)
49-33. Good, should make the playoff in this year’s West.

Play 2:1 ball the rest of the season.
52-30. Also good, if this doesn’t make the playoffs, wow.

Play 3:1 ball the rest of the season.
56-26 or 57-25. Home court advantage, although this is unlikely.

Obviously Portland’s schedule is favorable the rest of the way. Tough games left, but I can’t see Portland doing worse than their current pace. (49-33) That means if Portland improves even a little bit they’ll hit the 50 win mark. Things do point in favor of this happening.
1. Young teams play better as the year goes on. (Look at how many teams have been on pace for record losses 30-40 games into season and then won 15 games.)
2. The record gets a lot more favorable. Still plenty of tough games, but more home games and more OKC!

Right now I’m thinking 52-30 looks like a legit pick for ending the season. Injuries, trades, etc. could change this of course. The question is: Is 52 wins a 9 seed of a 4 seed in the West?

My point is we’re not going to go 28-0 against the crapper and 0-19 against the good teams.

I’d have to see your criteria of the tough games for those 19, but going 9-10 vs the good competition and 22-6 in the should win games seems legit. Again this is barring any more serious injuries or trading OAR for Robert Pack.

it’s funny how much more nuanced opinions become when they bounce off or rub against others — i more or less agreed with you on everything, which isnt always 100% true in the roughshod day-to-day.

anyone here who hasnt listened, you ought to… it’s entertaining and goes by quickly. good stuff.

Okay, I broke down Portland’s games so far into 5 categories and what our record is in each so far.

Tough Homes Games (667+ teams) 2-1 (GR:4)
Mild Home Games (500-667 teams) 6-2 (GR:7)
Easy Home Games (Sub 500 teams) 5-1 (GR:13)
Tough Road Games (500+ teams) 3-9 (GR:9)
Easy Road Games (Sub 500 teams) 5-1 (GR:14)

One nice thing to look at it our Games Remaining.
Home we’ve played 11 winning, 6 losing so far. Remaining is 11-13.
Road we’ve played 12 winning 6 losing so far. Remaining is 9-14.
Started 23-12 and ending 20-27. Very favorable.

Now looking at the percentage that we beat each category, Portland will win 32.6 games the rest of the year. This gives Portland 53 or 54 wins to end the season, actually higher than my recent prediction of 52.

Naturally this doesn’t take into account injuries, which teams we’ve played, etc. I also don’t think Portland will go 12-2 on the road against losing teams to finish the year, although it’s possible and would be awesome. The reality is that some of these losing record teams are getting better and aren’t all that bad in the first place. (Bucks for example.)

However, I’m also really hoping that Portland can win more than the projected 2 of 9 on the road against +500 teams. Lakers, Celtics, Magic are all out of the equation now, so the second half of +500 games should be a little bit easier. Hopefully we can grab 3-5?

Still, at the current pace they are playing, Portland wins 53.6 games, a lot higher than their projected 49 simply because of the difficulty of the schedule so far.

Disclaimer: As with any probability stuff, it cannot be fully trusted. If Portland loses to Charlotte on their road trip they not only lose that game, but their projected total vs losing teams on the road drops by 3.5 games. Leading to a 50 win season instead of a 53-54 win season.

When I was at UC Santa Barbara in the early 80’s I often played pick-up volleyball against him. As you can imagine volleyball was big in S.B. and a 6-10 future NBA player made for a powerful spiker. I don’t remember all the times he pasted me but I do remember making one (just one) highly respectable blocks. Otherwise he was bit of a snarky playground bully, but I cheered for him as a Blazer.