The Definitive Strength

That Greg Oden has a habit of getting rebounds. Probably luck though.

Rebounding is clearly a strength of this team, as it should be given it’s length.
Depth, however, is also a strength. Oden, Batum and Fernandez are better this year than last, Webster is back, and once Miller learn’s the playbook, he’ll be another talent to factor into the equation. In fact, the point guard position has gone from a questionmark to a strength, Oden’s steady improvement combined with Pryz, and Howards solid performance combined with Aldridge gives the Blazers depth at the 4 and 5 spots as well.

It is, in fact, a different team from last year. Last year Aldridge and Roy were the go to players for scoring. This year, we have seen that Oden can routinely put double figures on board working inside, and Miller is a talent who can and will do the same thing. There was a lot of talk early about whether both Miller and Roy could work effectively – given both like the ball in their hands, but what we perhaps forgot is that they are professionals, and adjust their game to the teams evolution and the options on the floor. Both of these players can move without the ball and score if someone delivers it, which means they can both play a comination guard role as the situation demands. It’s called teamwork.

In point of fact, this is going to be one very difficult team to defense. Both Miller and Roy are big for their positions – putting pressure on the other teams guards, and very few teams have th center/forward combination necessary to stop both Aldridge and Oden. So – pick your poison.

With the solid play of Howard, the only possible weakness right now appears to be the 3-pt shooting that we need to spread the floor. Given Miller, we need to get that from the 3 spot. However, I suspect that Batum’s steady play and defense gives him the edge for now, given the Webster needs time to come back from his year’s layoff, and with Miller likely to start, that leaves Blake, Outlaw and Fernandez – all of which seem destined to play off the bench. Which is one reason we may see more rotations – particularly at the 3 – than we sometimes think. Granted, we may see Batum’s increased confidence translate into more scoring – which is likely – but whether he can put the 3 pt percenages up that he did in the summer’s euro-league remains to be seen.

All-in-all, a lot to feel good about. I particularly like watching Oden. He reminds me this year of the player we saw at Ohio. Quicker, lighter, and more confident. And, clearly starting to quiet down his critics. The big knock was always claiming that he couldn’t put the ball in the bucket – which was not the criticism he had when at Ohio. And we can’t keep pretending that he “hasn’t played” against stronger teams. Last night he simply dominated for a stretch. Against the Jazz he grabbed 9 rebounds in 17 minutes. And so forth. And both of these teams had strong front lines.

Let the season begin.

Agree with you completely that rebounding will be a hallmark of our success. As you said, rebounding comes into play more than turnovers, blocked shots, and steals. Increasing our Rebound% Rate will be tremendous.

Also: if we get it right, we will be known for our half-court offense. We were already a slow and efficient team, even though we were jump-shot oriented. With addition of post-up options in Oden and Miller, he have the potential to be absolutely fearsome with our half-court offense. It will take the team a while to fold in the new ingredients, but if this was a strength before, and I cant see us going away from it, only making it better.