The Sun Behind the Clouds: Blazers still on track.

When the Blazers are on a 1-3 losing streak, having lunch with fellow Blazer fans can be an extremely depressing experience.

The talk centers around how the Blazers aren’t currently even a playoff team, how the starting lineup needs to change because Felton is a bum, how management needs to blow-up the team, how Nate needs to be fired, how the Blazers won’t win another road game all year, and how the Blazers couldn’t run a 4-1 fastbreak if their lives depended on it. :-)

When lunch is finished, you find yourself popping open a browser to Blazersedge to pass the time, only to find more of the same.

The only logical conclusion one can find at times like this are that the Blazers are the worst team that has ever been assembled.

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We talk about how the Blazers are the 9 seed in the West, and how we currently aren’t even a playoff team. The Blazers are terrible, not even a playoff team. Bums.

We seemingly intentionally don’t look at the fact that we’re 1 game out of the 4 seed, and would have home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. 1 game… 1 game, like say the Oklahoma City game a few nights ago, away from being tied for the 4 seed. The West is filled with a large number of teams that are really good. Not great, but really good teams.

We seemingly ignore the fact that the only team that’s really guaranteed a playoff spot in the West is the Thunder, and the only team that’s really guaranteed of not getting a playoff spot in the West is Monty Williams’ Hornets.

Sure, the Spurs and Clippers are currently both a couple games ahead of the pack, and the Suns, Warriors, and Kings are currently a couple games behind the pack. However, with a bad week or a good week respectively, each of those teams would join the pack.

So, looking at the pack, we see that currently Houston has the 4 seed, and is 1 game ahead of the Blazers, and we see that Minnesota has the 11 seed, and is 1 game behind the Blazers.

What is it we keep hearing from Nate? He just wants to see us pull a string of wins together, generate a small winning streak.

Basically, he’s looking for that good week, he's looking for that streak that puts us a couple games ahead of the pack.

He looks at the standings, and knows that if any team can pull together a 4 or 5 game winning streak, it pulls that team ahead of the pack, even with the Spurs and Clippers in the standings.

We can be disappointed with the current play by our team, but let's not lose perspective with our current position. A good week and we have home court in the first round, a bad week and we are outside looking in on the playoffs.

Right now we’re having a bad week, and we’re a bit depressed.

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I loved Nate’s reaction after last night’s game to the media, asking who they were trying to bench from the starting lineup. Classic. Blazer fans, and media, are a fickle bunch, and we are new to watching Felton play on a consistent basis.

Felton isn’t an allstar, he never has been, but he’s a hell of a PG. He’s the proto-typical Nate player: he’s a defensive minded PG that generates extra possessions and distributes the ball well.

To put it lightly, Felton has sucked shooting the ball in his first 26 games as a Blazer. Looking at his shooting percentages for the past few years: 41%,41%, 46%, 43%, and this year 37%. His 3pt shooting percentages for the past few years: 36%, 33%, 28%, 29%, 39%, 35%, and this year 19%. To quote Sesame Street: One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.

If we know one thing about professional ballers, it’s that their ability to shoot doesn’t deviate all that much over time. I have faith that those numbers will come up, as the season continues and the sample size increases. You don’t just lose your ability to shoot the ball when you’re 27 years old.

Besides his shooting numbers, he’s almost exactly the player we expected when we traded for him. He’s generating 6.7 ass/game(career 6.7 ass/game), 1.3 steals/game(career 1.4 steals/game), 2.8 to/game(career 2.6 to/game), 2.4 boards/game(career 3.4 boards/game), shooting 79% ft(career 79% ft).

We have to remember that he has had, what 3, 4 practices before he was asked to start playing in a new system with a bunch of new teammates. He’s been practicing and playing for the Blazers for about 5-6 weeks. Not exactly the longest sample size to judge a player on.

Sure, his shooting percentages stink these first 5 weeks, but I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt, and see if he can’t get his shooting percentages up to where they perennially are.

I highly doubt that the clock struck midnight this offseason, and turned Felton into a pumpkin cupcake that can’t shoot.

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When I hear people talking about blowing up the team, I can’t help but laugh. Looking at the Blazers salaries for next year, all they have guaranteed is LA, Wes, the Dukies, and luckily Babbitt(yes!). So, next year, all that’s guaranteed to be here is LA and Wes starting, Elliot and Nolan on the bench, and Babbitt in Idaho.

Sure, Crash and Jamal have player options, but odds are both opt-out, even if they plan on staying with the Blazers. Batum will no doubt be getting a giant offer from some team this offseason, with my personal belief that the Wolves will take a stab.

What we have is a 1 year roster experiment, hopefully which ends with an extended playoff run. If Blazer management wants to blow up the team, they already have the perfect opportunity this offseason; there is no point in blowing up this team mid-season.

Trading either Batum or Crash for value midseason would make complete sense, as one of them won’t be here next year(read: salary cap). Besides that, I don’t see why the Blazers would make any trade this year.

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Nate McMillian is perennially talked about nationally as a coach of the year candidate, and locally as the reason for all of our problems.

Nate is a fabulous coach, who knows what it takes to win. Defense (and scrap). While the Blazers may still be learning how to play together, we finally have a full roster of scrappy defensive minded players (Nate players) and Jamal Crawford.

Lately, the Blazers have been losing the rebounding battle, and we’ve been losing. It’s as simple as that.

When we play Nate’s system (win the rebound battle, play hard on defense for 48 min, and win the turnover battle) we almost always win, regardless of the opponent and our play on offense. Let me repeat that, if we do those 3 things, we almost always win, regardless of the opponent and how we play on offense.

The cliché is that defense wins championships. Let us hope that the Blazers give Nate the time to prove that cliché true.

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Nobody can win on the road this year. The Blazers are 3-9, Lakers are 3-9, Jazz are 2-7, Rockets are 5-8, and Memphis is 5-9. This is basically the pack, and the teams that end up with winning road records, will undoubtedly have home court in the first round this year.

My personal thoughts are if we can win 80% of the home games(27-6), and win 40% of the road games(13-20), we can get home court in the first round(3 or 4 seed).

So, how do we get the remaining 10 road wins needed to improve to 13-20.

Remaining road games, broken into groups:

Crap teams: We need to go 4-1
@NO, @GS, @Wash, @Sactown, @Pho

Decent teams: We need to go 2-2
@Minn, @Mil, @NY, @Bos

Pretty good teams: We need to go 3-5
@Den, @Ind, @Clips, @Mem, @Utah, @Dal(2), @SA

Really good teams: We need to grab 1 win, going 1-3
@Lakers(2), @Chi, @OK

That would get us the 13 wins that we need to win 40% of the road games this year. Do I think this is a reasonable goal? Beyond reasonable. In fact, I would say that is a weak threshold.

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As for the Blazers not being able to run a fast break, that’s true. They’re terrible. I hear the WNBA is starting soon, so perhaps the Blazers can watch a few of those games and learn the fundamentals of running a fastbreak.

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I just wanted to jot a few of my thoughts down, as my lunch was rather depressing today. :-)

I believe that the Blazers are still on track for home court in the first round in the playoffs, and I believe that the Blazers advance out of the first round this year. We have a fabulously talented team, a coach with a vision and plan, and a weak top tier of talented teams in the West.

The stars are aligning, and we just need to put it together.

We're currently in the middle of a pack of playoff teams.

We just need a good week.

As Nate keeps stating, we just need to string together a few wins.

It can start tomorrow with a win at the lowly 4-22 Hornets (they started the season 2-0, and are currently in a 2-22 stretch, ouch!). Sorry Monty, but we need a big road win.

Go Blazers!

Cheers.