FanPost

2012-2013: Projected Points Per Game

So, expectations for the upcoming season seem to be low. Best case scenarios I'm reading about involve Lillard competing for Rookie of the Year and/or striking gold in the draft lottery. A season where 41 wins would be considered overachieving.

That said, what are most of us expecting from Lillard this season? By comparison, most of us agree that Felton was terrible last year. With 31.8 minutes per game, Felton put up 11.4 points and 6.5 assists. Rookie Lillard vs Fat Felton? I give Lillard the edge. How about 15 PPG and 7 AST? I think that's within the realm of reason. If that happens, he will likely be regarded as one of the best PGs to play for the Blazers in years.

If we can also assume that Lillard will make our starters even marginally better (than Felton), our starting 5 PPG will look like this: (Since we don't know who will be starting alongside Aldridge, I'll just fill the space with Hickson for now)

Lillard - 15 PPG
Matthews - 15 PPG
Batum - 15 PPG
Aldridge - 23 PPG
Hickson - 12 PPG

That would be 80 points from our starting 5. Without going into second unit details, I'll use 21 PPG as a baseline, since that's about how many points even the worst bench in the NBA puts up. So, how does at least 101 PPG sound?

I'm not saying that points translate into wins, but it should at least equate to fun games, and a lot of chalupons.