There has been a lot of talk recently about who's getting how many shots next year.  It's nice to say Player X should get more or Player Y should get less when looking at them individually, but how many shots are there to go around?  Specifically, people are wondering if there is room for Trout to get a few extra shots this year.  Lets first take a look at how many shots Portland took last season as well as some other teams for comparison:

Team  - Total Shots Taken - Per Game

Portland - 6545 - 79.8

San Antonio - 6424 - 78.3

Phoenix - 6782 - 82.7

Denver - 7038 - 85.8

Boston - 6286 - 76.7

One interesting side note is that our number of shots per game is right about in the middle of the league despite our noteworthy slow "pace".  I can only assume that the fact that most of our games were low turnover games, on both sides of the ball, led to a few extra shots per game despite the slow pace.  That said, I don't think our pace will change a whole lot next year.  It will probably be a bit faster with our extra offensive weapons and a few more defense triggered fast breaks, but not a ton.  Here is the player specific info from last year.  First lets look at how many "shots/82-games" we will definitely open up.

Outbound Players:

Jack - 7.6 shots/82-games

Jones - 4.0

Green/Wafer/McRoberts -0.6

Total - 12.2

So far we have 12.2 shots to distribute to our new players.  Here are last year's players and their shots/82-games and some notes about expected changes in shots:

Roy - 14.3 - May get less shots as the offense doesn't have to run through him all the time.  Rudy in particular seems to be in position to take shots that Roy would have got last year... we'll add an extra 1.5 shots/game to the bin

Aldridge - 14.2 - See Roy, but substitute Oden for Rudy, add 2.0 to the bin

Outlaw - 11.7 - err... we'll see if there's anything extra left for Trout at the end

Webster - 8.0 - Jones gone = win for Martell, Rudy and to a lesser extent Oden = loss for Martell, overall = push

Blake - 7.8 - If Bayless proves to have a more reliable overall game than Jack or Roy/Rudy start runnig  the point more often, this could go down, add 2.0 to the bin

Frye - 5.5 - May lose some to Diogu, but maybe not... will be addressed below

Przybilla - 3.0 - I don't think Przy's minutes (23.6/game) will go down much with Oden on board, at least not until Oden has had a good year of "real 82 game season" conditioning under his belt.  I expect similar shots/game because of that

Rodriguez - 2.4 - I think he's officially an odd man out this year, add 1.5 to the bin

LaFrentz - 0.7 - With Oden and Diogu added to the front court, he's the new Victory Dance player, add .5 to the bin

Total - 67.7

That leaves us with 19.7 shots to distribute among our new players, and those players are:

Oden - 8.0 - About the same number of shots that Martell got last year (i.e. enough to say we're letting him learn, but not enough to let his inexperience kill us)

Fernandez - 5.5 - about what Jones got if looking just at the games he played in

Bayless - 5.5 - See Fernandez

Diogu - If he gets any shots, they are probably mostly taken from Frye's total, but between the two it will still probably be an extra 1.5

Total - 20.5 - That's 0.8 more than the amount that had "freed up" above, but this where the "we'll probably have a bit faster pace next year" comes in to play.  Unfortunately that doesn't leave anything left for Trout to pick up, but if things go as I predict, his 11.7 will be right in line with Roy and Aldridge.

So what do you all think?  Who's getting more or less shots than I predicted?  How about the team as a whole?

There has been a lot of discussion lately about which positions "win championships".  Conventional wisdom has always been that big men win championships.  Over the past several years, there has been a big counter movement that it's actually guards that win championships.

During the early years of the NBA, the former was almost certainly true.  If you had a top 7 footer, there were only a couple other teams in the league that really had any chance of defending you.  There's a reason that Wilt averaging over 50 points and 25 rebounds per game one year seems so unimaginable today.  In today's league, almost every team has, at the very least, a couple defensively competent big men.  The addition of the 3-pt line also swings the power away from the big guys.  Now shooting 40% from range is just as valuable as shooting 60% under the rim... and that's not even counting all the changes the NBA has made over the years to help space out the game for quick guards (hand check rules anyone?).

So what about those guards then.  Are they taking over the championships?  Three of the last four Finals MVPs were guards... but lets take a look at all of the dominant teams since 1980 (implementation of the 3-pt line and talent levels are comparable to today).  Dominant teams is defined as three or more chamionships:

80s Lakers - Led by PG (Magic Johnson)
80s Celtics - Led by SF (Larry Bird)
90s Bulls - Led by SG (Michael Jordan)
00s Lakers - Led by C (Shaquille O'Neal)
00s Spurs - Led by PF/C (Tim Duncan)

So that's two two votes for guards and two votes for big men and... wait a second... how did a SF sneak in to this one?  That's pretty inconclusive so lets look at the other teams that won championships:

Bad Boy Pistons - Led by PG (Isiah Thomas)
Mid 90s Rockets - Led by C (Hakeen Olajuwon)
'83 76s - Led by C (Moses Malone)
'04 Pistons - Led by... PF or PG depending on who you ask
'06 Heat - Led by SG (Dwayne Wade)

That's 2.5 more votes for big men and 2.5 more votes for the guards.

Of course none of those "led by" players above did it alone.  Magic has some pretty good big men on his teams (Kareem/Worthy) and Shaq got some help from a SG that's done pretty well so far.  Also, we can't forget that last year's finals MVP wasn't Duncan, it was Parker and the Bulls teams never really needed dominant big man.  They always had a hard-nosed cleanup man (Horace Grant/Dennis Rodman), but never a true dominant big man.  On the flip side though, the 80s Celtics were front loaded with the big three being SF/PF/C.  Sure, Danny Ainge and Dennis Johnson didn't suck, but nobody would mistake them for irreplaceable keys to their championship runs.

The common theme here is that you NEED a dominant player, and if you don't want to wait on a down year, another dominant player or two is a good idea, but it doesn't matter what position they play a long as the rest of the team is competent.  Good news LeBron, you aren't doomed to never win a championship because the best player on your team will never be a PF/C or a guard.

If you haven't seen, Tyler Hansbrough is going to have his jersey retired at UNC.  The same Hansbrough that will probably win most player of the year awards.  The same Hansbrough that may have had them last year if he wasn't forced to wear the schnozaroo for the last part of the season.  The same Hansbrough that is known for hard work, great post moves, rebounding, and a nasty streak.  The same Hansbrough that, when reviewed as an NBA prospect, typically gets raved about for three paragraphs before the inevitable "but he's not super athletic so mid-late first round".

I am completely serious when I say that if we had the second pick and Derrick Rose went first, I would want us to take Hansbrough.  I'm not saying that he is the second best player in the draft, just that he is the second best player for the Blazers.  He would be our Shane Battier or David Lee (i.e. hard working cleanup man) and enforcer at the same time.  I know we are waiting for Oden to fill in our paint next year, but as much as he's a beast, he's not nasty.  He can be our mountain in the middle, but he's not an enforcer.

There is no Jordan, Duncan, or Shaq in this years draft.  There aren't even any really any Carmello Anthonys.  If ever there was a year that it would be safe to draft need without worrying about who is going to haunt you for 15 years, it's this year.  The fact that we're likely to pick 13/14ish just makes it that much more convenient.

Hansbrough in '08!

Lets settle this.                                                                            

The rumor around here is that the Blazers do a pretty good job at preventing other team's superstars from having huge nights.  I decided to do a little research to see if that is true.

First, I needed some kind of way of measuring a "huge night".  I decided to use the ESPN rating from its daily leader board -- http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailyleaders .  The usual stat heavy analysis disclaimer applies (doesn't take defense/attitude in to account, influenced heavily by team pace), but then again, the whole "huge game" mentality has pretty much the same flaws.  < insert stats of players that have worse records when scoring 40+ here >

I defined "huge game" as any game of 55 or more ESPN rating points.  There were 151 such games before today.  Of those 151, 4 came against Portland or 2.65%.  Average is 3.33% (5 games) so the Blazers are slightly ahead of the curve.  In case you are curious, here is the entire league:

New York - 12 games
Atlanta - 9 games
Charlotte - 9 games
Memphis - 9 games
Indiana - 8 games
Milwaukee - 8 games
Utah - 8 games
Dallas - 7 games
Golden State - 7 games
LA Clips - 6 games
Phoenix - 6 games
Washington - 6 games
Cleavland - 5 games
New Jersey - 5 games
Seattle - 5 games
Toronto - 5 games
Chicago - 4 games
Denver - 4 games
Minnesota - 4 games
Orlando - 4 games
Portland - 4 games
Sacramento - 4 games
LA Lake - 3 games
Boston - 2 games
Philadelphia - 2 games
San Antonio - 2 games
Detroit - 1 game
Houston - 1 game
Miami - 1 game
New Orleans - 0 games (had to go all the way to 233rd place to get to them)

To try to differentiate between the teams a little more, I tried weighting each spot on the chart.  Some teams have allowed a lot of their games up top, while others only allowed a few squeak in at the bottom.  Orlando, for example, has four games on the board, but that includes both 1st and 3rd place!  I gave 250 points for first place, 100 points for 151st place, and counted by one in between.  Here are the rankings again, sorted by points "earned".

New York - 2085 - 12 games
Memphis - 1931 - 9 games
Utah - 1587 - 8 games
Atlanta - 1564 - 9 games
Charlotte - 1555 - 9 games
Indiana - 1418 - 8 games
Dallas - 1266 - 7 games
Milwaukee - 1280 - 8 games
Golden State - 1072 - 7 games
Phoenix - 1014 - 6 games
Washington - 987 - 6 games
Cleavland - 979 - 5 games
LA Clips - 978 - 6 games
Toronto - 964 - 5 games
Orlando - 906 - 4 games
New Jersey - 748 - 5 games
Seattle - 745 - 5 games
Denver - 715 - 4 games
Chicago - 672 - 4 games
Minnesota - 643 - 4 games
Portland - 608 - 4 games
LA Lake - 578 - 3 games
Sacramento - 522 - 4 games
San Antonio - 429 - 2 games
Boston - 368 - 2 games
Philadelphia - 289 - 2 games
Detroit - 225 - 1 game
Houston - 164 - 1 game
Miami - 124 - 1 game
New Orleans - 0 - 0

In this view, Portland has 2.28% of the 26425 total points (3.33% or 881 points is average).

Conclusion: Portland seems to be a little above average at preventing opposing stars from having huge games.  I'm guessing it feels better than that because we've allowed a lot more huge games over past years.

Some other observations... the reason that Utah is underachieving seems to be pretty evident and New Orleans quietly has one of the best defenses in the league (3rd in points allowed per 100 possessions at an even 100.0/100).  Miami, on the other hand, is a complete enigma.

Also, Roy shows up twice in the top 151 (74th, 84th).  LeBron is the king with 16 appearances including 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.  Dwight Howard has 8 appearances.  Allen Iverson has 6.  Caron Butler, Baron Davis, Yao Ming, and Dwyane Wade each have 5.

It looks like there is going to be a D-League HORSE game during All-Star weekend.  This is just about guaranteed to be my favorite event of the weekend.  I hoped it's televised.

See the Truehoop post at:
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-29-59/H-O-R-S-E-is-Back.html?post=true
                 

Just about the only way we can avoid having Darius' contract on the book in '09 is to find another team that is paying somebody similar money to not play, but for a shorter period of time.  We could then throw in prospects/picks to compensate them for taking on the extra years.

Ideally it will be a team that needs a PG and/or is already going to be over the cap in '09 (and therefore isn't excessively concerned about the extra year).

Here are the teams that seem plausible and the key player we would receive (ordered from most to least likely):

Miami - Jason Williams: This year is kinda a wash for them and they need a young PG to bring up next to Wade.  I'm sure they wouldn't sneeze at a pick or two either and their cap is toast in '09 (Shaq's last year).  Heck, Darius would probably even get some decent play time with them.  Perfect fit IMO.

New York - Malik Rose: Marbury is getting old and I'm not so sure they're happy with Nate Robinson as their PG of the future.  It's also a perfect fit from the "gonna be over the cap in two years anyway" angle.  I wonder if their fans would riot if they took on another bad contract though.

Minnesota - Theo Ratliff: We would need to add in another player or two for the salaries to match (Darius + Jack would work).  I'm not so sure it really makes sense on their end other than in a "we're rebuilding so we can never have enough prospects/picks" kind of way... and ya never know with McHale running things.

Seattle - Kurt Thomas: Thomas is getting some playing time for them this year so it would require them sacrificing this year for the future even more.  On the other side I don't think they're sold on Ridnour as their long term PG solution.  They may be interested in picks, but this is kind of like Minnesota... doesn't really make a ton of sense on their end, but still plausible.

That's about it without getting in to multi-team stuff or stretching plausibility (next most likely was a deal similar to to the one with Miami with the Clippers and Cassel + cap filler which is a major stretch for several reasons).

It's near the end of this article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3150758

Interesting to see considering that both teams' fans have had plenty of reasons to be upset during Zach's stay.