Who Will Win the Northwest Division?

On this week’s FANalyst edition of the Blazer’s Edge Podcast, we invite fellow Blazer podcasters Dustin and Sage of Holy Backboard to join us in breaking down the Northwest Division.

Arguably the NBA’s most exciting division, we’ve got it all in the Northwest (even if only one of our teams is actually located here): hungry young talent, offensive superstars, and one of the grittiest-grindiest defenses in the West. Plus -- the People’s Champ! What’s not to love?

Some of the funnest characters and the biggest dramas are in this little division of ours. Follow along as we talk about what we will be looking for and how the Blazer’s can end up on top.

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Summary

2:52 Goodbye to Luis Montero

5:53 Reviewing the preseason so far . . .

13:17 Continuity (in which Tara accidentally says the Blazers will be meeting a Northwest opponent in the finals. She meant the playoffs but, heck, why not? You heard it here first!)

16:17 Denver

24:34 Minnesota

33:09 Oklahoma City

43:40 Jazz

53:20 Will Portland win the division?

58:20 On Evan Turner

1:01:08 How we really feel about Kevin Durant’s move

Sources

For each team we looked at pace, offensive rating and defensive rating (from stats.nba.com) and average age (from RealGM.com).

• League average: Pace 95.8, ORtg/DRtg 103.9, Age 26.5
• Denver Nuggets: Pace 98.16, ORtg 102.7, DRtg 106.4, Age 25.4
• Minnesota Timberwolves: Pace 97.59, ORtg 104.3, DRtg 107.1, Age 26.8
• Oklahoma City Thunder: Pace 99.37, ORtg 109.9, DRtg 103, Age 26.1
• Portland Trail Blazers: Pace 98.91, ORtg 103.2, DRtg 107.3, Age 25.1
• Utah Jazz: Pace: 93.26, ORtg: 103.1, DRtg: 101.6, Age 26.5

We also looked at continuity which is the number of player minutes returned to the lineup compared to last year. Continuity is calculated by adding up the total number of minutes played by everyone on a team last year then calculating how many of those minutes were played by players on the current roster. Here is a chart showing each teams’ returned minutes for this season. Portland was No. 1 with over 90 percent of minutes returned from last year.

Find us

Holy Backboard comes out once a week during the regular season. You can find them on Soundcloud.

You can find Dustin and Sage on Twitter at @DHawes22 & @dasage or follow their podcast at @holybackboard.

Tara is on twitter at @tcbbiggs.