November 3, 2008
NBA Season Preview 2008-09
Northwest Division

by Kevin Pelton

(Ed. Note. Kevin wrote this a while ago, and it got held up in our CMS due to an editing error. Thanks for your patience.--JSS)

1. Portland Trail Blazers (Projected Record: 51-31)
Offensive Rating: 112.2 (8th)
Defensive Rating: 107.8 (11th)

Projected Rotation

(WARP is projected Wins Above Replacement Player, while Win % is projected per-minute rating. Imp/Break/Dec measure the percentage of comparable players who improved, broke out or declined dramatically during the following season. For more explanation, see my introduction to the SCHOENE projection system.)

The consensus of the other stat-based projections (most notably John Hollinger's for ESPN.com) is that the expectations are too high for a Blazers team that figures to be just barely above .500. Suffice it to say SCHOENE breaks that consensus. While the win number itself isn't enormous, the Blazers are projected to finish third in the Western Conference and be one of six teams in the league to crack the 50-win mark. Yikes.

3 Why the discrepancy between similar methods? For one, Hollinger notes that several Blazers took major steps forward last season. While in several cases I think this was in part a matter of returning to form after a down season and in others natural development of young players, guys like Steve Blake and Joel Przybilla are likely to take a step backwards this season in a way that SCHOENE can't pick up on because it uses only one year of statistics (Hollinger uses three, weighted).

I think the more important factor, however, is how we're treating rookies. The projections by Hollinger and others are much more subjective, while my projection for Greg Oden is based on his stats at Ohio State and the projection for Rudy Fernandez is based on his ULEB Cup performance in Europe last season. This is no small factor because Oden and Fernandez are both critical players for the Blazers. I have them worth a combined 13 wins, which is simply enormous given Portland adds them without sustaining any comparable losses (reserves Jarrett Jack and James Jones being the only notable departures).

By adding Oden, the Blazers have become a much bigger team. His presence means Channing Frye and/or LaMarcus Aldridge no longer need to play center, while Travis Outlaw will play small forward instead of as a small four. All of that figures to make a huge impact on the defensive end, where rebounding is no longer a liability and Portland projects as one of the league's top shot-blocking teams. On offense, the Blazers figure to benefit both from the new additions and the development of their young guys.

Portland isn't on the level of the West's top teams, the Lakers and Houston, and it might be optimistic to put the Blazers ahead of Utah and New Orleans. Lowering expectations is probably a good thing for the team and its exuberant fans. Still, Portland is abuzz with good reason. This is a Blazers team that figures to contend sooner rather than later.

Notes:

• Oden was the only player for whom I made a slight subjective adjustment, lowering his two-point percentage and increasing his turnover rate. This accounts to some extent for Oden's return from microfracture knee surgery. For other players like fellow microfracture patient Sean May, I made the projection conservative by limiting their minutes. We know Oden is going to see heavy action, so I thought this was the best way to build in that conservative element and makes sense subjectively based on Oden's up-and-down preseason. (Ed. Note: Oden will miss at least a month after spraining his foot on Opening Night.--JSS)
• Fernandez's translated numbers are very interesting. His shooting percentages are poor (43.5 percent on twos, 32.4 percent on threes), but Fernandez projects to do everything else pretty well. I was especially surprised by his defensive numbers. While he may struggle one-on-one, Fernandez looks like an impact team defender, with a projected 2.7 percent steal rate and 1.4 percent block rate. Just three players topped 2.5 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively, last season--Chuck Hayes, Shawn Marion and Gerald Wallace. Fernandez's active hands in the passing lanes are especially useful for a team that had the league's lowest steal rate last season.
• The projections like Nate McMillan's decision to use Sergio Rodriguez instead of rookie Jerryd Bayless behind Steve Blake, at least initially. Rodriguez is penciled in for a breakout season, while Bayless might need some time to adjust to the NBA. The numbers on French rookie Nicolas Batum as a starter are also dubious, though his translation is very respectable for a guy who won't turn 20 until December.
• Even without knowing how much he is going to handle the ball this season, the system likes Brandon Roy to increase his assists this season. Roy figures to be in for a big campaign. With Manu Ginobili hurt and a conservative projection for Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant and Andre Iguodala are the only shooting guards projected to be more valuable than Roy.
• I think it's got to be a sign that as I was writing this section, the song "Aly, Walk With Me," which specifically mentions walking in Portland, come on.

2. Utah Jazz (Projected Record: 49-33)
Offensive Rating: 114.2 (3rd)
Defensive Rating: 110.2 (17th)

It would be a stretch to say that SCHOENE is negative when it comes to the Utah Jazz, though projecting them behind Portland in the Northwest Division is understandably going to be considered a disappointment for Jazz fans and statistical analysts enamored of Utah's impressive point differential last season. The Jazz does project to have home-court advantage in the first round, which would actually be something different for the Jazz after winning without the benefit of home court against Houston the last two seasons. Still, why not more?

The biggest factor is probably the improvements made by two of the three teams ahead of Utah in the projected Western Conference standings, Houston and Portland. While the Jazz sustained no major losses in the offseason, the team didn't add any major pieces either. Also, SCHOENE is relatively pessimistic when it comes to Utah's strong frontcourt of Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur, projecting that both will lose value next season, coming out to a combined 3.7-win drop. That's also why the Jazz's defense is projected to slip to third in the NBA on a per-possession basis. Still, if teams like the Lakers and Houston falter, Utah is in position to make a strong challenge for a Western Conference title.

Notes:

• When Oklahoma City signed C.J. Miles to an offer sheet over the summer, I was dubious. When Utah matched, I was downright stunned. In hindsight, my assessment of Miles' potential was too harsh. He's still very young and stands a good chance at making a big leap in his development this season, especially with the chance to start alongside Utah's stars.
• Nearly 33, Brevin Knight no longer rates as anything better than an average point guard, if that. While Knight is a steady-handed reserve, the style preferred by Jerry Sloan, more explosive and younger Ronnie Price figures to become a better option at some point this season.
• Clearly, the projected drop-offs from Boozer and Okur are a factor, as is more minutes for the lithe Miles, but overall why the Jazz would go from ninth in the league in defensive rebounding to a projected 25th is baffling to me.
• Elsewhere amongst the defensive Four Factors, Utah is projected to lead the league in forcing turnovers (a good thing) and sending opponents to the foul line (not so much, though the Jazz has been living with it for years and years).

3. Minnesota Timberwolves (Projected Record: 38-44)
Offensive Rating: 112.9 (5th)
Defensive Rating: 113.2 (28th)

The 2007-08 NBA season saw Minnesota Timberwolves fans suffer the indignity of seeing longtime star Kevin Garnett finally earn an NBA championship in his first year with the Boston Celtics while the Timberwolves themselves bottomed out, winning 22 games. A year later, however, there are plenty of reasons for optimism in Minnesota. SCHOENE has the Timberwolves threatening for a playoff berth in the Western Conference by making a 16-game leap in the standings.

In part, Minnesota's projection benefits from SCHOENE's bias favoring offense. 27th in the NBA in Offensive Rating a year ago, the Timberwolves figure to make an enormous leap this season. That process began in the second half of 2007-08. With a healthy Randy Foye in the lineup, Minnesota went from 29th in Offensive Rating before the All-Star break to 18th thereafter, Hollinger noted in his preview. To that group, the Timberwolves add Kevin Love, whose NCAA numbers suggest a major factor from day one, and sharpshooter Mike Miller. Add in holdover Rashad McCants and Minnesota now boasts one of the league's best shooting teams. The projection has the Timberwolves shooting a league-leading 39.1 percent from beyond the arc. With Love and Al Jefferson scoring efficiently in the paint, that's enough to jump Minnesota all the way up to fifth in the league in projected offensive efficiency.

The issue is the other end of the floor. Love actually comes out as a pretty good defender thanks to high block numbers at UCLA, but he figures to have a tough time keeping up with the league's most athletic fours. Last season, the Timberwolves had trouble defending with Jefferson and another undersized player together in the frontcourt, and with Love alongside Jefferson this year that does not figure to change. Miller is a poor perimeter defender, giving him something in common with Foye and McCants. Sophomore Corey Brewer is the lone highly-regarded defender on the roster, and a perimeter stopper on a team with so many other defensive issues is like fancy rims on a car that doesn't run. We have Minnesota projected to rank 28th in the league defensively, and even that seems a little optimistic. The Timberwolves also benefit more than they ought to from projected regression to the mean at the defensive end of the floor.

While defense will hold Minnesota back, this group still figures to be much more competitive than last year's squad. Preseason results back that notion. The Timberwolves went 6-2 in the exhibition season, historically a very positive sign for teams looking to make a jump from the cellar. Look for Minnesota to finish with a win total somewhere in the mid-30s.

Notes:

• If the rest of the preview seems optimistic, check out the comps for the Timberwolves' starting five (save rookie Love). How scary would it be to have a team of Chauncey Billups, Sean Elliott, Kevin Martin and Tim Duncan, even with all of them early in their careers? In pretty much every case that's a best-case comparison. Brewer and Martin are an example of the limitations of similarity. Martin struggled offensively as a rookie, but what the system doesn't and can't reflect is the work he put in with David Thorpe to make a huge leap forward in his second season. That will be extraordinarily difficult for Brewer (or anyone else) to replicate.
• SCHOENE is very pessimistic on Timberwolves reserve big man Craig Smith, predicting his per-minute performance to drop off nearly four percent. Generally, the projections don't come out all that well for undersized big men.
• Slowly but surely, with the Coney Island hype long behind him, Sebastian Telfair is working his way towards being a useful player. The system likes him to make strides again this season.
• While Minnesota figures to struggle everywhere else defensively, the team should be able to rebound at the defensive end. The Timberwolves were average in defensive rebounding a year ago and have added a great rebounder in Love as well as Miller, who rebounds well for a shooting guard.
• Jefferson is one of three players in the league projected to post a 20-10 season, the others being Carlos Boozer and Dwight Howard.

4. Denver Nuggets (Projected Record: 32-50)
Offensive Rating: 109.5 (17th)
Defensive Rating: 112.6 (26th)

Like many teams with defensive issues, the Denver Nuggets sought to improve at that end of the floor. Unlike many teams, they decided to do so by trading their best defensive player. I've heard the arguments that Marcus Camby is an overrated defender, and there certainly is some merit to the idea. Camby's defensive plus-minus never matched his impressive block and rebound numbers. Still, help defense has its place, particularly on a team with some porous perimeter defenders, and replacing Camby with Nenê and Chris Andersen will hurt Denver at the defensive end of the floor.

Backing up, it's worth discussing why defense was the focus in the first place. On a per-possession basis, Denver actually defended ever so slightly better than it scored a year ago, ranking 10th in the league in Defensive Rating and 11th in Offensive Rating. I wrote about the Nuggets defense and its unorthodox yet successful style early in the season. George Karl is something of a numbers guy amongst NBA coaches, having learned the concept of possessions from Dean Smith at North Carolina. I don't doubt that Karl is aware of those numbers, yet somehow feels his defense was inadequate anyway. Because Denver relied so heavily on blocks and steals, the Nuggets may have been more vulnerable in late-game situations, and their D faltered down the stretch of the season into the playoffs.

Clearly, what Denver had been doing hadn't been working in the sense of allowing the Nuggets to legitimately compete in the West. Dealing Camby to the Clippers in a move that provided only cap flexibility may have been the first step in a rebuilding process here. There's still plenty of talent, but Allen Iverson is aging and Denver has some depth issues, with potentially as few as about 10 players healthy to start the season.

SCHOENE's projection is overly pessimistic, which owes in part to the fact that I've had to project Denver with far more minutes played by a generic replacement-level player than any other team because neither Andersen nor Steven Hunter (whose knees may never again allow him to contribute) has a projection. I boosted the quality of the Nuggets' "replacement" to help make up for this, but still Denver is projected to tumble at both ends of the floor. While I think the Nuggets can stay in playoff contention much of the season, they look at this point to be a notch below the Western Conference's top nine or 10 teams.

Notes:

• I think Allen Iverson may be SCHOENE's version of Ichiro in PECOTA--a player who is so unique as to present a major challenge to a projection system. Iverson's per-minute performance is projected to drop off more than seven percent, which definitely is on the pessimistic side of things. Iverson is projected to score 23.1 points per game, which would represent his lowest mark since his second NBA season.
• Minus Camby, Denver is projected to be the league's worst team in terms of both defensive rebounding and overall rebounding. That would probably improve with the addition of Andersen's numbers. Still, the Nuggets will really feel Camby's loss on the glass.
• Reader Seth wrote in to ask about Anthony Carter's projected numbers. He had a career year out of nowhere in 2007-08, but the projections actually have him increasing his three-point percentage this year. In large part, that's a fluke. Three-point percentage is tough to handle because of players who don't shoot a lot of threes and see big fluctuations in their percentage. Carter is getting the full benefit of this effect, enough to swamp a projected eight percent decrease in his two-point shooting. Subjectively, I don't see the jump in three-point shooting coming.
• It's worth noting that Denver had the best preseason record in the Western Conference at 6-1.

5. Oklahoma City Thunder (Projected Record: 23-59)
Offensive Rating: 103.6 (30th)
Defensive Rating: 110.5 (20th)

Aside from a fan base thrilled to have an NBA team, little about the Oklahoma City Thunder's first year of existence should differ from the final year of the Seattle SuperSonics v1.0. The Sonics' ultimate 20-62 record may overstate how well this general group played. After shedding veterans Wally Szczerbiak and Kurt Thomas at the trade deadline, the Sonics went through a 2-20 stretch before closing the season with three wins in their last six games. Joe Smith represents an upgrade as the veteran big man, while Kyle Weaver should contribute off the bench. However, Russell Westbrook doesn't project as a valuable player or an improvement upon Luke Ridnour at the point, and D.J. White's ability to contribute will be limited following jaw surgery that is expected to keep him out 4-6 months.

The biggest improvement for the Thunder, then, will come from within. Both Kevin Durant and Jeff Green are projected to improve sharply. In Green's case, that's still not enough to bring him up to replacement level. Durant, meanwhile, should put much of the talk of his inefficient rookie season behind him. The projection has his True Shooting Percentage improving from last year's 51.9 percent all the way up to a very respectable 53.9 percent. Durant's rebounding figures to be much improved as well.

Despite the development, Oklahoma City projects to again have the NBA's worst offense. The Thunder figures to improve on defense with the addition of Westbrook, the Pac-10's Defensive Player of the Year, and another year of focus on that end by P.J. Carlesimo. The Ford Center may also offer more of a home-court advantage than KeyArena did. Still, the fans in Oklahoma City are years away from watching a competitive team and this year's group figures to be in the mix for the league's worst record once again.

Notes:

• While similarity is a bit sketchy when it comes to such young players, three of Kevin Durant's four best comps are Carmelo Anthony (98.2), Kobe Bryant (94.5) and LeBron James (93.5). So I think he'll be OK, yeah. (Luol Deng is the other.)
• When it comes to three-point shooting, there's the rest of the league and then there is the Thunder. With the additions of three non-shooters on the perimeter (Westbrook, Weaver and Desmond Mason), Oklahoma City is projected to make just 231 three-pointers all season. Only Philadelphia (332) is remotely within striking distance. Every other NBA team is projected to make at least 441 triples.
• Behind the three-point shooting, or lack thereof, the Thunder's projected .461 effective field-goal percentage is worst in the NBA. Oklahoma City is also a projected 28th in taking care of the basketball. This offense will not be pretty.
• It feels very fitting for Damien Wilkins's best comp to be his dad Gerald, doesn't it?

Kevin Pelton is an author of Basketball Prospectus. You can contact Kevin by clicking here or click here to see Kevin's other articles.