A Season to Be Proud Of

It’s set in stone.  The Houston Rockets will play the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of the 2009 NBA Playoffs, while the Portland Trailblazers start their off-season earlier than any of us would have liked.

This first round elimination for Portland helped me realize something that I should have known all along: people will jump off the bandwagon as quickly as they jumped on it.

When I came into work today, a co-worker pointed to my Portland Trail Blazers lanyard and said, “Oh, take that off.  That’s embarrassing.”  This was the same “fan” who, prior to the start of the season, was excited about “his team’s” chances this year.  Now, they’re embarrassing.  He was also quick to do the “I told you so” speech about Greg Oden being a bust. 

Let’s take a minute to clear things up.

Last year the Portland Trail Blazers grabbed 49.3% of rebounds per game.  Not even half.  This year they improved 4.1%, bringing their total percentage to 53.4%.  That was good enough for 1^st overall in the league.  They pulled down 5.4 more rebounds per game than their opponents, which isn’t bad considering they were coming up 1 rebound shorter than their opponents the year prior. 

Where did this rebounding come from?  Let’s look at last year’s main rebounding players and compare their positions to this year’s players.  Brandon Roy, Portland’s All-Star, stayed the same in his average rebounds between this year and last.  Joel Przybilla averaged 0.3 more, while LaMarcus Aldridge lost 0.1.  Travis Outlaw lost 0.5 and Channing Frye’s dropped dramatically, which could have been a direct reflection of his drop in minutes. 

While only playing 21.5 minutes a game this season, Greg Oden pulled down 7 rebounds per game.  Not bad for a “bust.”

With improved rebounding comes improved scoring.  Portland scored 5.3 more points per game than their opponents, 5^th best in the league.  That is a 6.3 point turnaround from last year.  Only two teams in the NBA had a bigger point differential improvement than Portland: the Miami Heat (8.3) and the Cleveland Cavaliers (9.3).

Portland’s biggest improvement fell into the most important category.  Wins.  Portland won 54 games this season.  Good enough for 7^th in the league.  For three years in a row now, the Portland Trail Blazers have improved their wins column.  They improved by 11 in ’06-’07, nine in ’07-’08, and 13 this season, which amounts to a 33 game turn around in a three year period. 

I think tomorrow I’m going to come to work in my #52 jersey and hand that co-worker this post.  Let’s see who’s embarrassed then.