mediocre man

Ditto for calling me out as well.

I can't say that I agree with you about Nate speeding up the pace. I think it was EdO that showd his points per game average as a head coach and all but one year was pathetic. Nate does not like a fast pace.

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dudleysghost

Yeah I remember reading that as well, and Nate will probably never make the Blazers a fast team. But last year's team was ridiculously slow for the first part of the year, and seemed to loosen up a lot around the time Blake became the starting point guard. I don't know where Ed gets the pace factor numbers, but the ON/OFF numbers for Blake from 82games.com support the assertion that the team played much faster with him as the point guard, which he didn't hardly play at the start of the season. The Blazers game sped up somewhat as the season went on, and I expect next year's pace to be more like late last season than early last season, which is to say; slightly faster. I guess that's a lot of words to say a small thing, isn't it?

mediocre man

Basing your speed up theory on a PG that's no longer here is a bold move to be certain.

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dudleysghost

Actually I was just using his stats as a proxy for the speed of the team later and earlier in the season, since his stats were the closest thing I could find to indicate that number. Since he hardly played at all at the start of last season, and played more than half of the minutes from the day he did become a regular rotation player, it's not such a stretch. It's not a perfect measure of temporal change in pace, but it's pretty good.

Now, do you really think the PG is the major determinant of pace? I don't, and I don't think it's bold at all to simply not make that assumption. What I remember is that the year started with most of the plays involving slowly setup isolations for Zach in the post and Miles on the wing, which grew less frequent as the year went on. What will we see this year? I don't know for sure, but with more capable offensive options on the team now, I don't think it will be all dumping it to Zach/Miles and standing around and waiting. Just like last year, when the other players on the team showed Nate that they could score the ball and limit turnovers, he let them loosen up.