Who is our best SF?

With Jack at PG, Roy at SG, Zach at PF and either Joel or Magloire at C, most of the starting lineup for the Blazers appears to be set. The major question is who will play at SF. Do we have a clear best player at the position? To answer this question, I've looked at the post all-star break numbers for our four SFs last year and listed their rankings in each major category.

Here are the post all-star break rankings of our SFs on a per minute basis, from [URL=http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/teams/stats?team=por&sort=fg%&avg=48&order=true&season=2&seasonYear=2006&split=141]ESPN[/URL]:

Scoring: Webster, Miles, Outlaw, Viktor

FG%: Outlaw, Viktor, Miles, Webster

Rebounding: Viktor, Outlaw, Webster, Miles

Assists: Viktor, Miles, Webs, Outlaw

Steals: Miles, Webs, Vik, Outlaw

Blocks: Outlaw, Viktor, Miles, Webster

TOs (lowest to highest): Webster, Outlaw, Miles, Viktor (near tie between Miles and Viktor)

(edit: this used to include A/TO ratios, but I later discovered that ESPNs listing of those stats is screwed up, so I just deleted them.)

Did they shoot above 50% FT? Viktor, Outlaw, Webs - yes, Miles - no.

Can they make threes (somewhat subjective)? Viktor, Outlaw, Webs - yes. Miles - no.

Defensive rankings (even more subjective): Viktor, Miles (not by much over Martel), Webs, Outlaw.


What those who use Miles full season stats to demonstrate that he is clearly the better 3 seem to not realize is that Miles was only a 11.4 ppg 3.7 rpg player after the break. He completely sucked it up on both ends of the court. Some attribute it to injury, but in my estimation it was more due to his deteriorating attitude. From the above lists, it looks like Viktor was our best late season SF. The fact that Nate started him more than any other seems to suggest that he agreed. Unfortunately, Vik is gone now. For the other three, it's nearly a wash between Miles and Webster, with Outlaw trailing only because of his substandard defense, and that's not even factoring the negative effect Miles's attitude has on his teammates.

The question then becomes; which SF do we think will show the biggest improvement from late last season to this one? For Outlaw, his improvement over his three years in the league has been pretty slow, so it's probably not him. If we attribute Miles low production to his injury, then we might expect it to increase next season. As stated before, I attribute it to his bad attitude, and I don't expect that or his play to improve much over the summer. Webster on the other hand, showed a very steep learning curve over the course of last season, and I expect that to continue for the forseeable future, so I expect him to be the clear frontrunner for the starting SF job very soon.