Blazers starters (except Sabonis) rated 'average'

Summary: System gives Portland's center high marks, but only Kelvin 
Cato stands out among "weak" reserves

Arvydas Sabonis slipped a little last season, but he clearly 
remained the Trail Blazers' best starter. And except for Kelvin Cato, 
Portland's bench was subpar.

Those are the findings of TENDEX, one of the nation's foremost 
ratingssystems.

"Isaiah Rider, Damon Stoudamire, Rasheed Wallace and Brian Grant are 
so-so for NBA starters -- average or just slightly better; Sabonis 
is the guy who really picks that team up," said Dave Hereen, TENDEX's 
creator.

Hereen added: "The Blazers have a pretty decent starting five, but 
with the exception of Cato, the substitutes are weak."

Hereen, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has been rating players since the 
early 1960s, using a complex, statistically based formula he 
developed. He says his record of predicting NBA success is better 
than that of many team scouts and general managers, and various 
teams use his ratings as part of their player evaluations.

Hereen's draft forecasts often are illuminating -- he pegged John 
Stockton for stardom and warned that Bobby Hurley was not worth 
taking.

Last season, the average NBA center had a TENDEX value of .616. 
Sabonis' rating was .785, down from .801 in 1996-97 and .850 in 
1995-96, his NBA rookie season. But that mark still was good enough 
for Sabonis to rank third among the league's centers, up from fifth 
the season before, largely because of the injuries that plagued 
Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing.

Grant also exceeded the TENDEX average at his position, power forward,
where the average starter scored .595 and his value was .623.

Grant's strong rookie season earned him a .596. He slipped to .559 
in 1995-96, then .529 during his injury-filled 1996-97 season for 
Sacramento.

"The .623 is a good sign that Grant has bounced back. And he could 
have a lot of years left in the league," Hereen said.

Rider, Stoudamire and Wallace ranked about average among starters.

The average first-string point guard scored .504; Stoudamire finished 
the 1997-98 season at .503.

"But he was only .472 with Portland, because it takes time to adjust,"
Hereen noted. "He was .544 in 1996-97, so the potential is there. He's
a pretty decent point guard, but not a great one."

Rider scored .471 last season, up from .450 the season before. But 
Rider's mark was just below the league average of .472 -- and well 
under Clyde Drexler's .582 swan-song season.

Wallace was rated at .520, slightly better than the small-forward 
average of .508 for starters.

Cato was the only Blazers reserve who stood out, according to TENDEX. 
Cato's .540 was well above the .477 average for substitute centers.

Other reserves came out low. Stacey Augmon was at .367, Walt 
Williams .439, Jermaine O'Neal .494, Rick Brunson .342, and John 
Crotty .299 (keep in mind that guards typically score lower than 
forwards).

Hereen also was not impressed with guard Alvin Williams, who went to 
Toronto in the Blazers' trade for Stoudamire. Williams' grade was 
.349.

"A fairly weak number," Hereen said.

The top 10 players in the NBA last season, according to TENDEX: Karl 
Malone, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Grant Hill, 
Shaquille O'Neal, Gary Payton, Kevin Garnett, Sabonis and Tim 
Hardaway. ON THE OTHER HAND:

The Blazers easily had the best starting five in the NBA last season, 
the way draft analyst Chris Monter figured it.

Monter ranked the 29 starters at each position. He had Stoudamire 
sixth, Rider eighth, Sabonis seventh, Wallace eighth and Grant 14th.

Giving one point for a No. 1, two points for a No. 2, and so forth, 
the lowest total theoretically indicates the best starting unit.

Using Monter's rating, Portland's 43-point total blew away the 
runner-up, New Jersey, which scored 50, and third-place Chicago (56), 
let alone No. 13 Indiana (69) and No. 14 Utah (71).

Of course, if those numbers are accurate, the next conclusion would 
have to be that Portland's bench was one of the worst in the league.

It wasn't, but it also wasn't one of the best, as the Blazers led 
some people to believe.

A comment in April by Dallas Mavericks forward A.C. Green comes to 
mind. Green was asked how he thought the Blazers might do against the 
Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs.

"It could be a good series," Green said. "It all depends how deep 
Portland can go, how much productivity they can get from their bench. 
I think that's going to be their Achilles' heel." HOT TOPIC:

The Blazers' reputation for losing their cool was well deserved last 
season. They averaged one technical foul per game, Mike Dunleavy 
shared the league lead among coaches with 17 (tying Utah's Jerry 
Sloan), Wallace ranked third among players with 19, and Rider tied 
for fifth with 16, all according to NBA statistics guru Harvey 
Pollock.

Worse, the Blazers' technicals seemed to go hand in hand with their 
fate on the scoreboard.

The Blazers were 21-5 when they did not draw a technical and 25-31 
when they got one or more.

Dunleavy's sideline style obviously wore on some officials last 
season. But in fairness, he was ejected only once, and many of his 
technicals came while he was trying, in his words, "to take the hit" 
for his steaming players.

Dunleavy used a similar approach with Milwaukee in 1993-94, when he 
had a league-high 20 technicals, and in his last season as the Bucks' 
coach, 1995-96, when he picked up 16.

Other NBA players' 1997-98 totals: Malone 27, Charles Barkley 26, 
Anthony Mason 18, Dennis Rodman 16, Payton 16, Antoine Walker 15 and 
Allen Iverson 13.