Not enough Indians theory. Seriously, this is why you find like 3-4 serious "Go to guys" and have role players surround them. It seriously looks like a chemistry issue, IMO. My way of changing things. And remember this is just an opinion okay? I will be saying some seriously crazy things. 1.) Make a decision with Miller. If he stays, give him freedom to run plays, run the break and post up whenever he can. Only way to make him effective. And if he stays, then you find a smaller PG to play defense mainly. That should be the "compliment" role for Miller as a back up. Solution? I think we already have that player in Bayless. He seems he is quick enough to be a pesky defender, and he can drive too, so he's not a offensive liability. 2.) If we keep Roy, LOL of course we will, then you find a back-up that plays tenacious D as his back-up. Let Roy facilitate offensively. Solution? I think Webster should be the main back-up at SG. Yes I did say it. Fernandez may get the boot in my opinion. 3.) Batum should start at 3. He is the perfect compliment for Roy, cause he's always reacting like Roy's body guard defensively. When Roy losses his man, you always see Batum coming in to help. Now Batum is hurt now, but I am looking only at the personnel we have. So the perfect back-up for Batum is a scorer. So obviously Outlaw would fit the bill. Solution? No change made. Webster and Outlaw will be fully capable of playing back-up roles to Batum. Webster, IMO will have no problem being a 2/3 rotation back-up either. 4.) PF. It's obvious we are keeping Aldridge. So since Aldridge is mainly a perimeter player, we need a bruiser to back him up. We don't have anyone like that now. Solution? Bass, Millsap type player. Would they be happy filling a role as limited back-ups to Aldridge? I doubt it, but that would be the type of mold for a perfect back-up for Aldridge. 5.) Oden is the starter. The more he gains confidence, the more he will dominate the game on the defensive end. I would be more than happy with most his points being from "Garbage baskets" off offensive rebounds or cuts to the basket. You don't need to run plays and have him create. Just run cuts off picks or back picks from Aldridge, but tell him to slam it down BIG FELLA when he gets that rebound. So who backs up Oden? You guys will throw me to the wolves, and hell I think I'm crazy for even thinking this, but I think NOT PRYZBILLA. Solution? Find a Center that can shoot from the perimeter, but plays solid D on the defensive end. Nothing "Game-changing" but good enough "position defense" not allowing their post up players good position in the paint. So with my suggestions, and they maybe totally stupid as all hell, it leaves Fernandez, Blake and Pryzbilla as trade bait. So who could Pryzbilla, Blake and Fernandez net us in player(s)?
The main issue I have, when one tries to define what the backup should be, is you end up looking at it as a 10 man rotation, but then when Nate runs a 10 man rotation, he's skewered for playing too many guys. What we need is multi-dimensional players in different positions, possibly, that could allow us to play a solid 8 or 9 man rotation. Find a PF/C that can play both roles, and can play effectively alongside both Oden AND Aldridge. Joel is strictly a C, Outlaw isn't going to play C. So your backups for these two spots can essentialyl ONLY play those two spots, and not the other. Easier said than done, but finding a 3rd big to play both would be nice. Find a guard who can play the 1 and the 2. Maybe it's Bayless. Maybe it's Rudy. Maybe they aren't here. But having a 1/2 instead of a 1 and a 2 would also serve to tighten up the rotation, and allow guys to get into a better flow with eachother, because they would consistently play with similar players on the floor. I agree about Batum starting, but obviously, there's not muchthat can be done in that regards right now. Also, I'll add, I don't see at all how this is a too many chiefs issue.
Well the figurative saying is more of an explanation of Too many people with the same roles. Many overlapping "scorers" that need the ball in their hands to be effective. And in my "scenario" Pryzbilla isn't here, neither is Fernandez or Blake. We could keep Pryzbilla as a overlap of Oden, just in case he gets into foul trouble, but I think our main problem is our PF position. It's not so much as grabbing players just as good as our starters. They would be players willing to accept a reduced role on the team. When I say a proven "banger" backing up Aldridge, it's more to do with if the defense is containing LMA, you mix it up and bring in the banger, that forces them to change their game plan. Then when they are completely changed, you bring back Aldridge to dominate again.
No, more like realist. The only guy I think can truly ball out of those guys mentioned is Rudy, and he has to be used correctly.
To be honest, what KP is doing is no different than what Trader Bob Whitsett did: stockpile talent to the point that the team is touted as the "deepest team in the league", but no (or in this case, too many) clear leaders who will dictate pace and flow on the court. The only difference is that KP did it through the draft over several years, and Whitsett did it through trades and free-agency in a relatively short time. Here's the Blazer's biggest problem: they had a team that won 54 games last year, a young core, and nothing but upside, and KP and PA fucked with it. They had cap money burning a hole in their pocket and they threw it at a third-option point guard that didn't mesh with the playing style or the existing culture of the team. To be fair, I have no problem with the Juwan Howard/Channing Frye swap, or with Sergio essentially being replaced with Patty Mills. Channing and Sergio were role players who weren't embracing their roles. What KP did was nothing better than picking up Shawn Kemp in 2001: grasping at straws to put the team "over the hump" than just naturally letting the team grow and either succeed or fail together.
If you look at the PER shown in the other thread - maybe Rudy is used properly, just not enough. Maybe we need to cut Miller and get Rudy his time in the 3 guard line-up. Remember this from the Dallas stat guru about last year: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/po...ark-cuban-s-stats-expert-isn-t-bashful-part-3 Look at that - the same "3 guard line" - but with Rudy instead of Miller - and the team thrived.
It's just more of a case of too many fuckin people. And I agree bayless should be getting some run and a few people need to get traded
You might be onto something. I went to the first game of the season (for me last night). There is something about watching a game in person that is different from TV - you can look at things that the camera-man/directory do not show you - and I really do not like the way this team looks with Miller on the floor. Something has to be done - either play him less - or have Nate talk to him about adjusting.
Weird and very correct. The only difference are these players are good citizens, so at least we won't be reading someone getting arrested. LOL
It's always funny, and good, I think, that two people can watch the same thing, and come to two different conclusions on a subject. I generally feel, when Blake is in the game, our offense is exactly what it was last year. Blake dribbles up, and usually will look right ato Ry, stare him down, adn flip him the ball. If he does not do this immediately, he will dribble near the 3 point line until the shot clock is down to 12, because, you know, those seconds in the middle don't count, and then we have to rush to find a shot. We have a Roy iso, a LMA post up, and an Oden post up, and it seems with Blake in the game, that is ALL that is going to be run. I'm not saying Miller is some free flowing artist with beautiful ofefnsive sets designed strictly by and for him, but there seems to be a slightly different game plan by Nate when he is in there. Of course, it's easy for the spacing to look a little worse when you have to play with Travis, who, for all of his pluses, still is a little off when it comes to grasping the offense, and spacing, it seems.
You mean the offense that was most efficient in the league last year? Again, is it a problem if is a freaking efficient offense? Travis played a lot of minutes yesterday - but I do not think that Travis is really who you build your offense around. Travis is a release valve. When everything else fails - you throw him the ball to make something with it. You do not expect Travis to create, you do not expect him to be the first option. Miller is supposed to be able to break people on the P&R and finish or deliver it to someone - but he shot 1-6 yesterday and many of his assists seemed to go to Travis - who shot the ball pretty efficiently yesterday - 50% from 3 and 6-13 (almost 50%) from 2 Travis was not the problem yesterday.
Only 1 of his assists went to Outlaw yesterday. 1 of the 11. I was never saying you build your offense around Travis. You can not build itaround him, and he can still get in the way. Was also not meaning to refer specifically to yesterday, but in all of the games this year. None of what you said about Outlaw and the offense has to do with his hurting spacing, which I referenced. I personally would like to see improvements from last season's offense. No, you can't improve on #1 in efficiency, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. I would love to see mroe involvement of Oden. Not a ton, we don't need to dump it into him 20 times a night, but I would like to see easy baskets for him. I would like to see more easy baskets for Aldridge, as well. Would love for there to be less pressure on Roy. Would llove for us to not have to come from behind by mroe than 10 points over 15 times this season. Wouldn't mind a few more fast break points. Would lveo to see a similar percentage of involvement of our top players, with less emphasis on them creating entirely for themselves, wich leads to issues like what we saw in the playoffs. I'm not one of those saying the playoffs represented more than the regular season, but it did point out glaring weaknesses in our squad when nobody outside of our top two guys were on. Blake's not going to run a solid fast break for us. He's not going to find easy baskets for Oden or Aldridge. He's not going to create easier jump shot opportunities for Roy. Or Rudy, Martell, or Outlaw. He's not going to put pressure on an opposing defense, and get another big in foul trouble. Andre Miller shot more fouls shots in his "poor game" last night than Blake has this entire season. Being able to pick up a few extra fouls on opponents is always a nice benefit, toget you into the bonus faster, and get more foul shots for the rest of your players.
There should be an "*" next to that. Because we may have been very efficient, but we were close to dead last in attempts. I would like to see the average of shot attempts, compared to ours. I suspect the shots we "made" aren't even close to the shots made by the tope 12 teams in the league.
I think the bigger issue, mags, is not just shots, but the actual calculation of possessions. Seems like a possesion should be a new 24 second clock, and not just a single trip down the floor.
My opinion is that since in any given game - both teams will have the same number of possessions (+/- 1). So - who cares if other teams took more shots in games they did not play against the Blazers. In any given game - if you can force your pace on the other team - you are in a good situation - and if you have a very efficient offense (which we did) - you will win more games than you lose.
102.5 per 100 possessions, #16 in the league. We scored about 10.5 more points per 100 possessions last year. Since Batum was not a big offensive guy and since Sergio was the worst of our ORTG regular rotation guys - I suspect that our offensive problems this year are related to integrating Miller. For the record - we are still very high on the RR and ORR measures - in other words - we still rebound very well.
