False. Blake creates lots of easy baskets for his teammates. If you think not, you're not watching the games.
You don't need anything as crude as "hearing" to judge musical talent, great signing has intangible qualities that cannot be quantified or measured.
I was hoping we were back to talking about vaguely useful things. Yes he is. I know this is hard for you to understand, but to that Lakers team, he is. Of course, he almost certainly would not be invaluable to most teams, but that doesn't mean that he's not an essential cog for them. And he is. Sigh. I'm not saying I know it to be true, but you tried to suggest that there was nothing worse than getting the record we did, because you only talked about final results. But there are degrees of losing. "I know you are, but what am I?" Um, okay. Your happy place is better. True. Yes, that's true. And our coaches do seem to be risk averse. But that's probably wise when your team is still relatively young. Because confidence is fragile, and a real beatdown can undermine it. And that's part of what good coaches, who have, in Nate's case, been good players amongst other players, understand and we have no clue about. I agree that there are also bad reasons a coach can stick with a player: they've become too close, they're trying to be buddies, they're playing favorites, blah blah blah. But Blake is not likely to be a player to get preferential treatment because he's not the type to get a bruised ego by being sent to the bench. He strikes me as the ideal employee: if you play him, he plays hard. If you benched him, he would practice just as hard and never complain. So it's very unlikely that "personality" issues are getting him minutes. (Whereas, for Roy, it is much more likely that decisions to ditch the three-guard lineup, which actually seemed to be working, are influenced by those type of reasons.) Do I wish Blake was playing better? Jesus Christ yes. If he could just shoot his last year's % from 3 we probably would've won 2 or 3 more games. Does that mean he should be benched and Bayless played instead? I dunno. Probably the coaches feel that they would be rewarding selfish play if they did that. That's a nasty tic you're developing there. Bullshit. Well sure - Championships trump all. But there's no way that you wouldn't be put off by players who clearly didn't give a shit. I don't want to say you'd prefer a 30-win team that scrapped all out to a 30-win team that sleepwalked, because you'd probably argue that the non-workers had "more potential". But if you knew they couldn't exert more effort, even Android Ed would prefer the bold little scrappers. Oh yes - Zach Randolph and Darius Miles were noted scrappers. That's why the people of Portland embraced them so. It's nice to get your imprimatur. If that was all I had to go on on Bayless's ability, that wouldn't be much. But that and two Summer Leagues are about enough for me.
This is funny coming from the guy who proclaimed Patty Mills a better prospect than Bayless, while completely ignoring how Mills played in college.
Actually, I just said that to piss Ed off. What I'm seeing with Blake is exactly the opposite. There ARE "advanced stats" that show him to be valuable. Notably +/-, and Synergy Sport's defensive ratings. But people (like you) who watch him and focus on his obvious offensive limitations refuse to believe that he COULD be valuable, so they discount those stats and focus on his PER as if that were the be-all and end-all. I also believe that there are many contributions that a member of a group can make to the group's success that are almost impossible to quantify using any kind of statistic other than a measure of the group's success. And certainly not some incredibly crude measure like PER.
Sorry, it wasn't that he was a better prospect, but more of a PG, despite putting up the same assist and turnover numbers in college against weaker competition. Here's one post I could find where you claim he will be ahead of Bayless:
Paying his salary (about the same as Gordon's) and watching him play instead of Gordon is downright awful.
That's fair enough. Mills actually is a shoot-first PG (like Aaron Brooks). Bayless is a short SG. I wouldn't want either as our starter. But hey, at least Mills has had a good game against the "Redeem Team". In the PG rotation. Because, you know, he actually played PG for most of his college career. And there's a reason he got worse assist/turnover numbers: he's the #1 scoring option BY FAR on his team. If Mills had been on Arizona, he would've passed more, I bet. But, it's speculation on my part. I didn't want either of Bayless OR Mills precisely because I want my PGs to be PGs. But Mills at least was a low second-rounder, so not exactly a big cost. I'm sure I'll become disillusioned with him after I've seen him play... I wish we could've got Beaubois or Collison. Or Westbrook - who is also a tweener, but at least plays ferocious defense. I also wish that Blake could go down with a minor injury for a few games so we can at least see what happens when Bayless gets minutes. My guess is, it wouldn't be pretty. But at least it would be interesting, and, while I defend the coaching staff's right to play Blake, I can't say I tune in just so I can watch Steve Blake in action.
Bullshit. I've watched nearly every game the Blazers have played this year, either live or on TV, and Steve Blake absolutely does NOT create a lot of easy baskets for his teammates. He stands around at the 3-point line and misses wide open looks. How exactly is that creating easy baskets for his teammates? Offensive rebounds? Maybe when Oden was playing, but now that he's not, we can't rely on someone else converting Blake's missed shots into scoring opportunities. Our starting PG, who averages > 30 MPG has an AST% of 21.0. Our staring SG has a higher AST% (25.4) and Andre Miller who many bitch about looking for his own shot too much has a AST% of 28.6 (meaning he's 36% more likely to get an assist than Blake). Even Jerryd "Not a True PG" has an AST% nearly as high as Blake's. And Bayless actually puts pressure on the defense with his ability to score and get to the FT line. With Blake in the game, opposing defenses know he's not a threat to score. So, they can sag off, play the passing lanes and double team Roy and/or Aldridge. Our offense sucks because our starting PG sucks. If you can't see that, I'm afraid nothing I say will convince you otherwise. I have no idea what games you've been watching, but one of the HUGE problems with this team right now is the lack of easy baskets. Blake, in spite of playing > 30 MPG has 3 or fewer assists in 13 of our 25 games. So, where are all these easy baskets he's creating? Is one assist every 10 minutes your idea of good production from your starting PG? Andre Miller, on the other hand, in spite of playing fewer minutes than Blake has six games of 7 or more assists (compared to Blake's three) and three double digit assist games (compared to one for Blake). Yes, Miller shoots more (which given out lack of scoring, is a good thing), but he also does a better job than Blake of setting up his teammates for easy scoring opportunities. BNM
It's been an off season for him. He's had three or fewer assists in over half our games. Unacceptable for a starting PG. BNM
In other words: Blake might work in the triangle offense (if he started hitting his shots again) - but the Blazers don't run the triangle, and won't be adopting it anytime soon.
