How things have changed in just 3 years...

Wow! this is our main roster from 2008. Wth happened to our team?? It's so depressing thinking about what could've been if we stayed healthy and kept our roster intact.

2008-2009 Roster

Brandon Roy – Could be gone via amnesty clause
Lamarcus Aldridge – Still a Blazer
Greg Oden – Status unknown
Steve Blake - Gone
Rudy Fernandez - Gone
Martel Webster - Gone
Sergio Rodriquez - Gone
Jerryd Bayless - Gone
Channing Frye – Gone
Travis Outlaw - Gone
Nicholas Batum – Still a Blazer
Joel Pryzbilla - Gone

 

Wow, I never think about the complete overhaul until you present it that way. For some reason I feel like we have had the same team for a few years now, but that is absolutely not the case. We need some continuity with this team. We need to resign Felton and Wallace and get a good core group for the next few years.

 

That was what, Oden and Batum's rookie year. Lamarcus and Roy third. Sarge has been around longer than any player on our team.

 

The priority is to find players who fit McMillan's system. We'll keep at this till we try every player in the league, if we have to.

 

So basically we blew it up...

I think the core is still sound.

Aldridge
Wallace
Batum
Matthews
Felton

Outside of that there's a lot of question marks.

Who is the backup point guard? Smith?

Who is the backup power forward? Wallace?

Will Roy be cut?

 

Yeah, well stated, that we HAVE blown up our roster since 2008. We added THREE rookies to the squad last year and none played (not much). We're adding another 2 this year also. However, we're more balanced now and will sign or trade for another big man.

Felton - Smith - AJohnson (sorry, bye-bye Patty)
Roy - Matthews - EWilliams
Wallace - Batum - Diebler
Aldridge - Babbitt
Camby - Oden - CJohnson

The only move I deeply regret is letting Frye leave. He'd been good insurance at the big positions for us.

 

These guys were on our roster when I first started traveling with the team-

Shareef Abdur-Raheem
Derek Anderson
Stoudemire
Ha
Kyhrapa
Richie Fraham
Darius Miles
ZBO
Outlaw
Ruben Patterson
Przybilla
Theo Ratliff
Bassy
Nick van Exel





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Better balanced? No way. We have way too many combo guards who don't have a well defined position/role. We have no back-up power forward (other than our starting small forward playing out of position). Unless Oden is healthy, we have 37-year old injury ready to happen Marcus Camby as the only thing standing between 205 lb. Chris Johnson and the starting center spot. We need fewer unproven combo guards and more healthy, active bigs.

On that 2008 team we had clearly defined starters and serviceable back-ups at every position. Now, we have no idea who our back-up PG will be and have no real back-up power froward. And we have two players each at SG and SF who have been starters in the past which causes uncertainty at those positions. If Roy is healthy and productive, will he start or will Matthews? What if Roy isn't healthy (or is cut)? Who is our back-up SG? Will Batum be productive coming off the bench after starting for most of his career? There are a LOT more questions about and holes in this roster than that 2008 team. That team had depth at every position. This roster is terribly imbalanced and lacks a clear back-up at multiple positions.

BNM

 

Ha! You started workin for the team a year after I started covering them. Rookie!

 

It's curious how health has shaped the face of the team and careers of these guys. In a pretend world, where we sold our souls and were granted OKC's health over the same period...and if KP hadn't managed to turn off Allen...I think the majority of guys would still be on the team.

I think the most revealing comment that came out of the Nate/Buchanan/Miller post draft press conference, was their description of Smith and Felton as guys who continue to improve year after year. I hadn't heard that criteria mentioned before in their summary of a newly acquired player. I think it suggests a new emphasis of the team and a new mandate handed down from Allen. For a long time now, we've drafted guys with big upside relative to where we drafted them or how we acquired them. They'd come in raw, but we hoped they would develop. For the most part, most the guys on that list leveled out without developing like we hoped. Or how Allen hoped. I wonder if he's lost his patience for baking. Could signal a stretch where we pass on one and out players for awhile, and our player acquistions are less, less sexy.

 

I've been working on the tv broadcasts since 2000, that's when I started doing road shows as well.


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I don't see it that way. Our Guards are more defined than the past 6 years. Felton and Roy are clearly your starters. Smith and Matthews are your primary backups. Roy, obviously, may not be able to continue to be the regular starter, but I hope they give him 15-25 games to prove it one way or the other. Batum accepted the backup role last year and did fine. He is motivated to earn his way back someday, but learn from Wallace.

Yes, you're correct we're thin in the frontcourt. I hope they add someone to bolster it.

 

Forgetting Oden, and just having Roy at his borderline superstar stage, and adding Crash would have bolted us further in the playoffs. Fuckin injuries... sigh.

 

Stopped reading here. I think you need to re-evaulate your position if you think Roy is clearly the starter.

 

I like our current roster better.

 

What little cred you had on here Capt. Couv'....... Is out the window!


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Factoring in that Roy is now a shell of himself, as opposed to an elite player three years ago? I sure don't. If Roy were still as good, then I would.

 

Could someone, anyone tell me what the HELL NATE's System IS?!?!??! Our defense gets layup clinics done on it by bad teams and I'd ask anyone to tell me what kind of offense we run? Don't say High Pick and Roll cause that would mean our players would set picks and run off of them... not seeing it! Soooo... before we pick players to fit into Nate's sytem, he might want to create one!

 

What this thread refers to is the "Larry Miller Effect".

It's what you get when you promise to sell your team to a guy with no basketball knowledge or common sense, and then let him call all the shots.

Realistically, we have 2 quality starters in LaMarcus and Gerald, maybe 4 guys with the potential to be pretty good and last in the league, and nothing else worth mentioning.

I'd take pretty much every Blazers lineup this team has had since PA bought the team over this mess of scrubs and hobbled has-beens.