At present, the team is not fun to watch. We're losing to crappy teams, and we're getting demolished by good teams. But guess what? This happens to all teams. Every year, the Spurs go through patches like this. I remember that it happened to the Jazz - yes, the Jazz, coached by everybody's new fave coach, Jerry Sloan - regular as clockwork. They would have DIRE losing streaks. And strangely, they would always come out of them and plod on, Jazz-like. Hell, look at the Jazz THIS season - they're up and down like Republican Presidential Candidates Not Called Romney. And the Rockets, too. According to "the advanced stats", the Blazers are actually doing pretty well. Which is fucking amazing, given how pretty much useless Felton has been, and how we started the season with 3 massive punches to the nads (don't forget about Aldridge's heart problem) and have just had a follow up in Greg's fifteenth straight microfracture. Part of the problem was that the Blazers' hot streak was at the start of the season, so it gave us unfairly high expectations. It doesn't help that this team has the most emo press corps and fan base in the known universe. With an unhealthy Kenneth Faried obsession. (I love it how we all think that we as a fan base were smarter than our front office just because DraftExpress.com told us we should want a guy none of us ever saw play.) So chill out a little bit. God hates us, but we struggle on regardless, the Jobs of the NBA (better than the Gobs, at least [both pronounced "jobe" for those who don't get the allusions]). Nate is a solid coach, Buchanan is in all likelihood a better talent evaluator than any of us. It is what it is.
Utah and Houston were supposed to suck this year, we were not. I don't give a shit about advanced stats when it comes to a team, the only stat that matters is wins and losses. Oh yay, we have a solid +/- as a team, jump for joy!
Rasta, I liked the post but it doesn't register with me. Starting with the last draft to picking up the worst starting PG in the NBA and an under average 6th man who had one good season among a bunch of less than average ones and thereby taking away potential opportunities to make necessary trades to get better. It took way to long to start an obviously better SG and were it not for the fact Batum was a RFA he'd blow out of here. We have no trading chips, may be able to get a couple of average to slightly above average free agents with the knowledge no one really wants to come to Dysfunction Junction and play. The bottom line is that we are a team of 15 players and only 3 have any talent to speak of, an total inability to evaluate talent of any kind (I doubt those jokers could choose good whores on their business trips) and a coach whose 'voice' no longer resonates with the players. Talent wise, we're probably a .400 club with pie in the sky expectations and it's not going to get much better in the next few years. Management has seen to that. So I'm not going to chill. I'm upset for the total mess the braintrust has created and they've eliminated even the chance of digging out reasonably well. Now, that said, I'm still a fan and always will be.
Really? What was our highest pick? What earth-shaking players did we miss (besides Nicola Mirotic, of course)? I don't think our front office really thought the Andre Miller/Rudy trades were steps up, they thought Andre would want out and we needed to find a younger guard. Felton looked pretty solid (no pun intended) and had played for great programs (national championship with UNC, played for the worst taskmaster-of-point-guards ever, Larry Brown). It was a sideways move in an attempt not to get old fast or lose Dre outright. (Rudy was already out the door, and will almost certainly be in Spain next year.) Faried I have covered elsewhere. I'm sure part of what's making him look good is the up-and-down system he's playing in. I don't pin that on the front office. I don't think anyone predicted Felton would be this bad. (And bad as he is, Derek Fisher puts up worse numbers.) If you're talking about Crawford, you're preaching to the choir, as I was always opposed to it. (Although, I seem to recall a LOT of people in favor at the time.) But even then, you can sort of justify it by saying we need a poor man's Brandon to lessen the blow of his loss.) Again, Wesley looked good all last year and nobody viewed Batum as a SG. I certainly agree that it was right to move Batum to the starting lineup, but in theory having Batum as a sixth man makes a lot of sense, more so than Wesley. Wesley's suckage is as mystifying as Felton's - more so, because last year Wesley couldn't feel his feet, whereas this year Felton can't SEE his feet. You don't know that. We don't know what the front office is telling Batum. Again, this is just emo-talk. We have great fans, a great building, a rich owner. Every team has some downsides. People even signed with the Clippers in the pre-Griffin days. "Disfunction Junction" my ass. Don't listen to Jason Quick, who has to manufacture story lines in a one-team town. Wow - then Nate must be the best coach in the world! Why was it we were supposed to be good again?
Don't believe your lying eyes. Most power rankings say we're an elite team. One of many examples... http://basketball.realgm.com/blog/219326/NBA_Power_Rankings_(Mar_1st)
We're going to be 6-7 games under .500 by the time this road trip is over. You think we'll come back and make the playoffs?
The advanced stats are sorta distorted by the fact that our point differential is so high because we had some crazy blowouts earlier.
We pretty much suck now. Hard to believe since we actually have talent. I'm just happy Timbers season is here.
Chill. http://sportstwo.com/threads/208792-HEAT-BLAZERS-3-1-12-GAME-THREAD?p=2752735&viewfull=1#post2752735
Who cares? The players have tuned him out, and this season is a loss. Gut the team, prepare for the future.
I asked the question, so I guess you could say I care. If the plan is to rebuild, we need to get a tough minded coach with a track record of taking 20 win teams and making them 50 win teams.
