Does it matter? A team with veteran players who lack the pride to always give their supreme effort will never advance in the playoffs. We have guys who deliberately missed shots, deliberately threw the ball away, deliberately did not set picks or go after loose balls... To think these guys can compete on the same level as Durant, Dirk, LeBron...is laughable. I feel so bad for Joel and the bench guys that PA failed to address the real problem, again.
Glad they forced Nate out, we will be much better in the long run. Just remember that we had a team that wanted to win under Nate and lost in three consecutive seasons in the first round. I like our chances.
Making the playoffs with this crew would be a fucking disaster. And for those saying that there's a huge psychological boost for free agents wanting to come here because the team snuck into an 8th seed, versus tanking properly and adding potentially 2 lottery picks you vastly overrate that as a component driving free agency. There's a second component here too, if this team wants to attract a top notch GM (and hopefully a coach) wouldn't two lottery selections be helluva lot more enticing to play with than one and a 17th-18th? If you really like this team and want them to be as competitive as possible down the line, then take the blinders off and start rooting for this team to lose every damn game by 1 point (hey at least they can say they tried and were competitive).
Portland has no luck in these matters. NJ will get top 3 and Portland will make the playoffs. Then NJ will make the playoffs next year, and Portland will have it's standard mid to late teen picks and stay average
The nice thing about hitting rock bottom is that you see a lot more optimistic situations. If Portland misses the playoffs, we get a decent draft pick. If we make the playoffs, it'll be because either: 1. Aldridge shows the superstar talent it takes to carry a team (awesome!) or 2. Batum blows up into a bona fide star-in-the-making (awesome!) or 3. Youngsters we'd mostly written off (Nolan Smith, Babbit) turn out to be vastly better than anyone thought (awesome!) 4. Felton suddenly became competent again (and he's then a trade asset or somebody you can build on) The only thing that would really, really suck is if we made it into the playoffs because Crawford finished off the season at an insane pace, opted out and we had nothing to show for it. Really, though, I doubt we make the playoffs. It just doesn't seem like those other possibilities are likely to happen.
1. Not in this lifetime. 2. He is what he is. 3. Never wrote them off, and think they're "pretty good". 4. Not in this lifetime. The year we won our title the sentiment was the same among a lot of beaten-down "fans". They wanted us to get yet another high pick because they had zero faith in the team's ability to win it all. Fortunately for everyone, the players tuned out those losers and went for it whole hog. This year's team has a better chance at a title than the next few year's teams will.
Supposedly that's the whole purpose of having a team, winning. Only a f'in pansy would be pleased by losing.
For some reason, people think we gutted the team when we in fact only gave up 2 players who were getting minutes. They were both wildly inconsistent so there's a little bit of addition by substraction. Sorry guys but this team isn't built to tank. With the new enthusiasm around the new coach, this team will play well for the rest of the season. It's gonna be a tight race for that 8 seed, but if we take advantage of our upcoming easier schedule, I think we can get in. We might even sneak up to the 6th seed again. It depends on how well Houston, Denver, and the Clippers play out the rest of the season.
