I kind of love it. 8 new faces with varying levels of experience and talent. http://www.nba.com/blazers/roster/
That's not our roster though Minus Joel Przybilla Craig Smith Jonny Flynn Add Joel Freeland Victor Claver Jared Jeffries Sasha Pavlovic Ronnie Price
C Jeffries, Jared Leonard, Meyers Freeland, Joel PF Aldridge, LaMarcus Hickson, J. J. Babbitt, Luke SF Batum, Nicolas Claver, Victor Pavlovic, Sasha SG Matthews, Wesley Williams, Elliot Barton, Will PG Lillard, Damian Smith, Nolan Price, Ronnie
Hickson should play "center" before Jeffries. And LaMarcus "Don't Call Me a Center" Aldridge should play "center" before either of them. It doesn't matter what you call them though, I think we'll see LaMarcus in the high post and Hickson in the low post at times this year. It would be nice though if Leonard and Freeland could cover the position.
Aldridge should be the center and Hickson the starting PF. But only a rough Jerry Sloan coach or a smart Kevin McHale coach could make a man out of Aldridge, and Olshey is hiring a Clipper-quality coach to drive this team into the ground.
I see a lot of small ball this year as Blazers weed out just exactly who are the true young valuable assets. Good point raised about LA. Hope he doesn't get worn down this year. (Mysterious illness for a year?) While anticipating a lot of losses, I'm hoping for a lot of excitement with some small ball and running the floor. With all the new faces it will be interesting at the very least. But if Lillard doesn't immediately contribute, the honeymoon period will wear off fast.
I definitely like some of the new additions on paper, but Eric you're kidding yourself if you think adding 7 rookies is going to be a big recipe for success. Better than half this team won't be here in two years; mark it down.
The Heat won a championship with 6'8 LeBron at PF and 6'10 Bosh at C. So yeah, I think Hickson/LMA at C/PF is certainly doable, and is probably our best option on opening night. But Hickson will hopefully be looking over his shoulder all season because Freeland and Leonard are gunning for his job. We'll never be contenders without a big, quality center, because we just don't have the overall talent to beat teams like Miami and OKC. Our best shot is to go big and try to force them to adjust to us.
Meyers Leonard will start at center. We're going to throw that boy in the deep end and see if he sinks or swims.
Yeah if people call Hickson a center when he's playing alongside Aldridge, I don't see how you can't say the same thing about Jeffries.
And Babbitt's PER at SF was 6.2 and it was 15.9 at PF. Much better at scoring from the PF spot, with significantly less turnovers. He can't defend either position.
