Summer League Game Two: Blazers vs Lakers

I take a little comfort in knowing that all of these regular season roster players will play much better with better players around them. I think it is unlikely this group will play a lot minutes together as a group. In fact it would be smart of Stotts NOT to play them together and have more of a rotation to maximize potential on the floor at all times. When CJ and Dame play together the defense is going to have a hell of a time figuring out how to keep them in check with as "crafty" and as good of shooters as they are. The games where there both feeling it are going to be fun to watch.

 

Watching that video makes me sooo excited to see a CJ + Lillard backcourt in spurts. Probably not going to be starter minute combo; but we should see long spurts of it.

Leonard is going to be a bust. He lacks soooo much mental toughness. He's like a baby in a 7 footer's body. Maybe he should take up boxing or something? He needs to stop being afraid of contact.

 

I'm willing to give Leonard some more time, but I'm starting to lean towards agreement with the naysayers ... he might get it someday, but wow, he looks far away.

 

I'm fine with it too if he was a 3 string back up. I just hope olshey has another center in mind. At least one that can give you 10 minutes of solid production. I'm really worrying if Lopez goes down with an injury. We'd be fucked!

 

How long before Dame says, "enough of this shit... where is my uniform?"

 

That would be nice; but I don't think the blazers would let him

 

They let Wes last year.

 

In all fairness. Wes really wasn't a franchise guard like dame. I think of it like when Roy didn't play summer league.

 

Its gotta be killing him.

 

Any update on the Will Barton knee injury?

 

I watched 1 of 2 games and read the threads here, I'm not really concerned about Robinson or Leonard (they are kind of what to expect, lots of potential but unproven and will need to figure out how to be an effective NBA player)

But I am concerned about the back up PG position. I didn't think losing Maynor was a big problem until the Blazers replaced him with Earl Watson. Then I figured Watson was insurance and the Blazers will mainly go with CJ as back up. But I don't think that is the best thing for CJ or the Blazers. So are we going to be seeing Watson on a nightly basis?

I don't get the Earl Watson signing and wished the Blazers could have done better with back up PG. Maybe Earl will surprise . . . Price sort of surprised, but even that was painful to watch.

 

Well I won't pretend that Watson is a stud at this point but I will tell you that he is twice the player of Ronnie Price.

 

with twice the TOV%

 

I also feel we have a roster that play to many more styles than last year. Small, big, fast, slow, etc. So there will be teams that Dame and CJ make sense and there will be teams that Wes or Batum makes more sense. I think can sometimes be a very undervalued asset for teams to have. We arent good enough to force teams to play our way so we have to be able to adapt and the personnel just want there last season to do that.

 

Not quite twice.

Higher assist % is in line with the higher turnover %. Often go hand-in-hand I have noticed.

 

balderdash

 

Not to compare anyone to Nash (that is absurd) but he is a guy who often lead the league in both assists and turnovers in the same year.

 

he did it one time

not very "often"

 

My bad. Without looking, I bet he is in the top 3 "often" though

 

having the ball all the time helps lead the league in turnovers

harden, kobe, durant were top 4