Almost every player under contract is back in Portland for workouts

Yet more photos from today.

 

What's that? Someone who can set a pick for Dame!?!

 

Beastly.

 

Fast forward 8 weeks and you will see TWO or THREE players surrounding Dame coming off a screen.......daring somebody.....ANYBODY else on our team to shoot and they will happily live with the consequences.

 

Only this time we have young bigs that can put back a miss from outside

 

There's this cool play in basketball called the alley-oop. If THREE players are surrounding Dame he just needs to throw the ball up at the rim.

 

And every coach in the NBA will gladly let them instead of Dame getting a shot off!

 

And every coach in the NBA will gladly let them instead of Dame getting a shot off!

 

I don't think Stotts would gladly let them do that, but who knows? Dame has been commanding double coverage since his rookie season, he still finds a way

 

And that's different than last season how?
Also, last season Dame never got ANY separation off of screens - this season he'll have better screens to get some separation. And if they jump the screen then Plumlee/Davis will actually ROLL to the hoop.
And lastly, it's the damn coach's job to implement a plan for how to deal with a double-team. So are you saying Stotts isn't good enough to figure that out? If so, we are in agreement there!

 

A cape? what was our dame doing with a man in a cape?

[opens door] Why a cape? [out the door and gone]

 

I also think Henderson would be able to attack the rim if they leave him wide open. Also CJ, Leonard, and Crabbe can hit wide open shots.

I have a lot of worries about this season, but having guys who can hit wide open shots is not one of them. Now having enough guys who can create their own shot is a different story. But again we suffered from that last year as well. LA was of course good at it, but I would not exactly say Wes , Nic, and Robin were.

 

It makes you think about all of the twisted reputations some players are carrying around the league.
Most "analysts" will tell you that LaMarsha is a quiet,humble guy who gets along with everybody while Kaman is perceived as a fat jerk who doesn't get along with his coaches,mouthing off to everybody,"gun for hire" type of dude.

 

Agreed. I think Henderson and CJ will be every bit as good at creating their own shot as LMA was. Given that last season we only had two players that could create their own shot (Dame/LMA) it appears we're already +1 in that department (Dame/CJ/GH). Maybe we don't have anyone who can create their own shot in the post - but LMA rarely did that anyway, so it's not a huge step backwards in that department. And given that we'll get better passing, defense, and rebounding out of Meyers/Plumlee/Davis I think it's a net positive.
It all boils down to coaching - that will define how good we will be this season.

 

Blue - You are more optimistic about the season & team than most. I actually agree with much of what you say with regard to LMA, but I think you are selling everyone on last year's team a little short.

I am curious - what do you predict as the teams end of the year record being?

I would say 32-35 wins. Much better than most expect, but not playoff material.

 

Well, I wouldn't say I'm optimistic because I don't think Stotts has any idea of how to effectively run a basketball team. I think we'll win between 28 and 38 games. If Stotts proves me wrong, and actually CAN implement a team-oriented offense and defense then I'd push the high end to 45 wins. I think if we had a good coach, by Year 2 this team could be pushing the 50-win threshold. But like I said, I don't think we have a very good coach.
My "optimism" comes from the following:

Last Season / This Season

Dame < Dame - Should be self-explanatory.

Wes > Henderson - Wes was the heart & soul of the team and was a great defender and shooter. There's no replacing that. However, he wasn't very effective at attacking the basket or creating for himself. So I don't think the gap between Wes and GH is all that big. What we lose in shooting and leadership we make up in ball-handling/attacking the basket.

Nic = Aminu - I'm NOT saying that Aminu is as good as Nic. But Aminu can be nearly as good (maybe even quite a bit better) as 14/15 Nic. Offensively Nic was pretty awful last season. We'll still miss his passing, but aside from creating easy scoring opportunities for others Aminu should be able to at least equal Nic's individual offense and defense.

LMA = Meyers - LMA wasn't that good. He got points purely from volume-shooting. Meyers will not put up the points that LMA put up - mainly because he won't get the same number of attempts. We will miss the ability to throw it into the post and let LMA do his thing. But we only did that about 5x a game, which accounted for about 6ppg - not a big part of our offense. What we miss in a "go-to" player will be made up for by (a) better shooting, (b) MUCH better passing, and (c) better defense. Yup - I'm calling it now. Meyers will be a better defender than LMA simply because he'll TRY on that end of the floor.

Rolo < Plumlee - I liked Rolo. But aside from his little mid-range jumper he wasn't all that good and he was SLOW. I might be talking outta my ass here because I haven't seen Plumlee play. But based off what I've read, and the fact he's on Team USA, I feel pretty confident in him being better than Rolo.

CJ < CJ. Again, this should be obvious.

Freeland < Davis. See my Rolo/Plumlee explanation - it's pretty similar here.

Kaman > Vonleh - I think Vonleh will essentially be taking Kaman's minutes from last year. Kaman started strong then tapered off. Hopefully we'll see the opposite from Vonleh...a gradual progression throughout the season. If he can be as good as "good" Kaman by the end of the season that'll be a huge win.

Crabbe/Blake/Wright < Crabbe/Pressy/Harkless - Blake a Wright were awful last season, I fully expect Pressy & Harkless to be better players.

With all that said, the guys don't have the level of familiarity that last season's team had - there's no making up for that. It's why I don't expect big wins from us this season. But with proper coaching and a year of experience this group shouldn't be far off from last season's team.

 

Yes Sir! And even get his team to look forward to the opportunity.

 

This why they are working out now so they can get that familiarity with each other. Training camp couple week away from training camp than we see if Stotts has it takes to build this team. We will see if Stotts will operate on there strength or go with the same offense. It all comes down to can Stotts adjust to the players that he has on the team.

 

Has anyone heard any reports from the summer workouts in terms of how the players are playing? The pictures are nice, but it sure would be nice to hear something like "Harkless is shooting 60% from three in 5-on-5 play."