There are also 3-5 lottery picks that amount to jack squat. Sure a draft pick would be a nice asset but its not the be all end all. Its far more critical how the 15 players already on the roster develop than one roll of the dice on an unknown.
Skal and Ingram look so far from being impact NBA players to me. Talking 5+ years before they are legit every day starters. Yeah could be all stars someday but thats an awful long time to wait. Look at CJ; its taken him 3 years after college and he was a 4 year collegiate player. Thats 6 more years than these other prospects will have. CJ has a hell of a killer work ethic as well. By the time a player such as Ingram is in his prime all of our current rostered players will be on the decline. Really would need to think about trading away Lillard and doing a 76ers rebuild if we are going to focus our offseason on adding that type of youth. Its a strategy that makes sense for a few franchises; but not the Blazers with the amount and age of talent we have.
Great post. You nailed exactly what I have been trying to say the last few weeks. It is like having a strong farm system in baseball. The good teams know you have to build through the draft, but it doesn't mean they are going to help anytime soon. We could use this year's draft pick, no doubt. But I have been watching these kids and there are a lot of Jabari Parker's and D'Angelo Russell's out there, instead of Kevin Durant or Anthony Davis.
That's the issue... all these guys leave after one year and they're clearly not ready to contribute. Conversely, you look at Dame or CJ and they were ready to contribute right out of the game. It's amazing what four years of college will do for you.
I take care of an 83 year old man who is completely paralyzed ...he watches college sports all day and night..huge Duck fan. Part of the job is upon arrival, feeding him snacks and talking about whatever game he's into....after that, the work begins for real...
Yep--for this year, I would say that Buddy Hield, Denzel Valentine, Taurean Prince, or maybe Caris Levert all look to be decent first-round prospects that would be likely to contribute next year. I wouldn't shake a stick at any of them.
When you say 'every year' what are you talking about? Aldridge held us hostage during the most active part of free agency, but Olshey did a great job in retooling on the fly. Considering we lost 80% of the best starting five in basketball when healthy, it's amazing they're even competitive this year. But whether they're competitive or not, Olshey's plan was obviously to collect a lot of tradable pieces and flexibility and hopefully limit the rebuild to one year. I have no doubt this upcoming trade deadline and offseason are going to be active for the Blazers and the team will look quite different next year, with or without the pick. What I'm trying to say is I don't understand how you've come to the conclusion that they will be stuck in mediocrity for years to come? At least give him one full year to completely rebuild the core (save Lillard) before you start giving the team an arbitrary ceiling. For what it's worth I think we'll keep the pick. I agree with you on the notion that January is likely a mirage. The fact remains their last 8 wins have been against teams who are below .500 and currently in the lottery. For this team, winning five games in a row against anyone is great, but it's not surprising they're going to look improved during the easiest part of their schedule. Actually it's pretty predictable.
Taurean Prince should be a top 7 or 8 pick in this draft. Probably the best defensive player in the draft, insanely high motor, a great shooter, and has no real offensive weaknesses. He's about the same size as Draymond Green and his scouting report is almost identical to Greens when he was coming out. So conceivably he could play the stretch 4 Draymond Green role. If not, I could definitely see him being a DeMarre Carrol type of SF. 3 and D players are always drafted to low. DeMarre Carroll, Jimmy Butler, Wes Matthews, Draymond Green, Khris Middleton, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Allen Crabbe... And I think Taurean Prince will be the next name on that list.
I think "A Work in Pogress" would be a great name for the history of pro sports in Portland, or Oregon, in general. Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
The simulations (538, BBRef, ESPN BPI) have the Blazers winning 15 games (at best) of the next 29. I've said it before, the next 30 days will make or break this team as far as the whole playoffs/draft perspective goes.
I think Dunn and Buddy Hield both have star potential. But I am counting them. It's the others I think will need time.
May i just remind some you guys who refuse to hold on to October-Novemberish stats that we dropped like 8 close games back then? It's not like we were getting stomped on back then. So we're not completely legit at the PF position now, Clippers don't even have a SF.
Great post. I would like to expand a bit however... I can see that many of the individual players are improving. I can see that the team is player better collectively (as a unit). The team is playoff relevant, and it's fun to actually check the standings and see how other teams around us are doing. The team has a fun style of play. Things can go wrong during a game and we can still win (Lillard didn't hit an outside shot in the whole game against Milwaukee, and we still won). The team plays hard. However, things aren't perfect: We could easily go on another 5 game losing streak. Especially with the upcoming schedule Vonleh is improved a lot, but we still haven't seen his 3 point shot, or his post game. He's invisible out there sometimes. He hasn't reached the comfort level I would like him to have yet. Refer to your first sentence on this. He is improved alot. Ive seen most of that improvement as of late. I dont see any reason why he cant/wont continue to improve to fill in all the other gaps you noted in his game. Biebs - when he's on, we're a much better team. I will concede that he's an intelligent player overall, but his indecision leads to cringingly poor decisions, which drive me (and others) nuts. He's a bit slow-footed, but he has learned to go "straight-up", so he's definitely improved. Ive seen him be less hesitant as of late, but I hear ya. I think he might just have another level to reach yet though, and why? Because I do belive he has the same drive and determination as Dame and will bust his ass to get there. Plums is a great passer in the high post, but he'd be better if he actually looked at the basket in that position. Ehh, I'm on the fence on this. Depending on who that third star is that ytou say we need (and I agree) I'm not sure I want him offensive minded unless its put backs off of rebounds, or rolling to the basket dunks. I do not want him taking distance shots from the high post, nor do I want to see him drive from there, as was VERY evident in last nights game on several plays of which he tried to do just this. He is best suited, being a go through with his passing skills and then following the person he passes to to the hoop. Screens, rebounds. He doesn't need to be looking at the basket at all from any distance in my opinion... not when we have so many other good shooters on this team. All of the players have things to work on (our guards could become better defenders, for example). I think you could say this for most players on most teams though,. so this is a bit moot...except, we have room to grow and get better to improve, unlike most of the other teams who need to. We still have a poor record against +.500 teams. This must be rectified and this next stretch will be very telling how much we have actually improved. If we can go .500 over the next 10 games, we are looking pretty damn good in my opinion. We're still in our infancy. A 9-16 road record is fine for a borderline playoff team, but not for a bona fide playoff team. The record is skewed from early season dysfuntional play. Again, let the next ten games playout and see how this sits. We still don't have a big that Stotts is comfortable putting in the post. This is true, but is it needed? Not if Vonleh keeps improving. I am very comfortable with our "Big 2" + awesome role players. However, I'd like a "Big 3" - NO has work to do, and I don't mean for another "good" player", we need one more amazing player. Yep, maybe not an all star, but definitely a star that is capable of putting up big numbers any night. I'm not convinced Vonleh cant turn into this guy. Crabbe too, but then we dont need that from Crabbe. It would be great if he would be happy as a long term 6th man. I think he brings intense defense as the first guy off the bench and is a true offensive threat. If he will sign and accept the role for the next 4-5 years, and Vonleh continues to improve, we have 4 guys who are serious threats, with a bunch of quality roll players. My hope is this happens, because it is hard to build cohesion by trading all the time. Teams get better over a LONG period of time of playing together. It doesn't happen in half a season. Yes, they get better, but not near max level of play.
