Well, since you asked. In their wins, the teams they have beaten are a combined 22-31. In their losses, the teams are 26-10 and that includes 6 losses in their loss to the Suns. So they are beating the bad teams (barely and even then, some of them are missing a lot of players) and they are getting thumped by the good teams or taking a bad loss like against the Suns. Wins: Jazz: 6-4 (Home) Jazz missing 2 starters and a key bench player. Nuggets: 3-5 (Away) Denver with one of the biggest meltdowns in the final minute you'll see all season. Mavs: 2-6 (Away) No Bogut and Nowitzki only played 16 minutes. They better have won that game. Grizzlies: 4-4 (Away) Best win of the season so far. Suns: 3-6 (Home) Barely beat a bad Suns team. 2 nail-biters against a team you should be blowing out. Kings: 4-7 (Home) Kings on the 2nd of a back-to-back. Should have taken them out much earlier. Losses: Clippers: 8-1 (Home) They are just the much better team right now. Warriors: 7-2 (Home) Warriors not as good as last (yet) because they have no size. Neither does Portland so it's actually worse for the Blazers. Suns: 3-6 (Away) Bad loss to a bad team. Clippers: 8-1 (Away) A complete embarrassment. A 40+ point deficit heading into the 4th quarter. The Blazers are just not competitive against the good teams as of yet. Last year it seemed they played up to the level of their competition much better for the most part.
Lmao this is the most ridiculous thing you've ever said. Playing CJ only 24 minutes? Have you not been watching him lately? With that scenario we'd be 2-8.
What if we started Myle at PF, But he guarded the center on the defensive side of the ball? (or whoever plays in the key) On Offense Plums can play anywhere like he does now because of his play making abilities, and Myle can drag the other big out towards the three point line. Would this work or should I quit having cocktails this early in the day?
I think it just depends on other teams. He'll surely start Meyers and Plumlee against the Nuggets who start Nurkic and Jokic.
I think we're off to a smashing start. 3-2 on the road. 6-4 overall. Winning close games. Lillard is possibly the best PG in the league now. Westbrook is a ballhog, questionable decision maker, and not a great shooter. Curry doesn't have the athletic ability that Dame does. And while Paul is a fine leader, he can't dominate games like Lillard.
I'm glad you are optimistic. I see us playing like crap for long stretches. However, back to the good news: 3.9, 5.2, 4.9, 6.2, 9.6 are lillard's FTA for each year.
It's not that we disagree, it's just that that's the beauty of it. Last year we played like shit and LOST the games. This year we aren't looking good, but are still finding ways to pull the close ones out. Give it some time and we should be playing better. Our poor play is fixable.
I'm all for it. But who would trade big for small? And CJ's pretty hard to trade, I imagine, given his PPP status. It would have to be as part of a large, multi-player trade.
Who on the team right now represents that elusive "tantalizing, cheap prospect" label that other teams trade proven stars for? Not to mention the fact that stars usually only get traded in mid-season because a team is vastly underperforming and they want out. Are the Blazers a destination team when this hypothetical player starts calling his agent? Chances are the Blazers are stuck with what they've got given how much salary they dumped on just about every one this summer, so if there's any improvement to be made I'm guessing it has to be internal; the odds that there's some magical trade floating around out there for guys not named Damian and CJ are slim for the (mostly) dreck that populates our 3-15.
Did you see the Nuggets expose Layman's defensive flaws during that second quarter run? Give Layman some court time but bring him along slowly IMO. I stay with my 50 game prediction. We are ahead of last year's pace and got better as the year progressed. Look for teams to have health issues while we have too many healthy bodies.
I was thinking along the same way of bringing him along slowly. I was not advocating Layman taking all of ET's playing time. I still would like to see Layman play more.
Crabbe will have value across the league and we could dump Turner for someone who is equally unwanted by their team (Monroe?). Players like Leonard, Aminu and Davis will have value across the league. IMO the team will look completely different when the dust settles and we are able to move players. No way we paid this much to current roster without looking to use some of them as trade baits.