Game Thread GAME# 2: SPURS @ BLAZERS - OCTOBER 20, 2018 - SATURDAY, 7:00 PM (PDT), NBCSNW

No, he's not. Did you not watch the NOP series. POR got absolutely KILLED when Ed was on the floor:

Yeah, you can, If he is the best NBA substitute, how come he has never sniffed 6MOY?

Some sort of conspiracy, I'm sure. Probably a secret anti-Ed agenda by the Oregonian, or Neil using his clout to convince the voters not to vote for Ed because he knew he'd eventually let him walk for nothing and didn't want to look bad.

BNM

 

Collins also shot like 30% from 3 last year, He's still going to have to prove that offensively he can hit those shots consistently or teams won't guard him either.
My point wasn't who's better than who between Ed and Zach, my point is that it's really early in the season to make any sort proclamation like oh Zach's this or that. Last year's sample size showed us he's an effective defender but his offensive game is really spotty, he had good offensive games here or there last year. I just think we should wait and see what he looks like with a larger sample size.
Again, the LA team he blocked 6 shots against spent a lot of time with Kyle Kuzma as their "center" in that game.

 

I don't think Ed is the best bench player in the league (but maybe the best back up center), but the easy answer to this question is that what Ed does off the bench is not valued really at all in the 6MOY awards. Lou Williams, Eric Gordan, Crawford, JR Smith, the 6MOY award is basically for the best scorer off the bench, with few exceptions.

 

Holy shit, you are on a roll. I'm not disputing shit with you on this day.

... or most days now that I think about it.

 

Serious question, has a center/big ever won 6MOY?

 

Not many times, and definitely not recently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Sixth_Man_of_the_Year_Award#Winners

Usually the best scorers off the bench win it, and back up big men are rarely scoring machines

 

I think Bill Walton won it for the Celtics once upon a time.

 

The post I responded to called Ed the perfect substitute and the best in the business. There were no positional qualifications in those statements.

And note, I didn't ask why hasn't Ed won the 6MOY award, I asked why he hasn't come within spitting distance of winning it. While it's true that the award generally goes to a high scoring bench player, each of the last three years, a player averaging less than 9 ppg has finished in the top 3 in 6MOY voting. Last year it was Fred Van Vleet coming in 3rd with an average of 8.6 ppg. And, in both 2015-16 and 2016-17, Andre Iguodala came in a very close 2nd in 6MOY voting while averaging 7.0 and 7.6 ppg. So, it is possible to at least be considered for the award based on more than just scoring.

Finally, if Ed is so valuable, why did he go to a bad team on a cheap contract? If he was so valuable, why didn't some contender snap him up for $4.5 million? Why'd he have to settle for going to BRK at $4.4 million?

I think you sort of answered that question yourself:

"the easy answer to this question is that what Ed does off the bench is not valued really at all in the 6MOY awards"

I think maybe it's just not considered very valuable in general - not these days at least. It's not just the 6MOY voters that don't place much value on what Ed does, it's also GMs league wide. Otherwise, someone other than BRK would have swooped in and snatched him up. There just isn't a big market for traditional back up centers in today's NBA.

BNM

 

Very common back in the 80s and early 90s - Kevin McHale twice, followed by Walton and Roy Tarpley. Cliff Robinson was considered a PF when he won it in 92-93, as was Lamar Odon in 2010-11 - the last time a "big man" won the award.

BNM

 

Well of course there's not a huge market for back up bigs, especially in a year when teams didn't have a lot of cap room to begin with, the league (not just the Blazers) is still trying to recenter it's FA signing's after a couple summer of just ridiculous contracts. I believe you actually see teams do value guys with Ed type skillsets (even contenders), Jordan Bell gets his minutes in Golden State for example.

 

6MOY voters - journalists and broadcasters. Wouldn’t put much, if any, weight into their opinions. Zach isn’t going to sniff the award either, doesn’t mean we should minimize his impact. Same with Ed’s. It’s easy to be optimistic when you’ve won your first two games, but we’ll see at the end of the year just how much we did, or didn’t miss Ed. I still have concerns that what Portland gained in spacing will be nullified by what they lost defensively and on the boards.

 

At the beginning of free agency, a lot of teams had more than enough cap space to top BRK's offer, but chose to go in other directions. BRK used the Room Exception to sign Ed, which was less than the Tax Payer MLE and about half of the full MLE.

The truth is a lot of those exceptions went unused. For as much shit as Neil caught this summer, POR was one of the few tax paying teams (other than GSW who had Demarcus Cousins fall in their lap) to use a significant portion of their Tax Payer MLE when he signed Seth Curry and Gary Trent Jr. - two shooters.

BNM

 

Ed isn't a better defender than Moe or Zach...

 

Boob-No-More, no more nonsense, once again BNM is the voice of reason.

 

And? It’s Meyers/Layman that are on the court now that he’s gone.

 

Teams are still trying to get out from all the over spending they did, and really I think most of NBA world knows there is maybe 3-4 contenders this year so most of them aren't willing to spend the tax if they won't be legitimate contenders. The GM survey kind of backed that notion up. I don't like Neil, for a lot of reasons but I didn't really bring it up, not sure why you keep bringing it up.
My point to begin with in this conversation was that it's way to early to start proclaiming that Zach is ready, or isn't ready. It's 2 games. When I mentioned that Davis was a better rebounder, it was more a point that they're different players than well one is better than the other.

 

Layman's In the court because Moe is coming back from injury. Meyers has only seen the floor because Nurk/Collins have been getting into foul trouble. Even then, Meyers is playing like 15% of the game.

 

and is holding his own during that 15%. starting the season out fairly solid and i'm speaking mostly of his decision making.

 

You really don't want Collins to be good, lol.

 

Meyers will play more once Harkless gets put back into the starting lineup. Zach’s minutes from last year will still have to be filled by someone. If it’s not Meyers, Layman would be next in line.

Right now everything is cool because the second unit is scoring, but all the second chances Ed gave the team with his offensive rebounding is going to be magnified when the shots aren’t falling. To say we’re better off without Ed everywhere on the court is non sense to me.