This is a great point, that I keep forgetting to take into consideration. What kind of help does the player have, in getting those numbers....
It's also his first off-season without Paul (rip). Who knows how much the summer of 2016 was influenced by allen.
Jake did some things that few others on the Blazers did: 1. He SPRINTED down the court looking for opportunities. That didn't really fit here because the Blazers didn't run despite their youth. 2. He back cut better than anyone on the roster. That was great when teammates were looking for him. Often (CJ) they weren't. 3. Very good jumper off of one leg so he could cover a tremendous amount of ground during elevation. 4. Was constantly moving, probing, looking for gaps in the defense. Jake did get a lot of points off of lobs, back-cuts or just quick direct cuts to the basket. That seems like a very good thing. However, there where countless times and often multiple times per game that he would make that cut, be WIDE OPEN and no one would get him the ball. What he was doing was giving the Blazers an opportunity for one of the easiest baskets you can get and they either missed him or flat out ignored him. On the occasions when he did get the ball, it because often enough that teams included him in the scouting report and those opportunities declined. But that shouldn't have been the end of it. By adjusting, which in most cases meant going way under 2-4 players that Jake was cutting around while a big hedged out. It left a myriad of counters for Stotts and the Blazers to play off of. Not ONE SINGLE TIME did I see them take advantage of that. Either Jake would be wide open for a perimeter shot or one of the bigs that was out on the screen could have dove to the basket creating a huge mismatch. They could have had Jake also reverse his cut back around the clump of players Jake was using to create a lob situation and now he has a staight line drive to the hoop (which he was quite good at) with a defender over committed to getting around to the other side to stop a lob. @BonesJones can likely speak to this in more detail. Almost all of these will result in an easy look at the rim but for some reason, we never saw any of that after teams adjusted. As I've posted before, Stotts was often irritated even talking about Jake when media would have questions about him when he played well. For some reason, he just didn't seem like a Jake guy and with Hood/Baze/Mario/Little, it was going to be easy for Stotts to ignore him further. So I'm glad for Jake he is going somewhere that someone wanted him and hope he gets the chance to build on the strengths he does have.
I liked Jake and he had some very fun moments, but he also had some big flaws in his game. The obvious one, was his defense but even offensively it seemed like once teams got tape of him and cut off some of the lobs he seemed to struggle. Then theres the shooting when he got going he could, really get going, but there was a reason teams left him open. They wanted him to shoot, because he was very inconsistent out there. So while I agree with much of the premise of your post, your conclusion is probably the right one, he was not part of the teams long term plans. It was in his best interest to move on.
and Stauskas was out of the rotation before he was dealt so it's a non issue. You guys worry more about end of the bench/ end of rotation guys more than our main contributors.
"We're extremely appreciative of how hard Neil Olshey worked with us to accommodate what we were trying to accomplish in sign-and-trade," Bartelstein told ESPN. "The deal couldn't have happened without the Blazers looking out for Jake's best interests." This is why they did it. Layman wanted to go and the Blazers helped him do just that. "The deal will be part of a sign-and-trade that the Blazers agreed upon to accommodate Layman's desire to join the Timberwolves. Minnesota had the ability to sign Layman to an offer sheet, and Blazers president of basketball operations Neil Olshey allowed Layman the chance to join the Wolves without the aggravation of that process."
Because he wanted to go to the T-Wolves. If Portland forces his hand and keeps him then doesn't play him he becomes a problem. Layman wanted a better situation and he went there. Olshey found a way to make that happen.
It amazes me how big of a deal is being made from this. Olshey brought in replacements that would have pushed Layman further down the ladder and the Blazers helped accommodate a better situation for him. I wish him well, but he's not a difference maker for this team.
