the Warriors were able to do that and hide Curry on weak offensive players. But that's because the Warriors only had one player to hide. The Blazers have 2 small-ish starters they need to hide. That's the problem
It will be crazy if a team has 4-5 injuries (very common during the regular season) then gets hit with 5 cases of Covid... all the sudden they will struggle to dress enough guys.
...which will be his position in the starting lineup and which "option" he is on offense by the end of the year if he can stay healthy. I fully believe Dame/CJ/RoCo/Giles/Nurk could be a championship-caliber lineup.
giles with the starters is interesting, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw him in there vs teams that play bigger. I think his passing ability gives him an edge over Collins, and his defensive metrics look encouraging. He’s also shown to be a better rebounder. Collins is the better shooter and rim protector though. Shit, I would even like to see them together.
Wow. I hope you’re right, but having seen nothing but highlight videos, I think I’ll reserve judgement for a bit.
This is dumb. Simons got his chance last year but he acting like he never played. But I am hopeful he can improve but he ain’t getting playing time with Dame, CJ, and Trent with occasionally Hood all locking up mins at guard spots
The thing I liked about Simons interview is he’s at least admitting he needs to get better defensively and is taking a proactive approach in doing so (seeking out Covington, etc) When has CJ ever shown that kind of self awareness? He actually thinks he’s a good defender. Even the other day when he was asked about defense and how dame has made it an emphasis he gave a vague “yeah me and him need to get better” that sounded more like he was just saying what people wanted to hear.
<Mike Barrett> Dame looks better than ever, shooting from mid court like it’s a free throw CJ (not the new one) was defensively squashing ant. Wasn’t able to stop Simons but the ant infestation is over Hood moving like he’s 25 again - looks incredible Trent, RoCo & DJJ playing defensive HORSE (taking turns seeing who can do a better job of stopping Dame). Blazers poised to be a defensive juggernaut this year Collins coolly draining threes from his wheelchair Stott’s has indicated defense will be a priority this year He is expecting the CJ assist rate and defensive rating to improve as well - “after all, we have two of them now, bound to improve” </Mike Barrett>
That struck me the same way. It's coming across like he never saw the court. He had many opportunities and it was just....ugly most of the time.
An entire article about Rodney Hood and apparently the reporter never asks him if he feels like he is 100% physically now. https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/...a-new-perspective-on-life-and-basketball.html
The contrast between the Simons interviews and the Trent interviews is so stark. Ant got hit HARD (by portland media standards anyway) about underperforming, while GT got just cupcake questions. You have to think how the general sentiment would be if Neil hadn't been so over the top in his praise for Ant last year
