What is the core issue with this team?

So you wanted to trade him and are now complaining that Olshey traded him? You also didn’t think he was good defensively and wondered what happened to his shooting, but now he’s going to blow up when he’s having the same issues in Toronto? Just stop please.

 

I think it's complicated. Ideally we wouldn't HAVE Carmelo. But since we have Carmelo, and he's looked up to by a lot of players, you cannot just not play him and have that create a problem. And besides, he genuinely can create buckets - that's one thing he's historically good at. So how to use him? Not in the fucking starting lineup (thank CHRIST we've moved past that) so off the bench. And you can't just play him garbage minutes, because see earlier. But wait, we also have Kanter. He's also got undeniable strengths, and to his credit, Stotts has got more positive good out of Kanter than any other coach. But... playing him alongside CJ and Dame? Only in emergencies. So: play him alongside Melo? I guess you have to.

tl;dr:THERE'S NO "CORRECT" WAY TO USE THIS FUCKING ROSTER

 

"I like this schedule" he says through gritted teeth, as another team blows out the Blazers with contemptuous ease

 

Ahem: that's what the "like" button is for

 

Because we could have traded Trent for a player at a position that we WOULD have paid. It never made sense to pay starter money to Trent while we still had CJ. The same issue applies with Norm, except we don't have any leverage with Norm. He's a UFA. I wanted to trade Trent for a forward.

 

Exactly. This is a huge factor, probably the largest (no pun intended). In fact, in this sense, the roster is upside-down. It's small at every position except center and at center they have a huge lumbering man when that's really not what you want anymore. A correctly constructed roster would have taller players at nearly every position and a lighter, more fluid player at center.

Even if the team has a few isolated good defenders on the roster, the Blazers are poorly constructed overall to defend and, in addition, they also have awful defenders who have to be key reserves (because they have no real talent beyond them). It's not Stotts' fault for playing Melo and Kanter--the roster forces him to play them significant minutes. You can complain about playing them together, sure, but it's not clear whether it's worse to play them together or to separate their minutes and essentially ensure one of them is on the court at all times sabotaging the defense.

I don't think Stotts is a great coach, but I also don't think Popovich or Thibodeau would be getting significantly better defense out of this roster. When it comes to defense, it's broken at the construction level.

 

You think that's shitting on him?

Yes. I wanted to trade him, but not for another shooting guard who is a UFA. Why trade a young asset and get nothing in return? Now, if we deal CJ and re-sign Norm, that's cool. I'm ok with that, but I'm hot going to hold my breath.

Anyone can cherry pick out comments. Go look at what I said when the trade was first announced. I didn't like it then either.

You stop.

 

Obviously there's an important element that us keyboard warriors know nothing about: the locker room (AKA team dynamics). Managing that is an element of coaching that we are entirely ignorant of, and that Stotts has to care deeply about, because it's the difference between a team caring and a team not caring. Now, some of you will instantly say that it's obvious that the team doesn't care and that Stotts has already lost it. I disagree. You have no idea how much worse it could get.

 

Sure we do, we have seen it happen before with Dunleavy and McMillan. But it sure seems like the team is headed that direction.

Dame is out there talking about heart and pride, but the fact is that I think a lot of the guys are probably tired of watching him, CJ, and Melo jack up shots and not move the ball or play a lick of defense.

 

I am sure that Olshey tested the market for Trent with other teams before making the deal for Powell. I see this decision as an attempt by Olshey to try a 3 guard lineup to see if it can solve the issue of Lillard getting constantly blitzed. So far, results are mixed, but not overly encouraging. Stotts and the team have the rest of the regular season to see if there's something there that works. The Blazers do have the leverage with Powell of holding his Bird rights and being able to offer a bigger contract if they so choose. If Powell is happy here and thinks things are on the upswing, there's really no reason that he wouldn't consider re-signing here. If he does, then Olshey would have the option next summer to make a commitment to Powell at SG and potentially trading CJ for a position of need.

 

This is exactly correct!

 

We got a better player, what are you talking about? Are you talking about free agency? The majority of the league will be over the cap, and the ones with space probably won’t be planning their summers around Norman Powell. If Powell doesn’t stay, good chance there will be sign and trade opportunities. But that’s a long ways away. A lot can change, we might not even have the same front office/coaching staff. Can cross that bridge when we get there.

 

coaching.

coaching.

coaching.

put even an average NBA coach on this roster and we'd be better. I really think our personnel is not significantly worse than any of the western teams above us. the only two reasons why we sustained those injuries earlier were because of Dame and our depth. people have conveniently ignored this.

 

No, Powell is not that much better and still undersized but I think CJ may have more value in a trade for somebody bigger. And CJ and his salary need to go out if we want to afford a bigger star.

 

It's interesting to think about what could be done with the roster if Zach Collins could ever get healthy. Then you could either go big with a lineup of Nurk, Collins, RoCo, Powell, and Dame, or decide to go small and use Zach at center with RoCo and the 3-guard lineup. There are endless options to vary the roster between those extremes. A healthy Zach, or another player with his size and skill set, would make a huge difference for this team.

 

Back court defense. Its like owning a Corvette and expecting to haul ass through deep dry sand. Wont happen. So, you get the best four wheel drive with power.
If Portland had at least one lock down defender and another decent defender in the back court with the rest of the team as is, it would work much better. The other guys could offset some scoring lost by giving up scoring guards.
We also, need a true point guard as a back up.

 

I call bollocks. Pop and Thib would not let this kind of lazy effort from any players. It seems like they - Stotts, CJ and Dame are frustrated about all this stupid basketball questions when they have such an interesting live after games are over.

Why don't we have a posts about CJ and wine on this forum? We probably should.
CJ would probably be more involved than in reading about defense again.

You probably rite about the roster, but how can you be competitive if you don't really care? Our core is Dame and CJ. They seem to be slightly smarter than... some other players. That is the problem as well.

 

I always waver on how Melo came to be here this year. Is Stotts so clueless that he actually told Olshey that Melo would be a helpful addition? Or is Olshey determined to get into the lottery and not lose that valuable pick this year in a good draft? The thing is, Olshey signed Melo before Nurk got injured and Zach re-injured so I think at that time he intended to go for it all. So, the signing of Melo seems to be just a massive talent evaluation mistake.

 

Yes. I'm talking about free agency. It's the same problem we were facing with Trent. If we bring him back while keeping CJ, we're sinking a huge number of our cap into three guards. If we trade CJ, problem solved.