Chauncey Billups shares his plan to improve Portland Trail Blazers

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by SlyPokerDog, Aug 15, 2021.

  1. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

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    You are arguing with the NBA's official statistics. It is what it is, if you claim they made a mistake - take it with them, not me. The definite numbers we have from the NBA paint a very clear picture - the issue is not with that group - it is the fact that they can not play together all the time and the rest of the roster is mostly sub-par defensively.

    These guys played only 18 minutes per game on average as a unit - and during that time - they were excellent.
     
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  2. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

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    The sample size from both the regular season + playoffs is significant and not just one team.

    Yes, removing EK and Melo is an upgrade defensively, but likely lost on offense. Is it enough? Not imho.

    Agree. One more thing that could help is health, of course.
     
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  3. Zach Collins Enthusiast

    Zach Collins Enthusiast Bored

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    Don't forget my man CJ Elleby. He is a defensive force!
     
  4. blazerkor

    blazerkor Well-Known Member

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    Will health help? We had our highest winning percentage during the games that CJ and Nurk were hurt. People can throw out strength of schedule but the only thing that kept last season from being an unmitigated disaster was teams not wanting to play the Lakers and therefore intentionally losing to us in the last couple weeks of the season.
     
  5. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    ok...I get your point, but I'm not sure what difference it makes. Those 5 can't each play 48 minutes; and they can't play 33 minutes a game with each other. There has to be rotation

    and looking at those numbers, I'm finding it really hard to believe that Portland's starters were +33.6 better than Denver's starters; especially considering that CJ was -19 and Simons was +19
     
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  6. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

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    100% in agreement here.

    I have no idea if Portland's starting unit played all the time they did against Denver's starting unit, but I am not really that surprised that Portland's full-strength starting unit was capable against the Nuggets -2 starters. The problem Portland had and continues to have - is that there is such a big drop-off after that. Portland's roster is very top-heavy and that's an issue.
     
  7. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    sure...that's true

    and again, I think rebounding is often overlooked. It will take a hell of a lot of evidence to convince me that going with a pair of forwards who are 6'7 and 6'3 is a good idea, especially when they have a combined rebounding rate of around 8%. That's pathetic
     
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  8. Freshtown

    Freshtown Well-Known Member

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    It’s very healthy that we are putting the expectation on Chauncey to take a first round exit team to the finals in his first season as coach without any roster improvement. Good stuff.
     
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  9. All Net

    All Net Member

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    Oh, great, it’s miracle time again in Portland. No other organization in the NBA believes in “magical thinking” like we do. The idea that Billups is going to get Lillard and McCollum to play defense is silly. If these guys could play defense—or had any interest in playing defense—they would have done it years ago.
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2021
  10. Fairly-Hard

    Fairly-Hard Former Member Gone New!

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    Might help to stay healthy and not have to sign a dude that is pretty much out of the league and expect him to give you 30-35 mins a night?
    If Nurk and Roco or CJ go down I won’t expect much.
     
  11. All Net

    All Net Member

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    Sorry, but I don’t buy it. The idea that the Blazers didn’t play defense because Stotts didn’t stress it is ridiculous. It’s much more likely that Stotts couldn’t get Lillard and McCollum to play defense, so he just made the best of it.
     
  12. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

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    I am not going to pretend to be good enough to understand the nuances of NBA level basketball - but I work enough with data scientists to be able to read data.

    From the first link I sent about the 5 units with enough games / minutes from the entire NBA sorted by defensive rating:

    https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/a...easonType=Regular Season&CF=GP*G*15:MIN*G*300

    You can see that that unit had a TRB% of 50.9 which is reasonable. They got more rebounds than what they lost. They were not dominant, but they were OK. It is interesting to see that they were very bad in ORB% and very good in DRB% - since it was such a good offensive unit - one suspects that there were not many potential offensive rebounds to take and there is a good chance that they just emphasized going back on D after a shot attempt. On the other hand, their excellent defensive rebound % fits with your narrative that rebounding is very important. Why and how they managed to have such good defensive rebounding - I do not really know, this is where the basketball minds can come into play and analyze it.
     
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  13. Hoopguru

    Hoopguru Well-Known Member

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    win/share and there ranking amongst all players.
     
  14. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    bs...I just watched Dame play good defense in the Olympics...defense is a team skill...not a personality trait..it's choreography not isolation...Chauncey did not start his career being a great two way player....he became one ..the idea that you can't coach athletes throughout their careers is a stretch....these guys aren't 40 years old...just watched Luke Longley doc and he talked about how much his game transformed when MJ came back to the Bulls...let's just say he changed his stripes quite a bit...Dame gets better every damned year...respect..pass it on...haven't heard anyone around here crown us champions next year either...making the playoffs is step A for every team in the league...we're no different..nothing "magical" about it...it's a process
     
  15. Hoopguru

    Hoopguru Well-Known Member

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  16. All Net

    All Net Member

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    So Dame played good defense in the Olympics but hasn’t been able to do it for the last 9 years in Portland? Kind of a head scratcher, isn’t it?
     
  17. illmatic99

    illmatic99 formerly yuyuza1

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    lol dame did not play good defense in the Olympics. He was by far the worst defender on team USA and opponents were repeatedly targeting him on every possession.
     
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  18. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    disagree...many people noted that he had more impact on defense than on offense in the Olympics but whatever..I thought he was really aggressive on D....I only saw two of his games..the other two I just listened to...
     
  19. illmatic99

    illmatic99 formerly yuyuza1

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    you can't just say stuff that is blatantly wrong and say "but whatever" haha
     
  20. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    Dame was on two top 10 defensive Blazer teams over that stretch...and he's played great defense for parts of games that got us back in them over those 9 years...sometimes resulting in wins...he's never been a 4 qtr a game defender but when we needed to lock in he could do it ...he had too much offensive load to have legs on that side of the ball more often than not..and again..defense is a TEAM skill...it takes 5 guys to defend...we haven't had that for 7 of his 9 seasons
     

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