Can Dame and CJ contend for a title together?

Agreed... If Nurk could raise his game to an all-star level and become our 2nd best player, that would change the trajectory of this team. Unfortunately, this seems highly unlikely.

 

No

 

so what...that's irrelevant because the Blazers don't have:

* 4 all-stars on the roster
* 4 players who have been named all-NBA
* a DPOY and 3 other players who have been on all-NBA defensive teams
* 5 starting level 2-way players in the 6'6-6'8 range
* a 6'7 backup PG

* what the Blazers do have that the warriors didn't was 3 starters under 6'4.

* what the Blazers don't have that the Warriors did is the talent to win 67 games this season and 73 games next season. Coincidentally, that's also what Kerr had that Billups doesn't

 

Well put... The hope that this team, with a top 5 of all vets, will make the same jump as that Warriors team who's core was significantly younger is really trying to talk yourself into something that isn't there.

 

4 All Stars with two league MVPs on the roster would be nice though.
Billups would be looking like a HOF coach.

 

100%... Talent have proven time and time again to make coaches look good/bad very quickly.

 

Yes looking at the Warriors now after they have won a title and those accolades its easy to say that.

But what Eric said back at that time did have some truth, the Warriors lost in the first round the previous year and were not considered an elite title threat. Even when they started to dominate the regular season many if not a majority of fans and analysts said a jump shooting team such as them would never win in the playoffs. Until they did.

 

Yes

if the rest of the team was absolutely stacked

Which it is not and will not ever be

 

Not to mention, apparently clairvoyant.

 

he didn't say it 'back at the time'...he said it yesterday

 

correct

 

If Nurk comes in this season and dunks everything he should, if he uses his great footwork to get them set before he goes up inside, if he has developed a jumper he can knock down when open and ventures out to make those shots, if he can stay out of foul trouble and above all else stay healthy then he will be our clear second best player and we could be playing for home court in the first round. If that happens plus Dame and CJ become a competent defensive back court and Norm's size doesn't limit him defensively then we can be competitive against any team. If Ant and Nas make a big leap forward, our bench will be elite and we won't have to play catch up with our starters. With all of that, if coach Billups is a genius at in game adjustments we'll win a ton in both the regular and post season.

All of those things have to happen and including Nurk the rest of the team has to be healthy for us to contend. I don't know if it's likely that even one of those things happens let alone all of them.

 

Yes

 

I would say it is likely that at least one of those things happen, but unlikely that all happen.

 

I don't know which one but maybe the odds are on the side of one of them happening. That won't be enough. Then we'll either hear more excuses, see major moves to actually try and get us into contending status or maybe Dame will ask out after an even more frustrating end to our season. Then again maybe they defy the odds and most of that shit happens even though I don't think it will (I'm wrong a lot) and we will make steps towards contending that make all of us happy.

I do think that Neil should be fired if this team doesn't win a game in the WCF. Making it without a win has been his high water mark and he should have to exceed that to make it past his tenth season.

 

Here is some stuff from Zach Lowe; he is kind of like a lot of us; not sure what to think about this team:
“And you think, well, they lost in six games to a Denver team that did not have any of its starting guards really.”

“Denver won that six-game series by eight points so Portland was minus eight for the series. Portland’s starting five was plus 47 for the series, that means every other lineup took a big old dump on the court and they were minus 55 in all other lineup minutes.”

He added that while the addition of Larry Nance Jr. was a clear improvement for the bench, there were still questions about the Blazers and their place in the Western Conference.

The thing that made me swing back to where well maybe I’m pessimistic is the rest of the team is like all unproven guys, now maybe this is finally the year Anfernee Simons makes a leap, he’s shown flashes here and there, he’s shot it well here, he didn’t shoot it well there.

Snell hasn’t missed a shot in three years and yet still doesn’t really get a lot of playing time, think about that, think about he doesn’t miss threes or free throws and he still doesn’t play very much, Ben McLemore, fine.

Nassir Little, Cody Zeller as a backup five, I actually think I’d rather use Nance Jr. as a back up five if I could, I’m not sure I can, than Cody Zeller.

Once I get by guy number six, I’m counting on too many unproven guys for my taste or guys that have proven to be not playoff rotation-worthy guys. That worries me.


If I don’t get enough out of Simons, Snell and McLemore as my back up wings, maybe I will, they’re such good shooters playing with CJ and Dame, maybe they’ll just knock down a million shots and this will look foolish.

Then I might have to play RoCo (Robert Covington) more as a three and go Covington, Nance Jr., Nurkic because again this team was the worst defensive teams among teams that were trying to win at the end of the season. And RoCo at the three gets a little creaky, a little slow, a little creaky, a little big, maybe it works defensively and not offensively. I’m not sure ultimately what I think of this team.

It’s the bench to me that is the wildcard, and if the bench doesn’t bring enough, man the west is no joke. I don’t know what I think about Portland.

 

You can really say with a straight face that Dame was "not frustrated" with this team this summer? There are literal quotes from him. I understand drinking the Kool Aid, but this is just ignorance of facts.

 

He claims to have watched the pre Japan presser multiple times and the guy still says shit like this. It's not ignorance, it's pure denial.

 

Frustrated? Sure. Who can blame him for being frustrated after losing to the Nuggets when they were missing Murray and Barton? He was also correct for saying that last year’s team wasn’t good enough to contend and for putting pressure on Olshey to make moves to address that. Where I question the conventional wisdom expressed around here by so many is the assumption that he was mainly talking about top-end talent. I think Zach Lowe’s assessment quoted above is correct. The biggest problem for the Blazers was not the starters, it was the bench. Olshey made some pretty good moves to shore that up, replacing crappy defenders with solid ones and adding consistent shooters in McLemore and Snell. I think it’s hardly a given that Dame is keen to see his buddy CJ shipped off for a questionable scorer in Simmons. Dame says he’s all-in for this season. Things can change if the wins aren’t there, but I think the roster is set at least until around the trade deadline.