I prefer to have one team in the finals that I can at least partially root for. Both those two teams with their multiple obnoxious arrogant players (and fan base) are about as bad as it gets. Hopefully one of them will lose in the conference finals so at least there will be one team I could pull for.
No, but since the complaint started off about lack of height on the team, I brought up Nance. But Mitchell also has to defend someone. He's 6'1", so he's pretty much stuck defending Damian, CJ or Norman. It goes both ways.
You you sir would miss out on a classic series loaded with future Hall of Famers. As a fan of the game of basketball, I wouldn’t miss that for the world.
The one I like about that clip about Nance is that he battle a lot bigger guy but with active hands. Plus he also contest shots with his hands up.
Baze is two inches taller with the same wingspan and a wider base... when you're getting down under 6'4" those things matter. Do some in here have selective amnesia of the Nuggets forwards pulling up over Norm at will and hitting jumper after jumper in the mid to close range?
and some people have selective amnesia on just how much a teams collective defensive scheme plays a huge role?
interesting arguments here Nance vs Embiid? what does that show? that the Blazers will bench Nurkic when they face Philly? Need to see Nance defending Giannis or Durant or AD or Doncic or PG13. Those would be better gauges than him periodically harassing a C and Powell? it sure looked to me like he was overrated as a defender when he arrived in Portland last year. He's more consistent on defense than Dame or CJ, but he sure isn't a lock-down defender. And he got blitzed by Michael Porter Jr. Powell's biggest liability is he's a poor rebounder for a forward. The year Portland won 53 games and made it to the WCF, the Blazers led the league in offensive rebounding and were 9th in defensive rebounding. last season, Portland was 11th in offensive rebounding and 19th in defensive rebounding. And that's with the dominant rebounding of Kanter. At this point, I'm a lot more concerned with rebounding than I am with defense. That's not to say that a mediocre rebounding team can't be a contender, but usually, teams like that have some other elite attributes. I'm not seeing anywhere where Portland is really elite unless it all starts with Dame, as usual
I think people are missing the forest through the trees. I'm guilty of it too. Chauncey and a lot of you guys are right that our lineup is fairly in line with some others in the west. And everyone is correct in that in the regular season, it's easy to come up with workarounds to mitigate this issue. The point here is that ultimately we still have a primary wing defender who is 6'3 and we could use another swing guy who is like 6'8 with long arms who can move his feet and also physically be capable enough to throw on guys like Kawhi/Lebron/Luka for 15-20 mpg in a playoff game, without having a drop off on the other end (obviously, these guys aren't easy to find). While Nance was a very welcome addition (that I had fully supported getting before we did), he's not a guy who you can switch onto point guards if we were to play a switching defense. He can move his feet well but it's not sustainable. Getting another player could allow Chauncey to play different kinds of defenses and remove yet another piece to hide on defense (while he's already doing that with Dame/CJ). I think that's the one piece that can elevate this team from having a ceiling in the 2nd round to potentially coming out of the west.
Yeah that’s fine but norm is a better defender. Same wingspan? I feel like it’s favor of norm considering he’s shorter than baze. I don’t consider baze a “good” defender. Melo is 6’8 and he’s the worst defender in the nba
Early Prediction: Early on, Blazers will beat nonplayoff teams, but struggle against playoff teams, but the team will play harder than they have in the past. We'll see a series of small mistakes every game. The boards will rage. Laker will play well - their 4th and 5th guys will be getting superstar calls @HCP will tell everyone how smart he is. Trade thread will dominate. Everyone will ask "what's wrong with Lillard." The team's defense will be around 14th, but where did the offense go? Then, the team will start making fewer mistakes, and pick up some quality wins. We'll have a win streak that will awaken the casuals. Charles Barkley will predict that we win the championship. The boards will insist that Ant and Nas should have been allstars, or at least be future allstars. Ditto with Dame and MVP, and Billups for COY. We'll establish ourselves as one of the top teams in the league. Then, the playoffs will start. No more predictions. With the balance of quality in the league, what actually happens in the playoffs will be really health and matchup dependent. #ThisShitisStraightOuttaHoosiersYoullSee
We'll see, I really do hope you're right. Edit: I actually hope we won't see because I'm still hoping we trade CJ+ for Simmons so we can have a balanced roster that makes sense.
Porter Jr. essentially got a max contract off his play against Powell. Dude averaged 19/7 on 54/42/92 splits against Norm, and that includes his stinker in Game 4 when he had just 3 pts.
If that's happening we see if Billups adjust who defending taller guys. Powell going start and if he holding his own that game then he will stick with him at 3 but if he getting lit up then hopefully Billups will adjust by putting bigger out there.
Powell is being sabotaged. He is a helluva defender but he's a really good defensive guard, not forward. The team is doing him a great disservice by playing him at a position that he should only have to switch onto for small bursts of time and sporadic plays instead of being his main assignment.
I don't believe this is the reason he got a max contract...he got the contract because he's worth it against any player he's matched up with....no need to throw Norm under the bus for that series...that kid is going to be a star...Norm is not...he's a solid piece but not a star...also our isolation defense is why we sucked against denver....not team defense...this is where we address that with a new coach...Dame and CJ weren't making Norm look good on defense either and they should be connected on that side of the court...I keep harping on how great defenses are 5 guys on a string...not individuals stopping players
