How many games are we going to lose before Nate wakes up and sets a consistent rotation? Batum needs starters minutes. Rudy needs starters minutes. Bayless needs to play ahead of Sergio. Come on Nate, the West is too tough to crawl out of a huge hole.
Hi Hanky, it's becoming "painfully" obvious that we may as well give Rudy especially and Batum/Bayless and even sergio more time. TO and Blake should be the main minute "sufferers" IMO.
I guess I just don't understand why we seem like the only team in the NBA without clearly defined roles and rotations. Isn't that what the preseason is for, to work out all these issues? I understand Webster going down and Oden being hurt changes things a bit.. but we seem so unclear from game to game on what we want to do and where we want to go... it's frustrating to watch.
Couldn't agree with you more Hank. The only thing I question is how to get Rudy starter minutes. He and Roy seem to have a hard time playing together at this point in the backcourt. If you move Rudy or Roy to the 3 then Batum's minutes will get eaten into. My rotation goes like this once everyone is healthy Rudy 30 Roy 35 Batum 28 Aldridge 35 Oden 30 Bayless 12 Outlaw 15 Webster 28 Joel 18 Blake 9 Rudy, Roy, Batum, Aldridge, Oden should start. It's Nate's job to figure out a scheme where both Rudy and Roy can work well together. If it were me I would scrap the pick and pop....no one rolls....and go with more of a motion offense that can take advantage of our length and slashing ability.
The key to that is more practice time for Rudy in the first unit. Every single practice report from Blazers Edge has said that Rudy has always played with the second unit. WTF.
Great point. My ideal guard rotation is Roy, Rudy and Bayless. All attack the rim, and all can defend at least adequately Defense is what this team needs a lot of. Bayless, Batum and Rudy are all better than Blake and Travis
Well, we also have the second youngest team in the league. And we added three rookies to our rotation. And one of them (Batum) came out of nowhere to make a really great argument for the starting position. And another of them (Rodriguez) seems to have corrected a huge hole in his game over the summer (shooting). And another one of them dominated in summer league, which puts him at least in the argument for a 20 mpg spot. And we've had an incredibly tough opening schedule that's forced us to adapt to a lot of great individual opponents. And, as you point out, two of our main rotation players (Oden and Webster) have been injured. And Roy and Frye had offseason injuries that stunted their progress. And it's going to take some time to figure out how to deal with the fact that arguably our two best players (Roy and Fernandez) play the same position. And frankly Roy just hasn't been that great so far this season. I'm not a Nate apologist. I'm frustrated that he hasn't tried a starting lineup of Roy/Rudy/Batum/Aldridge/Przy. But that's a lot of pretty good reasons why Nate hasn't settled on a regular rotation by the fourth game of the season. I don't see how any responsible coach do anything but experiment with a lot of different lineups to see what works. Hopefully he'll give my preferred lineup a shot next.
All I've heard from McMillan since he's been here is he's trying to find a unit that works well together.
I wouldn't slash Outlaw's minutes, he has been one of the only Blazers to hit the open jumper. He's been play solid defense and moving the ball well. I do think Nate needs to get on him about attacking the hoop. We simply have too many "good" players, we need to trade a few up them for an upgrade.
What games have you been watching? Travis makes our offense worse because he has no clue how to space properly. His defense is the worst on the team by a long shot. And his best pass this season has come from his ass.
It seems to me that other teams have actually scouted Travis and are prepared for his "dribble left once, jump and shoot" move. He doesn't have any other moves available. That said, he has hit a ton of 3 point shots. I don't think TO can attack the hoop because his handle is not too good and his hands are really small. I like Travis alright, but I think Rudy gives us all that TO does, plus a whole lot more. Oh, and Batum should have been in the game for the last 5 minutes. He crashes the boards and we needed rebounds bad.
Nate gets a lot of the blame, but some of it should point back to Pritchard who has made a point of bringing in players that can play multiple positions. That doesn't sound bad on the surface, but it creates a lot of overlap and players without clearly defined roles.
This is a great point, even last night when they were playing together, Mike Barrett talked about how they had not seen it in practice because they have not practiced together on the same team. How many fucking weeks of practicing together should it take for guys who are going to be playing together at the end of the game to get a run together in practice? Secondly, look at the +/- while Batum is in. Blazers win quarters he is in. As said before I would go with Roy, Rudy, Batum, Aldridge and Pryzbilla until Oden comes back. Also I would like to note from last night, there was a 1 minute period where Roy, Rudy, Outlaw, Aldridge and Frye were in. They were playing great for that brief stretch before Nate yanked a few of the players, and it fell apart. The thing I would point out though, is everybody on that unit could score. It is one of the only lineups the team has where you can not lay off anybody, double anybody, etc. Nate should think about that.
Yeah, in a way he has been fine. The thing is... Batum or Outlaw? Batum by far.... and then when Rudy/Roy play together, a lot of the time one plays SF, that also cuts TOs minutes.... 15mpg for Travis is what it should be, imo... make him the backup PF... don't play Frye... The thing i'm struggling with is backup PG... I think we should cut Blake's minutes and give those to Bayless... get Sergio and Bayless in for about 10mpg... Blake about 15.... that leaves 13mpg at the PG spot for Rudy and Roy to play together without cutting into Batum's minutes too bad... and if TO is backup PF it works for everyone... 1. He is better at PF 2. Frye isn't that good 3. It opens up more time for Batum everyone is a winner, imo. As Bayless gets better (and from Preseason and his limited time this year he DOES look like a willing passer... not a pure PG but just what we need on almost every facet of his game) we can give him more minutes until him and Blake switch roles, but Sergio's minutes should not be cut. Like Wheels was saying earlier, Bayless is fighting for minutes with Blake not Sergio. For now i'd do... Blake (15) | Rudy (13) | Sergio (10) | Bayless (10) Roy (35) | Rudy (13) Batum (30) | Rudy (8) | Roy (4) | Outlaw (6) Aldridge (35) | Outlaw (13) Przybilla (30) | Aldridge (5) | Frye (13) Pretty much this gets 30+mpg for our big 4... And then by game 25 once we are out of this hell (schedule) and once our players continue to progress... Bayless (25) | Sergio (12) | Rudy (11) Roy (35) | Rudy (13) Batum (27) | Webster (15) | Rudy (6) Aldridge (35) | Outlaw (13) Oden (30) | Przybilla (15) | Aldridge (3) This also gets us 30+mpg for our big 4 and gives us a good defensive starting unit with the right role players and more attacking the rim. And then we can cut it to an 8-9 man rotation in the playoffs... Bayless/Roy/Rudy.... Batum/Webster... Aldridge/Outlaw/Oden... spot minutes = Blake/Przybilla (vets) Obviously it isn't too well thought out... but it has my main point... We start a very good defensive team in Bayless/Batum/Oden... our best players play minutes... pretty much what i was going for.
If Portland has a disappointing season, I mean with the expectations and all, do you guys think Nate will get the axe and a new coach be brought in?
Post of the day hanky! Why can everyone else see this and Nate not? I would bet that this is driving KP nuts. Maybe he pulls a Popovich and takes over the team j/k
For what it's worth, they had a Nate sound bite the other day on 1080 saying he was going to start looking at Rudy with the starters. So, his status may soon change. No kidding. Or at least getting extended minutes together somewhere during the course of a game. But it is only the 4th game of the year. Another thing to consider is the versatility of all 3 wing players. They all make good decisions with the ball and understand proper spacing. They all are decent to good ballhandlers. I think any of the three could bring the ball up and start the offense. They could rotate who does based on strength of matchups. What is Nate's justification for playing Blake? He isn't careless with the ball, he understands where guys are supposed to be, he trusts him to make the right decision. None of the aforementioned three can do these things?? I understand the problem on defense and where Blake is valuable chasing smaller players, and probably neither Rudy or Roy would be good in that role. Heck, Rudy looked really gassed to me in the second half last night. But why not Batum who has the necessary quickness and length to give smaller players fits? Or exclusively play zone? Or maybe by playing big and playing well, force the other team to match up with us and pull their speedy, quicker guards? I dunno, it's an experiment worth committing to in my eyes.
