I think Bayless has the capabilities to be a good PG....IMO he will always be more of a scoring PG than a passing one, and frankly that isn't a bad thing on this team b\c right now the starting unit needs someone else to step up and be a consistent scorer besides Roy & Aldridge....I think Oden may eventually develop into that guy....but it could as easily be someone else like Bayless.... As for proof? In the games I have watched Bayless has shown a good ability to get the ball to teamates in a position to score...he has made some very good passes...He has also made some poor passes...but I don't think this is uncommon for a young PG coming into the league, and Sergio (who I think has very good court vision) still makes some careless passes...So I do think the court vision is there for Bayless, which is important... I like Bayless Tenacious defense...I like his willingness to attack the basket...although he has to learn how to finish, b\c what worked for him in college (and in summer league) doesn't necessarily work in the NBA....but he is drawing some fouls.....and he needs to work on his outside shooting, which has not been as good as he showed in college......but I think both of these can be corrected given time and effort....which he has shown he is not lacking from.... Basically, he just needs more game time to learn how to run the sets and sharpen his PG abilities... I don't buy that he is and always will be a SG....I think he has shown the ability to play the PG role, but I think he just needs more time to acclimate himself to that role for POR....and I think a major component of that comes from playing in games....
Sergio only logged 5 minutes last night. Back to the dog house for him, unless Nate continues his sporadic substitutions. I'm counting down the days until Sergio starts pouting to the media again.
I am counting them down until he is traded. Not that I really want him traded or not, but I think it's gonna happen.
Links please? Who are these "league GM's" that have compared Sergio to Jason Kidd, Steve Nash and Chris Paul? For the life of me, I can't recall, or even imagine, any "league GM" comparing Sergio Rodriguez to Chris Paul. Let me guess "anonymous source". If you're going to insist others only support their arguments with verifiable facts, I ask that you hold yourself to the same standard. I really am beginning to wonder if you are, in fact, John Canzano. You seem to want to hold everyone else to a "higher standard", but at the same time seem inclined to make up facts, or discount those presented by others, in order to fit your personal agenda. BNM
Bayless is probably not a pure point guard at the NBA level. That would be a problem for many teams, but it probably isn't for Portland, since they have a shooting guard who can direct an offense, in Roy. Roy, of course, is also not a pure point guard...the answer is not to put in place a pure point guard and take the ball entirely out of Roy's hands. The answer, in my opinion, is to play him alongside a guard who can shoot the ball, drive and dish to teammates, bring the ball up the floor against pressure, occasionally set up the offense and defend opposing point guards. In other words, a guard who can take on some, not all, of the play-making duties by drawing the defense due to his own scoring ability and then dropping it off for open teammates. Bayless is a combo guard who seems ideal to play alongside Roy. No need to prove that he's a true point guard. He doesn't need to be.
Am I the only one seeing the irony of Mairis slagging on a rookie POINT GUARD, and especially harping on his shooting statistics when he's averaging about 7 minutes a game with 20 DNPs? If I had the energy or wherewithal to search for it on BBF I could probably resurrect 20 threads started or commented on by Maris bemoaning Sergio's lack of PT as the primary cause of chacho's poor production. What's so different here?
Being a point guard isn't just passing. Sergio can't hit a jumper to save his life most games. You point to Bayless' shooting percentage, but you fail to mention that your boy is shooting 35.5% from the field and a whopping 29.6% from downtown. In Nate's system we run a high pick-and-roll. What good is Sergio if he can't make a team pay for sagging off him? Blake has become our most effective point guard because he can consistently hit the open three. From what I've seen, Sergio's man can lay back and let him shoot all night.
I don't really see why it's Bayless OR Sergio. In terms of playing time? Yes, it is. In terms of potential roles and value to the team? Not at all. Sergio is having a pretty good year. He's had rough stretches, but his shooting seems to have improved (remove the last-second heaves at end of quarters and his 3 point percentage looks markedly better) and his defense isn't much, if any, worse than Blake's. With that said, Sergio's growth has nothing to do with Bayless's potential. Jerryd has demonstrated an ability to get to the rim already, and it's likely that he will be able to guard point guards at a higher level than either Steve or Sergio. He'll never be a pure PG, but he will be able to do things that, currently, only Roy and Oden can do: put pressure on the defense at the rim and get to the line consistently. Ed O.
And if you remove the bonehead rookie mistakes, those qualities make him the clear favorite to start in my book.
Not at this point. But maybe later. See the thing I was looking at is you said "a position he'll clearly never master". To me, there are only a few guys in the league who have "mastered" the PG position. But many of them master it in their own way. Some are a little more score first. Did Chauncy Billups win a championship? Yes he did. Was he a score first PG? Yes, he is. But he plays D and gets a few assist. Not a ton. But enough. How big is he? 6'3" tall. Amazing similarities aren't they? When Chauncy Billups came into the league, they said the same things about him as folks like you do about Bayless now. It took him almost 5 years to hit his stride. You are ready to give up on Bayless 4 months into the season, when it took Chauncy over 5 years to hit his stride? Maybe if Chauncy had not been traded so many times over the first 4 years of his career, and actually allowed to grow into his role, that wouldn't have taken so long. Then I could go the to the other side of the coin. How about Steve Nash, one of the most pure assist guys out there, who can also score well. How many championships has he won? Zero. Secondly-Brandon Roy has said he is not sure he could coexist with a Chris Paul, due to ball domination. Perhaps a guy playing off the ball who can shoot a bit, is the answer. That is a guy with some SG skills. Lastly-I have no problems with Jerryds handle. He has a great dribble and the ability to move through traffic. The passing will come as he gets used to playing with folks. Right now he is just trying to do what he can do, play D, try not to fuck up, hustle, and bring intensity.
Yeah, Boston traded him for Kenny freaking Anderson. Billups bounced around the league until he finally found a home, and he didn't really show what he could do until he got to Denver and Minnesota.
To be honest the best player on this team for passing and getting the ball to the ones who need it may be RUDY! I see Pistol Pete on this kid. He's smart, can kill ya from outside, and sees the court better than anyone we have + he can finish. He'd also be much bigger than any other PG he'd see. The only problem I see with Bayless is his ego may explode out of the arena if he starts playing well and that means he may not distribute the ball well to ROY, LA and Oden. We shall see though!
One has obvious PG attributes and one does not. One has stated he is and wants to be a PG and one has stated he can play PG if that is what the team needs. One has shown the ability to run a professional team quite successfully and one has not. One looks to make the team better and one looks to make himself look better. I actually thought Bayless would make more of an effort at involving the team and I'm astounded at how bad his defense is for a quick guy.
How bad his defense is? Holy shit you are so completely full of crap. Bayless constantly fights through screens and many times, even beats the screener to the spot. Meanwhile, Sergio runs into the screen and looks like a VW bug being hit by a Freight Train doing 75 MPH when he gets taken out, or cheats under and gets burned, or the absolute worse, leaves one of our bigs on a switch with a small guy out on the perimeter, and then people wonder why our bigs are in fouls trouble all the time. Why the fuck do you think they are in foul trouble, they got switched onto a PG on the perimeter.
More confirmation that you don't actually WATCH the games, you just look at stats after the game. The Detroit game was a perfect example of the HUGE gap between the defense played by Bayless (good) and the defense played by Sergio (atrocious). Bayless was hounding Stucky and took him out of his game. Sergio didn't have a snowball's chance. ***The funny thing is, I know for a fact that Central Oregon wasn't getting most of the games on cable until recently. Unless you have some other means of watching, you weren't watching the games we are talking about.
One has obvious PG attributes and one does not. The only attribute you're talking about is passing. One has stated he is and wants to be a PG and one has stated he can play PG if that is what the team needs. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/sports/articles/2008/06/24/20080624bayless0625.html One has shown the ability to run a professional team quite successfully and one has not. Sergio has had 2.5 years to show what he can do, which isn't much.... Bayless has had a couple games. One looks to make the team better and one looks to make himself look better. This is just your own personal opinion. I've never seen anything from Bayless that would indicate this.
If he's a diehard Blazer fan...hooking the HDMI cable from laptop to widescreen is a bit less less quality than the comcast signal.
I'd like to see a tape measure on Bayless. He looks shorter than Sergio and Blake...a couple inches shorter.
I don't have actual measurements on Sergio or Blake, but Bayless measured exactly 6' 3" in shoes at the pro-draft camp. He was 6' 1.75" without shoes. Just for the sake of comparision, here's the measurements of some of the other lottery PG/combo guards from the 2008 draft class: Code: DJ Augustin 5' 10" 5' 11.5" Derrick Rose 6' 1.5" 6' 2.5" Jerryd Bayless 6' 1.75" 6' 3" Eric Gordon 6' 2" 6' 3.25" Russell Westbrook 6' 2.25" 6' 3.5" BNM
