Consider Bayless un-promoted. Or at least, both guys are back in limbo. (Oregonlive) Bayless and Sergio: It's still undecided and it's still a mess
Very interesting stuff. Hopefully one of these guys seizes their chance, and Nate lets them just play their game and play freely. After thinking about it, I really want Sergio to succeed and give us a good 15-20 mins a game but the guy needs to at least try to stay in front of somebody defensively, and show some sort of threat to make a jump shot and not airball it over the rim again. Show some confidence Sergio!
3 years of statements by both have made it clear although KP did address the question with a halfhearted denial once last summer. Anyone who has followed their comments would agree.
I start this by saying i have no hate towards bayless, i don't enjoy watching him play becasue he has done very litttle to imporve our team recently. tortimer get a clue, because Arizona struggle last season when Nic Wise went down to injury and they tried to have bayless run the point. likewise the games bayless sturggled in SL were when they tried to force the PG spot on him. kop ended up running the point much of the time. i don't really know if down the line he develops into a great PG or not but i see him as a decent SG, sorry if my opinion doesn't sit well with you. i think we can all agree that our b/u PG spot has been EXTREMELY lacking since blake came back from his shoulder injury and i think nate fucking with both of them has caused this. don't be surprised to see sergio get some minutes as the b/u cause nate just can't make up his mind.
this is fucking stupid. nate is an idiot and is just screwing with these guys now. i dont' care which one gets the nod at this point but make a decision already. bayless does a better job on d, sergio does a better job running the offense and getting teammates wide open shots, and they both suck shooting the ball. just flip a coin and get on with it.
Coach hasn't really made up his mind. If Bayless wants this spot he better claim it with his play....and do so quickly. His game the other night didn't help him any in his quest for more PT. Otherwise if the offense stalls....there will be another change.....whether Bayless fans like it or not. http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2009/03/bayless_and_sergio_its_still_u.html#more
You know, I don't see a ton of talk about Blake... In 15 games since his return from injury, he's shooting 52-133 (39%) FG. He's 27-65 (41%) on 3's, which is great...but it also mean that when he steps foot inside the 3pt line he's 25-78 (32%). He's averaging about 9ppg, 5.4 apg and 1.4 to (good a/to of about 4:1) in 33mpg. We're 10-5 since he's come back. Trusting Nik's numbers, in the 14 games Blake was out, Baylergio Rex was 46% from the field, 41% 3pt, 17.1 ppg, 7.5apg to 3.7to (2:1 a/to) in 45mpg. And a record of 9-5. But I guess they got lucky during that month. They're barely D-League Material while Blake's having a career year.
Every time Bayless steps on the floor I hope that he will end this debate by playing well. Every time in the last month I have been disappointed. Right now our best option at backup point guard is to have Rudy come in and move Roy to the point until Blake returns. BOTH of the back ups have been unwatchable. Perhaps next year Bayless can make a leap.
It's like I'm invisible sometimes. (BTW you may want to edit the article... pasting the whole article is still a no-no here I believe. It's why I just linked it earlier.) -Tim
Stats...stats and more stats. We see folks throw out this stats or that stat to argue the Sergio/Bayless debate. The facts are neither has stepped up, and there is nothing more futile than trying to argue that one is better than the other when they both have been stinking it up. This would be so easy if one of them would just step up and play well, and gain some consistency in a positive direction. You put in one, he is strong in some ways, weak in others. You put in the other guy, and he is exactly the opposite, strong in every area where the other is weak. I have been saying for a long time, if we could just combine the best features out of the two players, we would have a serious ass point guard. Unfortunately, because we can't, we end up with 2 PG that aren't even holding their own on the court. Extremely frustrating to watch. Please, one of the backup PG step up and start playing well. By the playoffs.
I agree with this, except who's outside shooting would you take. If we could just throw in a dash of Blake and his outside shooting, then we would be talking . . .
Uh, both actually stepped up. That was the point of my "stats...stats and more stats." When Blake wasn't around to relegate them to 3-minute appearances, they performed better than Blake combined, and pretty darn well singly. I totally agree that each really aren't good in their incarnations as less-than-10-mpg backups. But that just means that maybe they shouldn't be in that role, doesn't it?
I don't agree with you saying Bayless struggle at PG when Nic Wise got injured and you need to get a clue.
I agree with you that the short stints hurt their games. I actually felt the Blazers didn't miss a beat when Blake was out, but the facts are, Blake isn't that good. But I am not talking about that. I am talking about how they have played since then. It's pretty obvious Nate isn't going to sit Blake down and give one of them a run. So they have to find a solution, or we need to get to the end of the season so they can retool.
Yeah, that's not how I remember his season at U of A at all. I know this because I watched him as much as possible and hoped the Blazers would somehow be able to steal him in the draft.
If McMillan is determined to give them both time and see if one emerges, I wish he'd do it differently. Rather than trying to alternate them during games, where every little mistake means a quick hook...I'd rather he alternated making each of them the primary backup game by game. That way, in any particular game, whichever is getting run can play with the confidence of knowing that his next mistake doesn't mean the bench. I'd really rather he just picked one for the remainder of this season (and I'd prefer that be Bayless ), but IF he's going to let them both audition, give them longer auditions at a stretch.
This is a nice idea for a team trying to build for the future - but a less reasonable one for a team fighting for the playoffs or playoffs seeding. Nate has, for all practical purposes - done exactly that at the start of the year before the playoffs ramifications came into view - and he gave the almost exclusive backup PG minutes to Sergio. The fact that he went away from that tells you that Sergio did not reward Nate's confidence with his performance - and unfortunately, Bayless is just not consistent at this point to warrant having the time locked his way come high or low. At this point - this team's mission should be making the playoffs with as good a seed as possible first - and developing the backup PG way lower than that. If this means that Nate has to experiment with the backup PG time on a game by game basis based on production - so be it. This is not that important, at this time - in the grand scheme of things, I would guess.
