I spewed coke all over my monitor when I read this gem: http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=26579 Oh it's going to be so fucking sweet to jam his face in this pile of hater shit for the next decade.
Well until somebody else steps up, he is right. I don't see eye to eye with Bill often, but he is right.
What exactly did he say that is wrong? Travis is a bench guy. Blake is a bench guy. Joel is a bench guy. Oden for last year was a bench guy.
I partially agree with him. I am still very frustrated that we didn't trade for a player like Gerald Wallace (assuming he was available) for raef, batum and fillers. Batum has a lot of upside, but Gerald Wallace is a borderline allstar who flirts with triple doubles often... He is what we can only hope Batum gets close to being. I am going to hold judgment until I see what KP pulls off during the off season.
Simmons has held a grudge against Portland since the day they got the #1 pick when Boston had the best chance to get it. Even though everything has worked out fine for the Celtics since that point in time, he's had this weird vendetta against Portland and has struggled to say anything positive about the franchise. Fuck him. -Pop
Interesting since Blake and Joel had career years, and would start on just about any other team in the NBA. And Oden was a freakin' rookie with unreasonable expectations, especially coming off microfracture surgery. Sometimes I think Blazer Fans won't be satisfied without 12 All-Stars/All-NBA players on the roster, and even then, they'll bitch.
What he said wrong is that he used the word talent to describe their play. Sure, Batum, Oden and Bayless played like bench guys - but they are rookies - their talent level is higher than bench guys.They are not developed talent - but the talent is there. The question is - will it be developed properly? Personally - I think we have seen a lot from the coaching staff to show us that they can develop talent. People said Roy is OK but will never be a star. LMA is a softie that will never be a star. Wrong and wrong again. I am willing to bet that in a year or two the unrealized talent of Oden, Batum and Bayless and Rudy's continued transition to the NBA will leave the Blazers with at least 6 good starter-level developed talents on the roster - but the talent is already there. The funny thing is that if Bill is right and the talent on this team is not good - it means that Nate and his staff are absolute magicians to get this no-talent, youngest rotation in the league to 54 wins...
Name 10 teams that Blake would start for (keep in mind you actually said "just about all of them"). Joel would start on several maybe, but not Blake. I am not saying that Oden won't be good, or anything like that. I am saying regardless of circumstances, Oden played well below expectations coming out of college. Here are the teams and who I think Blake would start for, assuming everyone was healthy Blake Eastern Conference Atlanta - Nope (Bibby) Boston - Nope (Rondo) Charlotte - Nope (Felton) Chicago - Nope (Rose) Cleveland - Nope (Williams) Detroit - Nope (Stuckey) Indiana - Nope (Ford) Miami - Nope (Wade or Chalmers) Milwaukee - Nope (Sessions) New Jersey - Nope (Harris) New York - Nope (Duhon) Orlando - Nope (Nelson or Alston) Philadelphia - Nope (Miller) Toronto - Nope (Calderon) Washington - Nope (Arenas) Western conference Dallas - Nope (Kidd) Denver - Nope (Billups) Golden State -Maybe (Ellis or Crawford) Houston - Nope (Brooks) LA Clippers - Nope (Davis) LA L*kers - Nope -(Fisher) Memphis - Nope (Conley) New Orleans - Nope (Paul) Oklahoma City - Maybe (Westbrook) Phoenix - Nope (Nash) Sacramento - Maybe (Udrich) San Antonio - Nope (Parker) Utah - Nope (Williams)
I'm not currently drinking any Coke, so therefore it is imaginary. I laughed at your post, I guess is the main bullet point of this presentation.
Simmons DID go on to compliment McMillan... Bill Simmons: Also like Nate McMillan (despite how he messed up Round One) and I actually think Mike Brown, who was once shaky, has evolved into a really good coach. They are still painful to watch offensively at times but defensively they are superior, and he has to get credit for their chemistry at least a little.
Yeah, he complained about McMillan not drawing Yao out of the paint with Aldridge at C. He thinks we should have gone small ball and used a lineup of something like this: Blake Roy Rudy Outlaw Aldridge We could have run the pick n pop with Roy & Aldridge and got Yao drawn out to 18 feet. It wouldn't have been bad on offense but we would have been abused on defense. Scola and Yao would have had a party in the paint all game long with that lineup of ours.
I'm pretty sure you're over-thinking it. It's more likely he's just an idiot. It hurt to lose the lottery that year, but I haven't come across anybody that was bitter about it after the KG trade. I sometimes think about what it would be like to have Rondo-West-Pierce-Jefferson-Oden, which I think would be a great team, especially with Perkins and Big Baby coming off the bench. But I wouldn't trade the feeling I had last year when the Celtics won for anything.
I've been saying this for 2 years. The "Nate sucks" brigade is delusional about how good some of our players are. Nate got as much as possible out of this team. (during the regular season) Give the guy some credit!
And yet we still won 54 games with a below average point guard and a ton of "bench players". Sorry it's not like are a below .500 team with promising talent, something apparently went very right and it seems that Simmons is having a hard time coming to grips with that.
