He is trying to keep Blakes head from going straight up his ass. Pretty traditional position for a coach to take. The job is Blakes until someone takes it from him. Which they will....in training camp.
Nate actually said that he will be starting the season off with Blake as the starting PG, just like last season. Pretty stupid for him to even comment and elaborate on it. Miller is undoubtedly better.
Seconded. I'm starting to think KP and McMillan need to really stop drinking their own batch of and take off the in regards to their own players. Please don't throw out Sergio and Frye. I mean other then obvious end of the bench guys.
would it be that crazy for blake to start but miller see more minutes just like when batum was the "starting" small forward last season?
Nate's just showing some loyalty to the guy who held the job at the end of the season. There's nothing wrong with a heated competition in trading camp to show who fits best with which lineup -- I'm 99.9% that guy will be Miller -- but I'm down the the "nothing given, everything earned" approach.
Sure. But considering how much of our early offense was centered on getting Aldridge going last season and the hope that Oden can be more than just a rebounding and defensive presence it seems pretty logical that you'd want Miller on the court the majority of the game. In any case, Blake will be a fine 18-20 minute per night guy and depending on matchups he might even be a better option than Miller at times ... I can't think of when any of those times might actually be, but it could come up ... maybe ... I think?
Nate also said Nic is the starter back in June (a position I think he can hold) going into next year ... I guess we'll see what happens.
and really, look through the playoff teams from last year. the lakers(odom), nuggets(jr smith), spurs(manu), blazers, mavs(terry), jazz(kirilenko), cavs(started ben wallace most of the season), heat(beasley), and sixers(started willie green over lou williams) all did not start their best 5. that is 9 of the 16 playoff teams.
Probably just a standard "Blake is our starter until someone beats him out for the position" comment. If not...oy.
batum started last season but he wasn't on the court the majority of the game. why couldn't that be the same with blake starting? "starting" doesn't mean anything other than he's playing the first several minutes of each half.
I agree with this. Blake fits better next to Roy than next to Rudy. Miller and Rudy should look great together. You start Blake and give him Batum minutes, the Miller comes in and plays more overall minutes. The only think I don't like about this is I want to see Miller play with Oden and Batum as much as possible.
I didn't hear the interview, but my understanding from previous ones is that Nate's position is that the previous year's starters go into camp with their starting position intact. If somebody beats them out in camp, then the switch is made.
