#1: Wade is significantly better than Roy, and #2: Wade doesn't play with two other offensive players as good as Aldridge and Oden. I don't buy the Wade comparison for a minute. Ed O.
The team sucks right now. Opposing players are wondering why Roy isn't involved. I agree with Roy and the opposing players.
Sure, how about a play where Brandon and LaMarcus both have the ball in their hands and shoot a "double" jumper.
I think if OJ Mayo, of all people, is going to be a guiding influence on Roy, then this team has spent way too much money on Brandon. If I get a vote, only players with average PERs or higher should be able to make him feel inferior. Maybe someday Mayo will crack 15.0, but until that day Roy would probably be better served to ignore him. Ed O.
Yes, I'm sure that Roy looked over at the bench, where Miller was probably seated, and blamed him for taking a back seat. Ed O.
That's quite a failed attempt at sarcasm. And nice snipping of my pace comment. Roy has mentioned before that this confusions is not due to shot attempts. Here's an excerpt from Quick's piece today: You don't think it's Nate's responsibility to come up with better plays to cater to his star's needs?
I totally agree. I've been pretty clear that I'm not really blaming players for the way things have been going lately. It's a coaches job to create a system that maximizes his player's strength, rather what we've got is a coach who apparently tries to mold players to fit a system (of course there's always some give and take there) and GM who apparently decided that the best course of action would be to stock this roster with guys who are primarily offensive minded and young enough to not really know what kind of players they are in the NBA -- there are some notable exceptions in Blake, Miller and Przy (Howard too I guess) but with guys like Rudy, Bayless, Martell all still on rookie deals and apparently eager to prove that they are multi-faceted threats (lots of ball handling, lots of one-on-one) it dillutes the number of touches that Brandon, LaMarcus and Greg are getting. One option is to play at a faster pace which increases touches for all, or you need to play half-court ball and make sure that of the 75 or so shots this team averages a night 17 need to go to Roy, 15 need to go to LaMarcus and Greg needs probably a bare minimum of 12 at the amount of minutes he's getting (or able to get as the case may be), the rest of these guys need to shoot when wide open or pass the ball, this 5-10 seconds of dribbling and then throwing up a jumpshot at the rim crap needs to end (Blake, Martell, and Rudy being the biggest offenders -- Miller's taking too many "flaming bag, end of the clock, shots" too, and probably could cut down on the number of jumpers he's taking).
Wade is definitely better, but not significantly better. Jermaine O'Neal is better at creating offense than Oden. Beasley is putting up pretty much the same numbers as Aldridge as far as FGA and pts go. On top of all of this, Roy is the Blazers best and most complete offensive player. Not involving your best offensive player for long stretches is helping the other team out.
I don't really understand your problem here. You're going around in circles, and just seem to picking a mindless argument. I specifically mentioned designing "new plays" to alleviate Roy's concerns. Where did Oden and his post ups come into the picture? I hope you do realize there can be more plays involving all our players without having to compromise Oden's touches.
Brandon is certainly on the next tier down from Wade in terms of his overall ability, but I'm not so sure LaMarcus and Oden are leaps and bounds better than Jermaine O'Neal and Micheal Beasley ... I'd say LA and Oden are slightly better, but it's not like Wade isn't playing with, at minimum, decent front court players.
Beasley is not a very effective offensive player yet. He's so young that (assuming he gets his head right) he seems to be predestined to be one, but he's not there yet... 43.4% from the field just isn't that good. With that being said, they ARE, at minimum, decent. They're just not as good as Oden and Aldridge. Ed O.
"Also, most of Oden's post plays do not involve Roy at all" Roy shouldn't feel bad. When Blake is running the point, most of Oden's post up plays don't involve Oden, either. Brandon isn't the only one making a sacrifice it keep Steve Blake in the starting line-up. Oden, Roy and Aldridge all suffer the consequences of a PG who can't create easy scoring opportunities for others, or feed the low post. And, of course, Andre Miller suffers the consequences of a coach who has his head buried so far up his ass he won't even consider starting a PG who can do all of those things and make his teammates better - and happier. But hey, at least Blanky is shooting almost 38% from the field and has the worst FT% of any player in the rotation. So, he does create offensive rebounding opportunities for his teammates. BNM
That's the thing, though. Brandon got stood up by a player who is nowhere close to his level, and watched his team in the process get dominated at home by a crappy team. Yeah, it'd probably be best if he ignored him.. but considering what the team is going through, it's got to be playing on his mind, and it obviously has. Hopefully we see Brandon just let loose tomorrow, and just be himself, and stop thinking about all this stuff.
To be fair to Blake (OK, not really, I'm actually about to be a prick to Blake) when you only attempt 21 free throws in 19 games a single miss can have a pretty remarkable effect on your averages.
I'm replying before I read the entire thread, so forgive me if this was already brought up... ...both Roy and LMA's contracts are heavily incentivized; I wonder if their performance this year (or lack of) is affecting their payday next year. It may be that, in trying to encourage good play from Roy and LMA, the contracts are actually doing more to encourage selfish play because of the incentives being offered. Of course, without knowing what the incentives are, it's just speculation. But I could see a player being frustrated by the mixed message: "The contract I saigned incentivizes me if I am the man, but to win you want me to give up shots, which makes the incentives impossible to achieve! WTF!" Which is interesting, because that makes those incentives just like most of the bullshit management carrots most corporations pull to make their workers work harder. Maybe Roy's just a wage slave like the rest of us.
