Aldridge can NOT guard 5s. He usually plays 5 on spot situations only, so the sample size is really small. But since you really don't care about that, here's Aldridge's PER against when guarding 5s: 25.4 He's allowing superstar production to 5s he guards. So please, stop acting like Greg's injury isn't a severe blow to our team.
No he didn't, he said it makes us worse. Go listen to the interview after the game again. Good job not answering my point though, but it's not like you actually contribute any good input anyways. Checkmate.
um YES. whats important with Oden is his development for the future. I guess now he needs to start from scratch in terms of getting used to the nba game. sucks... i know.
This is one of the dumbest threads ever created. But considering who it was made by, not all that surprising. Just read the sig.
KingSpeed is right. You guys got nothing to worry about, you got Joel to take care of business until Oden returns.
that is all true, but in the short term, Joel can still deliver what Oden's strengths were: rebounding and defense.
Yes, I have. LMA is the back up. When Joel goes out, LMA moves to C and Howard, Cunningham or Player X we're getting for Miller moves to PF.
Yeah, Joel 2009 is a huge dropoff from Greg 2009. For whatever reason, Joel has not been the top-tier defensive stalwart he was last year. I hope he can get it back.
The following quotes are from a professional scout who knows the game inside and out and is paid by an NBA team to study the teams around the league: "Portland is probably going to trade (Miller) sooner rather than later, but I don't think Miller has necessarily been the problem. I really don't want to knock the kid, but I think some of it has to do with [Greg] Oden being on the floor. He's been putting up some numbers, but I think they play more fluidly when [LaMarcus] Aldridge is at the 5. "It's great that the kid's healthy, but Oden jams up the floor sometimes. If you're the other team you want [Portland] to throw it to him. The more he gets it the less it's in their best players' hands. "[Travis] Outlaw being hurt obviously hurts them because he can space the floor. To me their best group is when they're playing smaller. Aldridge is much more of a handful at the 5 than the 4. " http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-091105-06/weekend-dime-scouts-say Checkmate.
All that means is that at least one scout is worse at his job that the legion of us "clueless" posters here are at his job. Let me guess...he's also the one who though Darko was a better pickup than Carmelo and Wade? No? How about the one who decided that Fran Vasquez was worth a lotto pick b/c he was coming to Orlando? Still no? Hm. Was he the one who said Taurean Green would be worth "3 to 4 wins this (his rookie) year"? Nope, that wasn't a "scout". That was a former NBA PG with around 900 games under his belt as a player and 400 or so as a coach being paid $5M a year to know his stuff who totally whiffed on that one. But you pulled one clown's opinion out (who just happens to agree with you) and it's "checkmate" time?
Are you stupid? He quite obviously implies that Aldridge at the 5 only works with Travis at the 4. But now they don't even have the luxury of playing Aldridge at the 5 because Outlaw is injured. So who plays there? Cunningham? Howard? They can't space the floor like they could with Travis at the 4. Besides, I've given you statistical evidence that shows that Aldridge is a mess guarding centers. But, it's just like you to ignore that.
That's the opinion of 1 scout. The Blazers are an entire professional organization and they saw fit to develop Oden as the starting center and make him an offensive option. We're talking about what? 100 or more of employees who's consensus opinion wasn't to play Aldridge big minutes at the 5, and not to ignore Oden on offense. I realize logic and reason aren't your strong suits, but come on, cherry picking one outliers' opinion that flies in the face of every statistical measure and a vast majority of viewers opinions and then touting it as the end of the conversation is asinine.
Haha wow. Kingspeed you just contradicted yourself in your own quote. Give it up Kingspeed. There's not a really positive way to look at Greg's injury. Just let it go and move on. The team isn't done, but there's a lot of adapting to be done.
