http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/ian_thomsen/12/22/blazers/index.html?eref=twitter_feed While this has the makings of a bad year, it may turn out to be the most important season for this group of Blazers. If they ever do win a championship several years down the line, they'll look back and realize the demands of this season taught them to play and fight harder than ever. If they don't learn how to make a stand and fight hard now, there is a good chance they never will. We'll learn a lot more about them over the next month than we did all of last season, when most everything ran smoothly. "Since I've been in the league everything has been going great, according to plan, and we've been growing and getting better," said Roy. "This is that first bump in the road, and in order to be a championship team you have to have faced some adversity. And I'm thinking that this is it. This isn't the last stop, but this is something that we're facing to get to the level that we want to be at." Last season, Roy said he felt "like a quarterback whose offense was just perfect and everything was on time. And now we have a little bit of timing off. But I think it's good for me to go through this, because who knows? When we're in the Western conference finals, something may happen where we can say we've been there before, and I'll know what I've got to do."
Some of the best improvement on teams in the past has been when they face adversity through injuries. Many players get to play and get minutes who would not have normally. This improves the team experience, strength, and depth over the long run, all while allowing you to evaluate talent in the best environment to do so, in meaningful games.
I think this tough season is also going to do wonders for team bonding. Our guys who may have had problems with each other (i.e. Roy\Miller) will work together threw this and have.
I was just about to post this, when I saw Mixum beat me to it. This is by far the most insightful and important article I've read about the Blazers all year. This part in particular stood out: I guess that's why I say I'm not really as worried about wins and losses as I am about the effort that LaMarcus and Brandon give as standard bearers in this tough season. Nate is right though, as much as a coach can tell people what to do and try to get them on the same page and hopefully set them up to be successful, it ultimately boils down to the team's best players (and best paid) leading and executing. I think it would help if KP did a little roster tweaking to get them some help of course, but ultimately this team goes as far as B-Roy and Aldridge carry it -- and right now I think we're still waiting on LMA to step up and provide leadership by example.
I kind of thought that the point of the article was a little bit of the opposite. The stars on the team need to quit worrying so much about whether they are making team mates happy, and stop thinking so much, and just go out and nut up and get it done. Stop thinking. Play loose. The rest of the guys will come along for the ride.
LMA is the person who needs to step up. He's averaging 16/8, the numbers are down after last season and after he signed his overpriced contract. Sack up, LaMarcus!
I think there are several good things that could come from our jello-boned season. I agree that Roy and LMA will learn how to shoulder responsibility. Hopefully, they will demand that the rest of the pack follow them to war. Also, I hope that we get the PG and SF situation worked out over the course of the season. If Bayless can emerge as a starter by seasons end, that would be great. But even if he only proves he is a solid bu PG, well that is at least something to work with. Also, we might learn if Mills is usable in any way. At SF, we already know that Batum is going to be a solid player, and now Webs is going to get a lot of burn and hopefully bring his game to another level. If we can enter next season with LMA and Roy playing well and wearing big balls, a PG and SF rotation of at least average quality, and a healthy bunch, then we should be able to count on big things in the future.
bayless beimg a starter at seasons end are as good as oden playing this season. none. bayless does not have starters skills to play pg. i think hes more of an energy guy off the bench. at best he could be a 6th man... at best.
Well with Nate as coach it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. But it's not for the reasons you mention, because those are wrong IMO. What I want to know is why everybody thinks that a guy with high energy has to come off the bench. Half of the problem is 3 out of 5 of the starters motor isn't running from night to night. You solve that by putting a player whose motor is running every night into the lineup.
I know this is coming from a pit of negativity, but you might actually be right There's a bit of truth to the fact that right now this team's motor doesn't seem to go any higher than second gear in the starting unit, and while I agree that having a another guy on this team to kick it in the ass a little bit is needed, point guards also have to be able to settle things down and control tempo too. If Jerryd can develop the latter to go with his "energizer bunny" routine then yeah he's got a future as a starter -- and don't misunderstand "settle things down" to mean "play slow," it means that he needs to be able to read defenses and maneuver himself in such a way that it opens up opportunities for his teammates as well as himself. He doesn't need to become the next Chris Paul to be succesful, but he also can't be 6'3" Corey Maggette either if he wants anything more than a 20-25 minutes a night role.
I don't quite understand why, if Bayless and Roy is a pretty devastating combo with 2 minutes left in the fourth, why it wouldn't be pretty effective with 11 left in the first?
JB is a starter in this league, when all is said and done. There is just no way around it. He is a fantastic scorer. Remember, that through his career he had only 15 games where he got over 20 minutes of play, he averages 12.6 PPG for these games. This year, he got only 5 games of over 20 minutes of play and he averages 16 PPG in them. He has not had single digits scoring game this year when he got over 20 minutes. He has 18 PER - with 15 being the average NBA starter PER. He has 1.2 winscore this year in 290 minutes only - his win-score/minutes played is 2nd highest on the team, after Greg Oden. Heck, looking at the entire league, the only guard with a better winscore/minutes I can see in the league who is better than him is Kobe..., not CP3, not Deron, not Evans, not Nash (Nash is close, however). Crazy stuff. JB is a starter in this league. If not this year, next one for sure. Quite frankly, I would not be opposed to see him move into the starting unit in the 2nd half of the year, sure, he is not a prototypical PG, but he can guard PGs, and next to Brandon Roy - that, and the ability to shoot and handle the ball some - is all you need. This kid was born to play Scoring PG next to Brandon Roy.
Well looks like they are scrapping, which is a great thing for us Blazer fans. We have a proven leader now in Roy. He's definitely one that we have to build around. He has the capability to carry a team on his shoulders. Thank goodness for him or our team would be jarring for a lottery pick this season, with the injuries we've had so far.
Think about how teams score at the end of games. Typically you put it in your best playmaker's hands and you let him either drive and finish, take a pull-up jumper or drive and get fouled. Very rarely do you see bigs involved in the play (other than as a screen setter) and if you were to play this way for a whole game we'd likely see an even more guard and wing centric offense, with LMA (and eventually Oden or whatever other low post scorer) marginalized and LMA in particular should probably be getting 15-17 shot attempts per game. I guess you could say that Brandon plays point guard on offense anyway, but right now both Brandon's and Jerryd's strong suit is handling the ball and driving into the lane to make something happen, if Jerryd can fully transform himself into a knockdown outside shooter (either off the dribble or the catch) then I think it gets a lot easier to pair him up with Brandon, but I worry that by making him a passive cog in the offense you aren't going to blunt his effectiveness. It doesn't really matter, this conversation is pretty premature, he needs to show that he can handle the 20 or so minutes he's now being given and prove that what he's been doing in limited minutes and a "breakout" game against the Suns, wasn't just an outlier.
I get what you're saying about the game slowing down and bigs being done in the 4th. But it seems that if you have two guys who can drive, two who you have to respect on cuts, two with decent-to-great jumpers, and two who can finish while getting hit that that's much more "hard to cover" rather than "redundant and ineffective". I've seen (and liked) a couple of times where Roy would drive, get doubled and pass out to Bayless, who would drive and pass out to a shooter--while the defense is scrambling the whole time. I don't necessarily think he should be handed the keys either, but I'm not that far away. And I don't think it's his offense that's stopping him.
