Here's what he had to say in today's Oregonian article about people who have been criticizing LaMarcus Aldridge: "When things go wrong or you are not winning, there are going to be people who are going to look for someone to blame." Nate clearly does not read this board. Since when does it take things going wrong or the team not winning for people around here to rip on our players? Even a win will do it.
Yeah, if he posted here he'd have saved some news print by saying simply: "There are going to be people who are going to look for someone to blame" and leave it at that. LOL Silver lining: With Oden and Joel out, and Roy down, LaMarcus is finally being forced to establish himself in the post instead of just hanging out, being comfortable, taking jumpers. Now that he's getting banged, and banging back, he's starting to get a littly chippy and fighting back and developing some aggressiveness. Last night with Roy out, in the 4th he took a leadership role and took and made some tough shots. Without LaMarcus stepping up, we don't win that game.
LMA always plays better the 2nd half the season. Why, I do not know - but that's the pattern we have seen for 4 years coming. Add the fact that he had injury issues earlier in the year - and LMA is just fine.
Very true. He has always been a slow starter and finished strong. But I still think in past seasons, he played better than he has this one, with the disclaimer being the last 2 games. The last 2 games he has started to be the Lamarcus I envisioned when we drafted him. 25 points. double digit rebounds. That is the Lamarcus Aldridge I thought we were getting. Now if we can just get him to keep playing that way.
Yeah, I don't quite get why. Maybe as he gets closer to the All Star game he starts feeling a fire in him for not getting invited yet again. Over these last two games he's averaged 27/13. And it was against Utah and San Antonio. Not exactly cream puff teams. I wish we could bottle that.
You really didn't need to add any text to the original title of this thread. "Nate is wrong" says it all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY Just one of those clips I've never been able to get out of my head. My gift to all of you.
I'm sure he'd get a chuckle reading some of the NBA coaching experts here. You'd think some of the posters on here would be applying for GM positions since they seem to know about what good coaches and players look like much better than current GM's.
What was Nate supposed to say? "Yeah, I was praying that LA would finally start mixing it up alittle. Now, we just need him to use his size and get a few more blocked shots."
Aldridge is supposedly our second-best player, so fans expect him to step up in Roy's absence. He wasn't doing that, so message boards criticized him. The message got through to him, through which channels I do not know, and he responded. I wouldn't say that we shouldn't have said negative things about him--I'd say the opposite, that the negative posts on this board and others had a good result.
So we just can't say anything about obviously poor decisions on his part? That really doesn't make sense. I don't know a whole lot about being President but it is my right as an American to critize his job. Especially when he makes an obvious mistake. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that starting Blake over Miller was a horrible mistake that only looks worse in hindsight. Why shouldn't we be able to say something about it? Nate knows more about basketball then I ever will. But that doesn't make him infallable. Sometimes being too close to a situation blinds someone to the obvious. I am pretty sure that has happened to Nate many times in the past. I am sure it will happen in the future to every coach Portland will ever have. And the fans have the right to call them out on it.
Not what I said at all. It's every fans right to question each move he makes, I just said he would get a laugh out of it because I would assume he would feel those folks are not informed enough to make such evaluations. I don't know where you work, but I'm sure you would have the same reaction if some random guy off the street went off about how poorly you do your job.
If it was a guy who had never even heard of software development I suppose I wouldn't give them the time of day. If instead it was a guy who did small development projects in his spare time, kept up with the industry and reviewed the work of hundreds of other software developers I would probably give them a bit more credence. At least enough to think about what they have said. That's pretty much an outline of how a fan that posts on message boards about their team feels. I have played basketball from time to time, follow other teams/levels of the game and have watched an average of 60 basketball games a year (not including college games) since they started televising Blazer games. Probably even more now that TNT, ESPN and the NBA channel show a game almost every night. It doesn't make me an expert. It does make me an informed observer. All of which means that Nate stills knows way more about basketball then I ever will but I know far more about the game then even the average fan (as stated above, folks who post on message boards aren't really average fans). As such I will occationally see something Nate does that is wrong or a bad idea. If 20 people who follow basketball all the time tell Nate he is making a mistake it he can disagree but he really shouldn't dismiss it out of hand.
It's okay guys. LaMarcus is clearly better when he's also allowed to run the court and have someone who is pushing the ball behind him. We all knew that when he was drafted, but Nate only allowed the ball to be pushed after a rash of injuries forced him to play Miller big minutes.
