hahaha looks like kpee agrees with me... blazers now looking at pgs When Jerryd Bayless stepped on a fan and rolled his ankle in New Jersey this week, it created more than a tinge of concern throughout the Trail Blazers ranks. With Steve Blake traded to the Clippers, the Blazers point guard prospects are suddenly thin and inexperienced. That’s why the team is not soley looking for a big man to occupy the 15th roster spot. According to coach Nate McMillan, they are also looking seriously at point guards. “I mean, we have to look at what is out there and available and what we need. I think D.C. (Dante Cunningham) is playing good basketball. I like him. So maybe a point. A true point. It just depends. Because if you lose Bayless or (Andre) Miller, what do you do then? I mean, if you lose Bayless to an ankle sprain, you have to look at that. Then you are looking at Patty (Mills). Brandon (Roy). Or Rudy (Fernandez). So we have to look at that.’’ In talking to agents, it appears the Blazers are mostly targeting big men. The agents for Kenny Thomas, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Brian Cook and Jake Voskuhl all said the Blazers have called. The only point guard mentioned is Dan Dickau, the Vancouver, Wash. native who has had two stints with the Blazers - 20 games in 2003-2004 and 50 games in 2006-2007. That's not to say there aren't more, that's only what I could uncover from talking to agents. I have also heard NBA Development League point guard Will Conroy, whom a Blazers source this week confirm was “on the board,” but not likely to be signed. Other point guards believed to be on the Blazers board are Antonio Daniels and Jacque Vaughn. General manager Kevin Pritchard said multiple times this week that the team is waiting for things to shake out with buyouts and waivers before the Blazers formulate their plan of attack. Pritchard on Saturday said the Blazers probably won't make a decision until a couple of days. “In this situation, we just want to look at the talent out there,’’ McMillan said Friday night. “In talking to Kevin about that position, we just what to see what’s out there. Whether that’s a guard or a big, we have to ask: Can he help us?’’
Dude you are an emotional seesaw. calm down. First Nic is the SF of the Future and no way do we need to upgrade there. Long term PG, and perhaps a PF/C long term in case Oden keeps getting injured, are this team's main issues. Blake needed to go and this is Bayless's chance to start proving himself or not, Blake is not the answer. If we feel we need a better long term solution then this summer that can be addressed. Use a little common sense.
I haven't seen Nic try to create his shot that much. A lot of his points come off of an assist. I think he has the ability to try and create his own shot, but most of the time he is scoring within the flow of the offense. Bayless has the ability to create his own shot, he just hasn't been doing that good of a job of it over the last 20 games. I think the team misses having Outlaw, but Bayless or Batum have the potential to fill the void left by Outlaw leaving.
You're right, Nic has definitely not been given the license to do a lot of one on one scoring, but the times where he's caught the ball on the wing and a defender has closed hard on him, he's shown an ability to put the ball on the floor a little and either take a pull up jumper or go to the rim. I fully agree that he's not to where Travis was as a seventh or sixth season guy, but I've liked what I've seen so far ... albeit in only limited samples from the European Championships and the 15+ games he's appeared in this year.
Hopefully he has the time to put the work in this summer and gets the confidence of the coaching staff. I would love to see Batum in a closer role.
I wasn't aware that comparing guys at a stage of their career means they are equal... thanks for the heads up Jerryd is like GP (in the day) in that both are good sized, strong PGs who struggled in their effectiveness their 1st couple years mostly because of their shaky outside shot. It would certainly benefit JB a lot if his jumper improved as much as Gary's did. STOMP
GP was a lock down defender from day one. If Bayless could find that, the comparison would be valid. He will develop a jumper over time.
some thick skulls today... I'll try again Gary's college days were while I was at Oregon and I saw him play every chance I could. Dude is my all time favorite player... trust me I wasn't comparing these two as talents or PGs. I merely brought him up as an example of another similar sized physical guard who started his career struggling with his outside shot. His 3 point shooting was 8% and 13% respectively those first two seasons. Teams backed off him covering the passing lanes daring him to clang another much the same way teams now back off Jerryd. I can definitely recall the bust talk on GP during this time. But by his 3rd season dude was able to significantly improve his outside threat and he made the All Star game his 4th. Having guys playing up on him to take away his jumper let him take them off the dribble for scoring and drive and dish opportunities. I'm not saying that Jerryd has GP potential, but if he can get the D to fear his jumper it would give him similar opportunities to get by his man and create some havoc. If dude doesn't continue to improve from the outside it's going to really limit his effectiveness. STOMP
I saw every single game gp played at osu. I do have a thick skull, it's an asset. If bayless doesn't develop a jumper he doesn't have much hope. If he develops a shot and defense, he would be an amazing talent.
Why are you in a thread he started and POSSIBLY expecting the ignore feature to have any impact on anything? You crack me up. Ed O.
Way to miss my point, but since mods seem to lose about 50 IQ points upon being granted the power, I suppose I'll have to explain that the ignore feature should allow me to not have to read the troll's regurgitated bullshit via his thread titles that I CAN'T ignore, but it doesn't. And your constant coddling and enabling of his consistantly trollish behavior is a fairly sad representation of the treatment S2 has for it's posters. First O-Live, then ESPN, then BBL, now here. I wonder where the next message board to go to hell will be?
We're skeptical that seeing thread titles you don't like will do significant emotional damage to you. In other words, we think you, and everyone here, is tough enough to handle thread titles. There is a Firefox add-on that will remove everything by a poster from your vision, including threads. I've linked it a few times. If you're interested, let me know and I'll dig it up. I don't think very many people have a problem ignoring those that they don't like (and I mean ignoring of their own volition, not via fancy, '00s technology). There are plenty of people on the Internet who's opinions I dislike. I just scroll past. Trolls live to generate responses. You provide those response (directly to him or indirectly by complaining about him). Why are you enabling him?
