I know some of you don't like him, but I think he is hillarious. The one thing you can always count on from Barkely is an honest opinion. Last night at the Brian Grant event, he kept with his standard opinion of the Blazers. Talking to a friend of mine at the event last night, he said this. "Portland is a great city, an underrated city, but they still take too many jump shots and need a low post threat. I have no link for this because it was said to a friend of mine who was there. Brian Smith tweeted something similar though last night from Barkley.
Barkley has sung this same tune for almost a decade. I love his "takes too many jump shots" continual take. Who in the league doesn't? Not every team can pound the rock in down low every single fucking play, Chuck.
Well considering we are about to trade on of our last shooters... I wouldn't say we are a jumpshooting team. =)
I don't mind Bakley's comments about lack of low-post scoring, but you'd think that he'd at least mention the fact that Greg missed 3/4 of last season. He just might make a difference in the number of points in the paint.
So for those of you slagging on Barkley for repeating his line about the Blazers being too much of a jump shooting team and needing a low post threat, is he wrong?
Given that the Blazers played most of the season without a true center, I'd say the answer is pretty obvious. The question is whether that will be true next year with a healthy GO and with Andre Miller now established at the PG spot (which wasn't true last fall when GO was playing). Those factors should make a big difference in the number of points in the paint. Now, if the new assistant coaches can just get the team to up the number of fastbreaks, the Blazers may just put Barkley's comments into the ancient history category.
If you look at the '08-'09 season - when we had GO for a nice portion of the season, the Blazers shot 66% jumpshots (vs. 69% last year without him), the PHX Suns, which got to the WCF last year - shot 67%, Orlando, with D-Howard in the middle was at 65%. Yes, the line is old, tired and just silly when you actually look at the numbers, not just throw stuff out there for no real reason.
Even when they had Greg the year before they didn't really have a low post game or even an inside-out game, Greg got a ton of his offense from putbacks off of offensive rebounds. Nate even made it clear that he didn't want Greg focusing on offense, he just wanted him to play defense, block shots and rebound. There's something to be said for the similarities in the numbers of jumpers that each of those teams take compared to the Blazers but look at their field goald % compared to the Blazers: http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2010.html they may be taking similar numbers of jumpers, but they either have more talented shooters/scorers or they're taking higher percentage shots. The Blazers do shoot similar numbers of jumpers, but they maybe aren't especially good at hitting them? It appears that they rely on a ton of offensive rebounds to generate extra shots, which accounts for their relatively high offensive rating the past couple of years. Maybe the real problem isn't that the Blazers are a jump shooting team, it's that they aren't a particularly effective jump shooting team (or at least not good enough defensively to compensate)?
Given last year's anomaly with injuries, I think that a better place to look is the year prior to it - the Blazers are not bad at all: http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2009.html 8th overall in FG% and 4th in 3P% Since you seem to be specifically looking at the Suns - there are two things that you need to remember about the Suns - 1. They have one of the best setup man in the league, in Nash, of course they are going to get good opportunities 2. They are mostly a veteran team, the Blazers in '08-09 were a very young team, one would assume their players are not as good, yet, at knowing when to take the shots and when not to do so. But, again, if we actually look at the data without the filter of injuries or Barkley's entertaining but relatively groundless sound clips - the Blazers are not that bad, at all. Well, of course, but if you look at the reasons they had such efficient offense - you must also consider their youth, inexperience, and lack of an elite setup man like Nash... Overall, imho, the numbers come down to the fact that if a team wins 50 games with tons of injuries and because of it mid-pack defense - the offense is not, generally speaking, a problem or broken. Well, I think that a combination of healthy Roy, Oden and continued improvements of the other young guys - will mostly fix whatever "issues" were with the offense last year, and a combination of healthy Greg, Camby, Batum and Matthews - will very likely make this team a very good defensive team. So, overall, Barkley cracks me up, because he is funny, but he is not very insightful, imho.
CB is a moron. He does color work and he doesn't even know all of the rotation players. Is he right here? As usual, there is a shade of truth, but he's mostly wrong. It's not like he did any research in coming up with this conclusion, or is quoting any stats. Without Oden, shrug. With a healthy Oden he's absolutely wrong. Remember the Don Nelson quote? "Will you double team Greg Oden? 'Only when he touches the ball!'"
And if Barkley said that, backed up with some cogent analysis, maybe he wouldn't take such criticism. Because nothing you just said, while reasonable, validates what Barkley says. Barkley says the Blazers are a "jump-shooting team" and jump-shooting teams don't win. There's no subtle break-downs of jump shot types, effectiveness, etc. Barkley still comes off as a guy who doesn't do any analysis and says whatever comes into his head. It isn't that he's critical of the Blazers--it's that he clearly doesn't put any effort into his analysis and therefore has no insight. He's there for his personality, which seems to amuse a lot of people. Not for his ability to analyze and break down the game.
Well, he's right. He's been saying this for the past three years or so. Everyone but the center takes a jumper rather than attacking the hoop.
I think the irritating thing is he tends to say it about us more than any other team. Yet we are no where near the worst at attacking the basket. Maybe he expects more from us, which is fine. But every time I watch Boston or Cleveland or Orlando, I see a lot of jump shots. (Phoenix is a different story all together)
