Matthews signed at a rate about 2M more per year then Webster was at. Wes is slightly smaller then Martell, Batum is about the same size, and Cunningham is a little bigger. They've got their size bases covered as well as the skills. Good luck and all to Martell, but I don't think they'll be missing him much STOMP
I think guys like Bayless and Williams can fit on this team because of Roy. Roy likes to dominate the ball, which makes him a decent PG on offense, leaving Bayless and Williams as the de facto SGs. On defense, both Bayless and Williams should be able to guard PGs.
A couple points: How long are we going to be 'loaded' at shooting guard? Fernandez is all but gone and I think Bayless may be on his way out pretty soon as well, which makes it more sensible to go with a rotation of: Roy, Matthews and Williams (who won't see much playing time anyway) Also, we drafted Williams before we knew what player we would sign in free agency. A greater mistake would have been to NOT draft Elliot Williams with the assumption that we would sign Wesley matthews...then fail to sign Wesley matthews. So what position should we have drafted? Our only real position of need is, in my opinion, point guard. Any PG we would have taken at that point in the draft would have been a reach. So taking best player available and letting him battle it out for playing time doesn't seem like a bad idea. After all, we had just drafted a SF when Nicolas Batum is, in my opinion, already our 2nd best player and could very well be our best player within 2 years. Center? Maybe...but the prospects in the mid-twenties are always big projects and probably wouldn't pan out. You gotta draft somebody...Williams seemed about as good as anybody for us really.
Good points, although i see a lack of post offense on this team and the big man situation on this team is a little uncertain (because of the injury concern) I didn't study the draft so maybe Williams was the best possible pick, but another shooting guard, really? Again my real puzzlement is I kept hearing about this deep draft . . . I was expecting a player to compete for minutes right away. Who knows maybe Williams is that player, I really don't know much about him other than he plays SG . . . where we seem to be a bit overloaded.
But, I and others keep saying we are not "overloaded" at SG. Garbage in = garbage out. Not saying your posts are garbage, just that if you start out with some faulty or incorrect assumptions, you will find it pretty hard to come to a conclusion close to the bullseye. The Blazers brass go into the offseason with these goals and scouting notes: Roy is the star of the team and he needs the ball in his hand as much as possible to maximize his current skill set. As well, he whines when he plays off the ball too much. Miller, the best point guard the team has had in ages, also needs the ball in his hands to maximize his skill set. No other perimeter player comes within a Grand Canyon gap of those two in offensive power. The team will get those two as many touches as they can. That means there are limited opportunites for the remaining perimeter players who want/need/beg for offensive touches. Martell (IMO) asked the team to carve out a major and consistent role for him or trade him. Rudy has begged the team to trade him for some time. The options for trading a bunch of our players as part of a consolidation trade dwindled. The are other ways to consolidate besides trading a bunch of ok guys for one good guy. You can also trade guys that don't fit for guys that fit better and for guys who are earlier in their development cycle or picks. The team will have ended up trading two perimeter players (Martell and Rudy) who needed minutes and shots, for one player who can contribute without taking a lot of shots (Matthews) and youth to develop (Babbitt, Williams and the pick we will get for Rudy). The rookies will not play except in injury situations. These will be the heavy rotation perimeter players: Miller, Roy, Batum, Bayless, Matthews. Cunningham will get a little burn at 3 and be the primary injury backup if Batum gets hurt. Who else will play? and who else should play? Where is there a backlog? Where is the problem?
OK, I see the the logjam at the SG position. I see this because I see Roy being most effective as a shooting guard and should spend the bulk of the mins there (i understand other disagree, but that is what I think.) With Roy getting the bulk of the minutes at the SG position and Matthews getting the remaining time (again his natural position) that leaves little to no time for Williams or Bayless at that postion (thier natural position). You break it up more by players and minutes, I'm breaking it up more in terms of position (because I'm tired of situations of trying to make Bayless a PG so he gets more minutes or our best player playing out of position). This team, IMO, has tons of good smalls with many of them being natural SGs, that is the problem I see. I'm more concerned with LA, Camby, Oden and Pendy as the big men and was hoping to get a quality post guy or even a potential post player vs. another SG. If Williams is a project, fine. I would rather have a project at any other position than SG, but a project at any position won't get a lot of minutes . . . so if Williams is a project, that does reduce the logjam (that I see at SG). But that is how all this started, I was hoping for more than a project in this draft . . . but maybe that is unrealistic for #22 pick.
You are overthinking positions. I tried to explain in the post previous. Of course the team would love to have well defined perfection, but it rarely works out that way. They have two guys that will have the ball in their hands most of the time - Roy and Miller. Call em points, SG's, lead guards, whatever. That is that. Everything else builds off that. Neither Roy or Miller are much on the defensive end. So the rest of the guys primary role will be to take care of the perimeter defense. If they fail, Johnson, Williams and Cunningham will be chomping at the bit to prove they can play NBA defense. So, as I see it, Bayless and Matthews and Batum - all of them, are capable of defending many ones, depending on the matchups. I think Matthews would be fine checking his buddy Deron Williams and guys like Chauncey Billups or Baron Davis. We already have seen Bayless mostly play the 1 on defense. And Batum is one of those versatile players that can capably defend a lot of different guys. As for defending Small Forwards, after Batum, you will see a lot of "small ball" as that is a long-time favorite of Nate. Both Roy and Matthews can play the small-ball 3. When the team needs to go big, we have Cunningham for that. Sure, it would be great to have Martell to call off the bench to defend 3's, but I don't think that was an option. He didn't want to be a specialty defender off the bench. So, forget position. Most of the time, and all of the time when it matters, Miller or Roy has the ball in the half-court set. The other guys play off that and they are pretty interchangeable. The guys who WERE'NT as versatile are gone: Travis, Webster and Rudy were more limited.
That sounds like a promising endorsement then. Bayless is a rotation player at this moment. Admittedy, I've never seen him play, as I generally avoid college hoops. From the youtube clips I've seen, the guy is probably pretty raw but he shows NBA skills. Ability to create his own shot is huge. He's shown pull-up skills from deep, and step back moves. Supposedly, he's a dedicated hard worker. Wouldnt be at all surprised if he earns minutes this year. The second unit still needs scoring, especially if Rudy is shipped out for a draft pick. If he can defend, I think Nate will play him. His ceiling seems higher than our other supporting guys. If he can find a way to finish at the rim, I think he's a definite keeper. Definitely one to watch.
Williams got on the court as a freshman at Duke solely on his defense. I'm sure Nate will find some time for him in the rotation this season.
Johnson? Armon is a good sized PG and played exclusively at PG in college... do you mean Williams? STOMP
Sorry. I was refering to the fact that Williams supposedly handled the ball a lot for a SG, but wasn't actually playing a PG role. I never saw him play, so I am just going off of reports I'd read.
