Last season the Blazers were 18-8 after the Camby trade. In terms of meaninful minutes, it's the same team that has stumbled to a 9-11 start (Sub Matthews for Martell, and Johnson/Mills for Bayless). Think back to how undermanned this team was last winter, and yet they never lost more than 3 straight games at any point all year. How do you go from being a playoff team to getting beat up by teams like NJ, Washington, Philadelphia, & even the Clippers in the 2nd half of games? Is it simply the product of our 3-time All Star SG morphing into an average player? I can't help but think so when I'm watching our offense struggle to even get decent shots against some of the worst defensive teams in the league. The old B-Roy bailed us out many-a-night when all else failed. Now he just looks like an old B-Roy . . . at 26. What is your hope for the rest of the season?
You guys just didn't see the contribution that Juwan Howard made. He was steady as a rock. He made the clutch shots and got the clutch rebounds at moments of the game when we were starting to lose momentum. We won many games because of him. Each game, Aldridge was the early guy, Roy late, and Howard in the middle.
Well it is simple. Bayless and Howard are much better than the guys playing those positions now. Did we have a true backup PF/C? Yes. Do we havea true backup PF now? No. Did we have a true backup center until Joel came back? Nope. Have we been getting decent production out of our backup PG position? Nope. Does anybody really believe that Armon Johnson or Patty Mills could step up like Bayless did last year when Roy got hurt? I don't know about you, but I kind of doubt they can step up and score near 30 points against a San Antonio team on the road against a top notch team. That alone should tell you one of the major differences between this years team, and last year.
Ive often wondered this too, heres my thoughts -the league knows roy isnt the same player - LA looks softer then ever - our bench is dreadful... no scoring and cunningham is totally useless - batum took a step back - oden is out again with all that said... i do expect a win streak at some point but we will likely end up the 9th seed. if we make a good trade that improves our bench... and arent too far back of phoenix... then all bets are off.
I don't think it's all that hard to pinpoint. Roy is pretty diminished and getting Camby at the start of the season isnt quite the emotional and mental boost that he was at the all-star break last year.
I thought it was more of a sign that they had given up on the idea of Bayless being our "PG of the future" (combined with the fact that they needed to find minutes for Rudy since they couldn't deal him somewhere).
If by "Franchise Player" you mean Oden, they were 12-8 with Greg last year and 38-24 without him (better winning % w/o him). No doubt they would have been a better team last season with a healthy GO for 82 games, expecially with the way he was starting to play when he went down. But they won games w/o him. They weren't a sub .500 team.
pretty easy, we are playing like chit, out best player is 50-60% of what he once was, out #1 draft pick has another season ending injury before he even played this season - so realistically WTF did you expect?
I was just making a joke, to be honest. See whether people settled on Oden or Bayless as the "franchise player." More seriously, it seems like an open-and-shut case...the team's offense was built around a dominant Roy and Roy is now ordinary. That destroys their offense.
Howard and Pendergraph provided a lot of bulk/muscle up front, plus Aldridge is always much better late season than early. Combine those two and there's a huge disparity in front court strength between the two halves of the comparison.
THIS Still, he had to shake his head and lament that he was even in a position where he had to answer questions about coming off the bench. “It would hurt a little bit, because I would be wondering what’s next?’’ Roy said. “It would be like, ‘Dang, not starting already?’ What about next year - am I the seventh man?’’ This is all part of his adjustment in dealing with his knees, a process that he says has been tough. “It would be a struggle for anybody to go through that adjustment, but losing makes it a lot worse,’’ Roy said. Roy also continues to make it clear that the Blazers’ personnel is not suited for his play. In other words, he needs players who can make outside shots in order to create space on the floor for him to work. “So I don’t always blame it on my knees. Some of it is, the paint is always packed,’’ Roy said. “So some of it is frustration with some of my capabilities, and some of it is personnel. It’s like I’m wondering ‘Can I not beat this guy now? Or did I beat him before because I had the space? I mean, I remember I got lay ups on game winners, and I don’t think it’s because I was the quickest or fastest guy out there.’’
well its amazingly more bayless then then then the rest. with bayless we are prob 11-9 matthews, pryz are an upgrade over pendy and webster BUT we miss howard and bayless.
