I think Bernie had a lot of input on this. They have wanted Felton for a year now. I am guessing they did some research and it was not a desperate move.
Felton hasn't been steadily improving. Let's look at his PER over his career: 14.2 13.5 13.8 13.7 15.2 16.6 Two years of improvement. Very nice. BUT... if you take the NY time out, it looks like this: 14.2 13.5 13.8 13.7 15.2 14.7 He's perhaps improved in the last couple of years, but it's not a clear upward trend I don't think. Ed O.
The Blazers offense like shooting a lot of 3. This means spacing. Even if Felton is not as good a player as Miller is (which he probably is not) - he is a better fit. Add the fact that he is probably a better defender when motivated - and personally, I think the team got better today - or at least, said, this is our system, we believe in it, we are going to give ourself a better chance to win with it. Miller always felt like a round peg, square hole kind of guy to me.
I didn't watch the whole thing, but were any of his points within a set offense like he will be in here?
He's not even a good shooter though. A average one at best. There will be nights where teams will dare him to shoot, and he'll go 1/7 from three and keep jacking shots.
If Tim Duncan were as old as Andre, then yes. [Edit: just checked - he's one month younger. Better change my argument.] If Tim Duncan weren't the face of the franchise and the best power forward in history and so MASSIVELY better than Marcin Gortat to make your comparison even remotely analogous, THEN yes.
Larry Brown LOVED Raymond Felton. That in itself is a good sign. No, he's not the natural talent that Miller was, but he seems to have improved and hell, I'll take him over Jameer Nelson any day. Also: why do his critics keep saying "if you ignore his NY stats..." Why should we? Yes, D'Antoni plays uptempo, but that's factored in for most of the new stats. And he's not Paul fucking Westhead - his teams actually WIN.
There's actually a chance Felton can close out on a 3 point shooter. Get excited about that. Miller was the worst offender on a team full of crappy perimeter defenders.
I think your on to something here, having him thrust into a starting role coupled with Sarge the motivator as his coach should give him quite the spark. Not to mention, all the new bad ass teamates he'll want to impress (G,B,LMA,Camby)
But he's not coaching in Portland, and the systems are entirely different. Felton's production in NY was an aberration. A result of a particular system. Ed O.
Average is much better than god damn awful. He is no Steve Nash for sure - but he improves our spacing because, quite frankly - there is probably no starting PG (*) in the league that is worse at creating space for his team-mates. (*) maybe Rondo? But Rondo at least is super-quick and can create that spacing by having people collapse on him.
Miller is also excellent at driving to the hoop and collapsing the defense. He may be one of the worst at creating space by stretching the defense with perimeter shooting, but saying he's simply the worst at creating space for teammates is obviously absurd hyperbole. He's been a great play-maker for others through his career which would be impossible if he were even just average at creating space for teammates--let alone the worst or close to the worst. If you feel he wasn't the best "fit," that one thing. I think claiming that he's arguably the worst in the NBA (at his position) at essentially the key point guard skill borders on irrational.
He is good at it somewhat - but excellent, at a Rondo level? No. He is great at posting up people down-low - which is great in a center and a nice and unusual feature for a PG - but he can not make the defense collapse as well as Rondo at all. Rondo's eFG% is higher than Miller's for a reason - he is much more of a threat to score close to the basket because he is so quick. If you actually look at the break-down of eFG% for jump shots and close to the basket - Miller is actually better than Rondo - and yet Rondo's over-all eFG% is better - the reason - he is really quick and can get places and dunk much much better than Miller. I have a very rational thing against Miller - he is a killer for spacing for any team that does not play fast pace - and John Wooden has defined spacing as the #1 ingredient for the offense that UCLA ran. My bias is very clear - he is a round peg in a square hole. Always was. If this team were to run a different offense - he would be a better fit. But, it seems that even with Roy out for large portions of the year - the Blazers still had trouble getting quality open shots in the half-court - and having a PG that can not space the floor is a gigantic part of it. Andre Miller and Nate McMillan's offense are not a good fit. I saw it the first game I attended in person - and it seems that the Blazers have really got to the point where they see it as well - when they traded for Felton which is at best "as good a player" as Andre Miller individually (he is probably not as good, but not a huge drop-off). If believing a perimeter player that can't space the floor for a team that likes to play half-court and excels when it hits jump-shots is a bias - sure, I am biased. Dude did not fit and does not fit. The Blazers have committed to McMillan for good or for bad - and as such - Miller was a bad fit. Of the starting PGs in this league - which one is worse at creating spacing for his team-mates for half-court offenses? Kidd? No - good 3P shooter. Chalmers? No - decent 3P shooter. Capt. Kirk? No - more than decent 3P shooter. Rondo? Maybe - but I do not think so - because Rondo is so, so quick Rose? No - OK 3P shooter and great speed. Baron Davis? Not really - streaky as hell - but much better long range shooter than Miller DJ Augustin? No - OK at shooting the 3, pretty quick CP3? No - really quick, maybe the best handling guard in the league, shoots better than Miller. Stucky? A potential candidate - still shoots better than Miller and is quicker. Curry? No. Honestly, I am getting pretty bored with this - there might be some miserable team out there with a PG that is slow and a bad shooter - but the statement stands - Miller is great in fast pace, he is a spacing killer for half-court like the Blazers play.
You say "even with Roy out" like the team should have had a much easier time without their best player. Roy being out (and then back as a non-elite player) obviously made the offensive situation worse. No one has ever represented Miller as a guy who can carry an offense, but Aldridge flourished with him. Batum and Fernandez and Matthews got plenty of wide open shots that they missed. I don't think when the offense bogged down it was primarily due to Miller's inability to hit outside shots. Would Miller have helped more as a dead-eye shooter? Of course...being a better player obviously helps. But Miller has proved throughout his career that he was one of the best in the league at creating open opportunities for teammates and getting them the ball. Yes, I remember your post that night and I thought, and still think, that was irrational. The first games a player plays in a new system is pretty obviously not a good measure for whether a player can fit. Down the stretch of that season (about the only time that a healthy Roy played with Miller as a starter) Miller and Roy and the Blazers in general were all playing very well and team looked excellent. Then Roy got hurt again, the team struggled in the playoffs and Roy was basically done as an elite player. So, no, I don't think Miller proved a poor fit. I think he showed, like all very good and intelligent players, that he could adapt and lend his strengths to what the team did, even if his strengths weren't optimized for what McMillan wanted to do.
Seems like Mr. Hollinger agrees with me. http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draf...ist=hollinger_john&page=draftbreakdown-110624 At the end - I do not think I am irrational. I have an opinion which you have all the right in the world to disagree with - but it is actually a pretty good rational opinion - one that values spacing over other things that Miller brings to the table. It seems that after 2 years - the Blazers have come to the same conclusion that I have, or at least this is what I am reading into their actual actions and the following McMillan quote:
I never said you were being irrational in saying that Miller didn't fit (in fact, in a previous post, I quite clearly distinguished that saying Miller wasn't a good fit was not what I was criticizing). The two things (in separate posts) that I considered irrational were 1. that Miller is arguably the worst point guard at creating space for teammates (which would make being a high level point guard for many years impossible) and 2. that the early part of Miller's first season in McMillan's system showed that Miller couldn't fit. I can understand the viewpoint that he didn't fit and I, myself, said Miller's strengths weren't optimal for what McMillan wanted to do. However, I disagreed that Miller caused the team to struggle. He adapted and found a game for himself that fit how McMillan wanted the team to play and, to my observation, he made the team better.
Name a worst starting PG in the league at creating space? That's an easy way to prove it wrong. I think that if not the worst of the 30 starting PGs - he is very close to the bottom at this very specific point - which is, because of the way the Blazers play - a very important point. As for #2 - the only way this would prove to be wrong is if Roy became a really good player off the ball - which we pretty much have seen that he has not - so, again, I am not sure how it is irrational. The best of Roy that we have seen was when he could break the defense with the ball with his hands. I thought at the time that we take his #1 strength and this brings the team's efficiency down. I do not think it changed now. What we have learned is that even without Roy - when playing to Miller's strength more because Roy was not a factor - the Blazers still had issues with spacing and shooting. Any time you put a mismatched piece into a machine - it is going to cause problems - and that is not the piece's fault. I think we have seen that a player like Capt. Kirk, which is not as good a player as Miller - had a fantastic impact on the Hawks - and I suspect that if the Blazers had gone for him before they went for Miller - their last two years would have been much better. You put oil in tea and it tastes awful, you put oil on a grill and it tastes great. The Blazers are tea. They need sweet shooting sugar, not oil. Miller is Oil. It just did not work and it was not irrational to think it would not from the very beginning.
