Most point guards are worse. Again, you're confusing "stretching the defense with perimeter shots to create space" with "creating space" (which simply means open opportunities for teammates). The entire job of the point guard is to create open opportunities for teammates (space) and deliver them the ball. Unless you're saying Miller is arguably the worst point guard in the NBA, it's irrational to say he's arguably the worst at creating space for his teammates. That's the job of every point guard (actual point guards, not Damon Stoudemire-like "lead guards"). Two things: 1. Once again, you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. As I've said several times now, I wasn't saying that you believing Miller was a bad fit was irrational. What I was saying was irrational was deciding that early on, before Miller had any real chance of adapting to a new system. So, whether or not Miller actually was a bad fit is actually irrelevant. 2. On the subject of whether he actually was a bad fit, evidence that weighs against that is how well the team (Miller and Roy included) were playing down the stretch of Miller's first season in Portland. I remember most people here excited about how the team seemed to be heading toward the post-season with real momentum. That, of course, screeched to a halt with Roy's getting injured again.
No I am not. Creating space means exactly what it is - providing spacing for clear jump shots or a place to operate with the dribble. Miller excels in the open floor, he is fantstic with the lob - but his inability to play as a catch and shoot player from the perimeter - and his lack of speed to get into the seams of the defense quickly in a set offense - are clearly a spacing issue - and that's why it was easy for good defensive teams to clog the middle when he is in the game. In set offenses - creating said space is done in two or three ways - stretching the defense because you are a fantastic shooter (Miller is not one of these). Having the defense collapse because you are too fast for opposing defenders (as Rose and Rondo do, for example) - Miller is not great there - or having fantastic handling ability with quickness that can allow you to get into the lane and collapse the defense from there - Miller has the great handling - and he is mostly quick - but once you put an athletic longer defender on him down-low - this is lost - which is exactly what the Suns did last year in the playoffs to neutralize him. Given a good half-court defense - Miller is certainly a liability for teams that like to shoot a lot of jump shots or have penetration from good ball-handling guards. Again, simple way to disprove it - find me worst starting PGs for this kind of offense. If it is such a silly idea - surely it would not be hard to find these? Again - you goal, should you choose to accept it, is to find me a starting PG that would be easier for a good defensive team to clog the middle against and remove spacing for jump shooters. Go. It was not irrational at all unless you believe that two items so well set in their ways (Miller's excellence in the fast pace and lack of shooting on one side and the Blazers and McMillan's jump shooting system with Roy's preference for ball handling) would be easy to change. If you look at some extreme cases of players that remade their abilities (see Jason Kidd and 3P shooting, for example) - you will see that even when something so unlikely happens - it happens at a glacial pace. The regular season, with many different opponents and the frantic pace of playing different teams at different places was a big contributing part to this, imho. Miller is a fantastic individual player - and with the talent of a healthy Blazers team - the collective individual excellence triumphed. Once the pace slowed down for the playoffs with teams actually able to prepare for you defensively - the same issues would raise their head again, imho. Do I think that the Blazers would have been able to pass the 1st round if Roy was healthy against the Suns? Sure. They would still have a real issue against the Spurs in the 2nd round and no chance at all, I am afraid, against the Lakers. The long term analysis is not irrational - even if there are short periods of time where things seem to click. Unfortunately for you - even this short term is not as good as you think it is. Just for fun, let's look at the game log for the "good period" before Roy went down last year - when he and Miller seemed to have clicked. Let's take games 41 (around all-star weekend) to 65 (Roy going down). The Blazers went 18-7 in this period (excellent). Now let's actually look at this record against teams that went to the Playoffs (and thus, pretty decent defensively). It was actually 4-7 (not so excellent). They won tons against bad teams. Did not do too well against actually good teams. The Miller/Roy fantastic era was not as fantastic as you think. It was actually a good schedule (thanks to the Blazers brutal start of that year - when they played a really tough schedule early).
I don't have any interest in arbitrary missions you want to set me. As I've noted, and you've attempted to dance around, "creating space" is identical to "creating open opportunities for teammates." A point guard who cannot create open opportunities for teammates is not a point guard. Miller has been considered a very good point guard for many years. It's cut-and-dry, you're wrong; Miller is very good at creating space. Again, to claim Miller is arguably the worst at creating space for teammates would require you to claim Miller is arguably the worst point guard. Being the primary job description, the two claims are one and the same. And how he does it is through a combination of things. He's very good at getting into the paint and collapsing defenses (he may or may not be as good as Rondo, but eFG% on shots in the paint is somewhat irrelevant...I never said he was an elite slashing scorer), he's smart about positioning himself and teammates (directing an offense) and he's a great lob passer. The result is that he's a tremendous point guard in the half court (he's also obviously a great fastbreak point guard, but no one disputes that and it's somewhat wasted under McMillan). I didn't think it would be easy to change, but I thought that intelligent and versatile players like Roy and Miller would be able to each adapt their games to maintain effectiveness given some time to play together. That's actually quite common. And, IMO, that's exactly what did happen and it would have sharpened the following season (the one just completed) had Roy not had the elite part of his career cut short. Considering I never rendered an opinion on "how fantastic" I thought that "era" was, we'll let that comment of yours go as the meaningless, throw-away comment that it is. What I said was that the two players were clearly playing well and the team was playing well. I'm basing that on how they looked together. How they performed against playoff teams has other factors involved, most notably defense. The team was never poised to go deep in the playoffs (as constituted at that point) because their defense was weak (something I had hoped Oden would help remedy, if he could have stayed healthy). But we're not talking about the overall team ability, just about Roy and Miller co-existing offensively. And to my observation (and I was far from the only one) they were playing well together. If they had had more than 20 or so games together, they probably would have meshed even further.
This may have already been discussed, but didn't Felton play with Crash? If so, I wonder what Gerald's opinion of him is as a player/teammate?
Try again? I just hope my impression of Felton's shooting ability is wrong, because from what I've seen of him, he's a guy you dare to shoot just as much as you do with Miller.
Feltons a streak shooter, very streaky. Takes tough shots sometimes too, especially when teammates defer to him. But when he's hitting, he's one of those unstoppable guys.
"Oh, but anyway, Toto, we're home! Home! And this is my team - and you're all here! And I'm not going to leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all! And - Oh, Auntie Nate, there's no place like home!" barfo
Felton was top 8 in the league in assists and steals last season. Only three other players did that: Rondo, Kidd, and Paul.
Didn't Bernie draft him? In fact he had first chance to trade two picks to Portland to be able to draft Williams or Paul, so I would never be interested in his opinion.
what I don't like is continued references to his conditioning and potbelly. I would set a body fat goal for him right now and let him know he won't be on the court in a real game until he meets it.
I was just going to post my concerns about his weight. It's hard to keep weight on in Denver due to the altitude; if you're working out, it's even more so. Felton packed it on when he was here, and it was a concern for the Thuggets. If the lockout is long, he could turn into a backcourt Kemp. At any rate, he'd better report in shape or Portland fans are going to dump all over him.
He's going to be entering another contract year, so maybe he'll be somewhat motivated ... which could be a double edged sword. Let's say he reports in shape and has a pretty decent year, what then? The Blazers will almost certainly resign him to a market rate deal and -- stop me if you've seen this movie before? -- he will probably revert back to being fat and happy like hundreds of players before him with a questionable work ethic and conditioning that earned a lucrative guaranteed contract.
Well, there's a team option year, supposedly, so at least we can make old lard-butt work for his contract for 2 years straight. barfo
It's not so much that I don't like Felton, because I've talked about getting him in the past, but I just didn't really like the deal overall. I think I like Felton better than Jameer Nelson, so I guess in that respect I'm happy about the trade. What turned me off was the trade as a whole. It just felt like an awful lot to deal for a guy that I think we should have been able to acquire straight up. Miller for Felton. That should have been the deal, and then we draft Faried and trade Rudy for Hamilton. Felton Faried Hamilton That's what I wanted. I think our inexperienced GM showed that he was desperate to make a trade before the draft and Denver drove the price up on him.
I was going to say that we need to sic KingSpeed's friend Bobby M. on Ray. It doesn't matter how great/good/sucky Felton is if he doesn't pass the conditioning test and rides the pine until February.
