Williams seems like a hybrid between Bayless and Outlaw. Outlaw's freaky athleticism and good length for his position. Bayless' chippy attitude and shoot-first/drive-to-the-hole combo guard style. Those are some solid tools to build on for a non-lotto pick. Even after the injury I've got higher hopes for him than I do the rest of our rookies/sophomores. But that's not saying a lot, I suppose.
Forgetting percentages for a second, wasn't Harden a lot more prolific as a shot creator in college though? I don't have much recollection of Williams in college, but this sort of feels like an apples-oranges comparison (in terms of role, style etc.) That said, hopefully Williams can show something, it might take some of the sting out of that draft.
They play a similar style is what I'm getting at. I was just answering the question. I think Harden is a little better at putting the ball on the floor, but its definitely not one of Williams' weaknesses either. At ASU, Harden was THE man on his team. Williams' started at Duke as freshman because of his defensive abilities. Harden can get hot from anywhere, I don't see that in Williams.
I assume when people say the roster looks worse then last year its because at this point last year we thought Roy was an All-star and Oden had more upside then what we think today. We know Roy, clearly our best player a year ago, is a shell of his former self. Now we know this team was not what we thought it could be at the start of last season, so in that sense I agree with you that this years roster could be just as good or better then how last years team actually ended up. I think Felton will be a better value in the long term then Dre, mostly because he's so much younger, but last season Andre was our second best player after LaMarcus. If we didn't have him to step up after the Roy fiasco and run our offense this team may have been in the lottery. Can Felton be better then Andre this year? Possibly, but I'd say the odds are against it. I'm still in favor of the trade, especially because I think Andre's lack of a shot is a much larger hinderance in the post-season, but for the regular season we probably regress at the PG position.
Yeah but that was at the beginning of the season last year. Since then we also picked up Wallace. That is an upgrade. In theory we should be as good if not better this year. But I agree somehow if doesn't feel the same.
People forget how badly we did while trying to integrate a crippled Roy into the roster in November and early December. There was a really grim stretch where we went 2-10 that included losses to the Nets, Sixers, Hornets and Wizards. It was really, really bad. When people pine for the return of Roy, I really wish they could review that stretch of games. After that, though, Aldridge went on his tear, and then we added Gerald Wallace. We had a much better team than our record showed, just because we blew so many games early on trying to understand that Roy was done as a star player. It wasn't an accident that we played the eventual champs as hard as anybody in the playoffs. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there were a ton of unknowables going into last season. We didn't know (although we all feared) Oden would blow out. We didn't know about Roy. We didn't know Aldridge's real potential. We didn't know Rudy would suck dong so badly. We didn't know we'd get Crash. The "knowns" this season seem somehow sturdier to me. Aldridge is a 20-25 ppg scorer. We're definitely getting better perimeter shooting than last year with Miller out and Felton in. Batum just has to be better, based on what I saw in Europe. Gerald will get a full season to integrate, and he had an 19 PER last year with us, so that's got to be good. We don't really "know" about Oden and Roy and Williams again, but those factors seem less critical. Monolithic question marks at center still, but that was the case all last year. Miller was an organizing presence, and I really like him. But there's a reason why mediocre/bad teams like him and good teams find him hard to justify keeping. When you reach a certain tier it's just very hard to have a PG who can't shoot perimeter shots (unless, of course, he plays next to Ray Allen and Paul Pierce). If Aldridge/Crash/Batum keep putting it all together, I think we're in that higher tier.
There's no moral victories in getting beat handily in the 1st round. We still have all the weaknesses we had when we got rolled by the Mavs. There's no outside shooting and zero inside scoring when LaMarcus isn't in the game. Felton helps a little in shooting department, but we need much more than that to get to the 2nd round.
Roster Look and Roster Production are two different things. Last year to start the season our roster looked pretty good. The facts of the season tore that down: Roy didn't come back strong. Camby got hurt and only played part of the year. Przy gave us nothing. Rudy was maddenly inconsistent when it was his big opportunity to shine. We didn't trade for Wallace until the season was mostly over. Our rookies were a complete washout. Effectively the team - a team that made the playoffs and gave the eventual champs their hardest test - rode the backs of: Aldridge Miller Batum Wes and Camby for part of the season. Look at that list. I don't think it is all that outrageous to pencil in the ideas that: even though Miller is better than Felton it won't be a huge dropoff (with better floor spacing in many sets being the key); having Wallace for an entire season will be a big lift for the team; that we get more out of our walking wounded crew (Roy; Oden; Camby) than we did last season; that we get more out of our stable of young dudes than we did last season. If you want to be a pessimist - go ahead. Roy and Oden are done. Camby has fallen off a cliff. Batum will never shine cause he is french or whatever. Crash will crash. Felton is fat. And Aldridge will be kidnapped and held ransom in Brazil. There. Feel better?
Why do you think there's "no outside shooting"? You realize Wes had one of the better three point shots in the league, right (.400)? You realize Batum is a career .364 shooter from three, right? When Portland gets labeled as a poor-shooting team, it's because a) Gerald Wallace took too many threes and b) he did so because the floor spacing was so bad because of Miller's non-existent perimeter shot and c) Rudy chucked up 4.6 three attempts per game (7 per 36 minutes!) and hit only .321 of them. Can you sort of understand how that might change this year? Felton has range beyond the foul line, and enough (at .333) to keep defenses honest. And he's improving. In his last two seasons he's hitting at 35%. And Matthews will have the green light whenever he gets a chance. Matthews/Batum/Felton/Roy won't strike fear into the hearts of defenses from the perimeter, but I'd call that combination of players above average. Maybe way above average if Matthews is given 36 mpg and a featured role from the outside. As far as interior scoring, you realize Wallace shot 50% in Portland while racking up 16ppg. He didn't do that by taking fadeaway jumpers. As a secondary interior scorer, there are probably 4 or 5 teams in the league who have better options. (And given how slow our pace is, that 16ppg is worth 17 or 18ppg on most teams.) We'll miss Miller's ability to post up smaller guards, but I'm really not that worried about interior scoring. With Aldridge being one of the very best post scorers in the game, our 1-2 interior scoring punch is no joke, and becomes a 1-2-3 terror if we can get anything out of Oden. My biggest worries are: 1. Injuries 2. Getting derailed by Roy fantasies again like we did last November 3. Having some kind of decent warm body able to suit up at center/backup center
I am still completely blown away at how well Wes played for us last season. I will admit I was wrong about him. I couldn't believe we were paying all that cash on some non drafted guy I hadn't heard of! This guys came in and killed it. I realize his next assist will be his first, but he way over achieved in my opinion.
The difference is they are great set shot shooters but not great jump shooters. I love both Wes and Batum's games but great outside shooters can pull up off the dribble and shoot with ease. You would have thought Rudy would have been good at it, but he wasn't. At least not from mid range. It seems to be a lost art form. In the 70's lot of players could do it. Geoff Petrie was exceptional. On the Blazers last year you had Roy and Mills that had the ability. And that's it. Set shooters need help getting open or just plain left open. Great outside shooters like Dirk and Kobe and Ray Allen do not need much space.
Great post and I mostly agree. Yes I think we will be fine for interior scoring, especially from our starting forwards. It'd be a nice luxury to also have a backup PF who could score for 15mpg but that is a minor issue. Teams like the Lakers have a mess at starting PG defense, so if our big concerns are about one or two backup positions overall we are in a good spot. However I'm not so sure about our outside shooting. Yes Matthews and Batum have had some nice stretches during the regular season but they've been very inconsistent. Batum scored 8ppg in the playoffs and shot 27% from three point range. That killed our floor spacing, allowing Dallas to double team inside and make it very difficult for our interior scorers to be efficient. On offense we really need to have two guys on the floor at all times who can hit from deep, hopefully between Wes, Batum, Felton, Roy we can get that production, otherwise teams will pack in a zone on us and we will struggle. I wouldn't consider any of these guards elite shooters. I hope you are right about all of these guys having efficient years from deep, but if one or two of them are cold this year we could be in serious trouble.
