Dave from Blazers Edge makes a few good points

Patty is no answer. Nice chemistry/mascot guy to have on your deep bench, but his ball security was severely lacking, his defense was worse, and basically played the game like a smaller less talented Bayless except his preferred shot was the three-ball instead of the head down drive.

 

I am guessing he was referring to Johnson's play last year when he was getting some decent run as a rookie.

 

YUP, him and Felton are money. Now they both just need to get into shape! Felton fell apart in the fourth, and LMA has had to be heavily limited on his minutes. They will become a dynamic duo as the season goes on though, they are on the same page unlike any other PG we've seen with LMA.

 

Dave is going to have a feild day when the Blazers lose a game . . .

 

It does look very open but sooner or later team will clamp down on the LMA/Felton pick and roll but that should open all sorts of other options. In the end it will be how we are shooting from the outside. Especially on night where we arent getting easy buckets in the running game. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

 

All of his points are, like....well, duh! The above point is the best part. Ya think? That's like saying if Kobe isn't doing his thing, then the Lakers struggle. Thanks for being so analytical, Dave.

 

Post of the day! Good job and repp'd

 

Damn, funny you say that. It's only 10 am, and I'm working through a hangover, but I've been feeling like I'm on my game today. Felt that after blowing through some business the first hour or two I've been at work, and that's with splitting time on this board.

 

Dave's critique is of the coaching without ever using the words "coaching" or "McMillan." I agree with all of it.

As for Nolan Smith, until the last day, when Crawford decided to come to the Blazers, everyone was talking about Smith being the 2nd PG. (Even in this thread, people note as if it's news that he'll definitely have to be 3rd PG and isn't as good as Crawford.) Dave is just evaluating Nolan in terms of those false expectations.

 

Yep, I'm sure he was. That doesn't change the fact that less than 10 minutes of PT is way too small of a sample size to jump to any conclusions regarding Nolan Smith vs. Armon Johnson. Armon played his best ball in November of last season. For now, Nate has decided Nolan is a better option than Armon. That's why Nolan is on the active roster and part of the rotation and Armon isn't. That may change if Nolan gets into Nate's doghouse at some point.

Regardless, I just thought Dave's comments about Nolan were laughable given the ridiculously small sample size. Seemd very KingSpeedish to me.

BNM

 

Yep. Hard play to defend and opens up the floor for other players.

 

How about, a mere week later he gets off the bench for 10 minutes of game time and has 7 points, 4 boards, 4 blocks and is featured on NBA Top 10 Plays twice. I'll take that over Nolan.

 

Players can do crazy things in mop up duty. I saw Babbitt score 20 something once.

 

He looked good, but it was seriously 10 minutes of full on garbage time, it was worse then gym ball.

 

When was that? College, summer league, D-League? It certainly wasn't in a real NBA game. His career high is 11 points on 4-17 shooting in 33 minutes in a 110 - 86 loss to Golden State in last season's meaningless regular season finale.

BNM

 

Ahhh, you're right. It was 11 points. For some reason I thought he scored 20 in that Golden State game. I remember the whole game was garbage time so I didn't watch much of it.

 

I laugh everytime this guy gets mentioned on the radio etc. He is a big Blazer fan that started a website. Since when does that make someone an expert on the Blazers? Next thing you know they'll be interviewing MediocreMan on The Game about what he thinks of Nate's run and gun offense. And I'll be on a rock station talking about HCP's hot wife!