Are you comparing LA to Smith after one year? Forget stats, I don't get the same gut feeling about Smith after one year as I did with LaMarcus after one year. Maybe it is just me but I felt LA had somethig special after one year, Smith . . . . . .. not so much.
if smith had collected two or three assists last night then this thread wouldn't have been started. in fairness to aldridge, he's never played double digit minutes and not hauled down at least one rebound. i'm not writing the kid off but things don't look all that promising that he will be of any kind of impact. i hope he turns it around and proves most of us wrong.
True, but it's not just last night, the kid never passes, he's a combo guard at best. And ever since Jared dribble with your head down bayless, combo gaurds make me shudder.
The kid is still a rookie, if the Blazers were as knee jerk as everyone here they would have traded LA(marsha) for a sandwich two years ago and Babbitt for a bag of chips at the trade deadline.
Get past the 0 assists thing. I know one game means little. This is the culmination of a years worth of suck. That's not true. I always loved Aldridge, he's always been my favorite player on the team. (Go to the role call thread if you don't believe) That's because he always showed that he had the talent to succeed in the league. Smith? Not so much.
The problem is he is probably more of a SG, an undersized one and not a very good one by NBA standards and you already have a guy who is an undersized SG (E-Will) on your team who appears to be a MUCH BETTER PLAYER...No need for redundancy here with undersized guys (This isn't Ellis\Curry reincarnate)... The question is how did Buchanan and POR scouts ever think Nolan Smith was a PG? Or if they really thought he was a SG, did they really think he was a better prospect as an undersized SG than Marshon Brooks? or a better prospect in that role than Faried? Really??? Either way it just makes POR front office look inept...
It doesn't matter if Nate wanted him MM, it is the scout...err...pseudo\interim GM's job to overrule him, point out that the guy is not the right pick...if he doesn't have the balls to do that then he shouldn't be GM... So if Bert Kolde wants to take a player in the draft this year that Buchanan doesn't like, is he just going to shut his mouth and let it happen?
Link? I keep reading this here, but I've never seen any proof other than a photo of Nate standing by Coach K on the Team USA bench.
Bah! If assists mattered, we would have kept that Miller guy. BTW, when Smith was drafted I pointed out he was a combo guard....people howled as if I was pissing on the Virgin Mary. The notion that Blazer fans give up on rookies too fast is the funniest thing I have heard all week. The Blazers could draft a dead guy and the fans would defend the pick!
He has 44 assists in 436 minutes, a ratio of 1 to 10. He is the next Dennis Johnson. http://bkref.com/tiny/wsXlW
