Lillard REALLY DID have the best workout since Kevin Durant? Wouldn't Barnes have been the safe pick here? We've been lamenting the fact that we went with the safe pick and chose Oden over Durant. What if Olshey did the exact opposite and went with his gut?
You draft Barnes, Lillard doesn't fall to 11, and what are you left with? Barnes can't create for himself or his team-mates. Without a guy like Marshall to spoonfeed him, how much is he really worth? For the moment, I am giving Ole's gut the benefit of the doubt.
Barnes falling to us was one of my big fears. I'm glad they passed. I agree that without Marshall, it is not clear what he could be. The same could be said for Zeller's numbers compared to Leonard.
I haven't been a huge believer in Lilliard, but the more I think about it, the more I'm warming to the idea of him being our point. The kid seems like he has a shot. It will be interesting to see if he can hang in Summer League.
Durant had a better workout than Oden, so your theory doesn't makes sense. Barnes would've been the safe pick
Uh...... that's what I said. Lillard/Durant = amazing workout. Oden/Barnes = safe pick based on hype. This time Olshey went with his gut and chose the guy with the amazing workout. Maybe my post wasn't clear enough.
for a little more synchronicity and reversing hexes, we also took the point guard at 6 this time instead of settling for the wing with the silky smooth jumper and no ability to create for himself or defend.
Walk down memeory lane of Webster's workout: After dribbling down and back a few times to warm up, Martell because taking one hand shots from about 8-10 feet in quick succession. His emphasis was on setting the ball in the same place each time, keeping his shoulders completely square and relatively quiet, extending his arm up and straight during a clean shot release and holding his follow through. Most of the focus was waist-up. Martell then backed out a little bit to 12-14 feet and shot using both hands but without jumping. How he shoots with a watch on his wrist (even though it's his off wrist) is beyond me. Same mechanics here as he is essentially "building up" or "progressing" to the full-fledged jumpshot/3 pointer work that will follow. His focus again was on complete consistency through all aspects of the shot. Nothing fancy, no turnarounds, pumpfakes or anything... just shoulders square, small-lift shots, slightly more active than a free throw in a game situation. After that, Martell backed out to the 3 point line and began taking jumpers off rhythm passes from Monty Williams. When shooting simple jumpers while hugging the 3 point line, Martell makes an absurd percentage of his shots (70%+) and is capable of rattling off 4 in a row that swish through and land on the exact same spot on the court every time. It's fun to watch. After maybe 5 minutes of straightforward jumpers, Monty progressed Martell to the final step, which was actually something I haven't seen any of the wings do for an extended period of time before. Martell would receive a rhythm pass from Monty and wait for instruction; Monty would yell whether Martell should make one ball fake, two ball fakes or simply pull up and shoot. Here's a shot of Martell ball-faking to an imaginary point guard at the top of the key, before raising up to stroke a jumper. Martell's ball fakes to the right looked different, with the ball raised up over his head as if he was going to dump a pass into a posting up Oden or Aldridge. Martell worked on taking the ball from the lower position across his body and raising up as well as taking the ball from a higher position above his head and quickly pulling it down to set himself up for a quick-trigger jumper. Although these are not complex movements they will certainly lower shooting percentanges when done at full speed and in rapid succession. Martell's accuracy tailed off a little bit but it was during this portion where I got a solid reminder about how much quicker and cleaner Martell's trigger is than Nic's or Travis's. There's a significant talent gap there. Lastly Martell moved to the top of the key and worked on a few pull up jumpers off the bounce, taking a behind the back dribble or two to set up his full jumper in rhythm. Again he was hitting consistently although he didn't continue those shots for too long because he was coming up on his time limit.
Man Nik, in my time of being down on the Blazers you and MM are being optimistic. My Blazer world is upside down right now. Looking to join you on the optimistic side as soon as I find a way to get excited about this roster.
I think expectations have been reset and things sort of feel tabula rasa for me. New GM, yet to be named new coach, no more Oden drama, no more Roy drama, no more fans with bloated expectations (for awhile). Don't get me wrong I still think the team is a few years away, but they're taking steps in the right direction and that matters a lot to me and my outlook.
Amen. At least the team no longer feels like it is going backwards. I'm even willing to give them a mulligan for next season, if they concentrate on development instead of a futile quest to win now.
I don't see why a single workout would be that valuable. Granted, I'm not paid to assess players/prospects for a living, but I know something about sample size. Teams have hours and hours of tape to see how a player has done in games. They have statistics to lift out information that the naked eye can't pick up. They have raw numbers about the true height/reach/speed of the players. A workout should be, IMO, a small slice of the whole pie. If a team changes its mind based on a single workout, then I would submit that the team is making a procedural error. Ed O.
Considering "Nic" is mentioned in this breakdown, this obviously was not a write-up of a pre-draft workout. Unless of course this article was written two years after the fact...
Remember Webster's 25 point quarter? What if that was his workout... Should he have been a top 5 pick?
