NBA Guru @NBAGuru Also some sleepers to have breakout years: Josh Selby, Dominique Jones, Greivis Vasquez, Tobias Harris, Nolan Smith, Patrick Patterson Shit just got serious right there
Nolan Smith will be our 2nd PG and should at least get some real minutes. Vasquez is a guy I also like and Selby had a great summer league.
Smith isn't a point guard, though. If he were 3 inches taller there'd be no argument about his position. We saw in SL that he's good in transition at creating for himself, but he's just not the kind of guy who sets up the offense. He's Elliot Williams without the height or the vertical. Our second unit is in for a world of hurt this year. Without Lillard on the floor there's nobody who has a decent handle or the ability to run an offense. It's going to be a lot of running down the court, looking for points in transition, and when that fails we jack contested three pointers. I hope he does well, though. I'd really like to see him show some promise so we can package him, and/or Matthews and/or Williams for a decent SF, and use Batum at SG.
We don't really have a prototypical PG. We have a bunch of combo-guards, Lillard included. That could be okay, if we have the right system. I wish we could run the triangle or a motion offense. I can see us playing Smith and Lillard together at times (not something that's going to cause the Lakers to shake in their boots) and playing a fair amount of smallball. Actually, this is the perfect time for Batum really to step up. He could be the proverbial straw that stirs the drink. He could play the role he played for SLUC Nancy. Including playing 40mpg (which, alone, should boost his stats - exactly the reason Ryan Anderson won MIP last year). So I put his name forward (more in hope than in expectation) as a "sleeper". Although I guess you can't really be a sleeper if you're paid >$10M. Basically that list is just players who did well in Summer League. Here are my suggestions, based on similar thinking: Klay Thompson Chandler Parsons Austin Daye Markieff Morris
Someone mentioned before in some other long lost thread about needing an instant offense guy off the bench. There's the potential that that could end up being Nolan Smith. He's more 2 than 1, but can play the 1 enough. Sort of like Jason Terry.
IMO Ewill will be the Blazers "surprise" and outplay Nolan and whoever else, very possibly Wes as well.
I think Nolan will be playing PG and I doubt he'll have a breakout year. That said, I do expect him to be improved.
Forgot Kawhi Leonard. There's also a chance that Beasley thrives in Phoenix. But the team won't if he does.
