We lost because my favorite players, Hickson and Claver, didn't play. Let's face it. The guys with guaranteed contracts, Babbitt and Sasha, will make the team, and Morrison won't. No miracle will happen. Olshey would lose face with Allen if he had to dump Sasha.
Lillard with good first game, Leonard with a good second game. That is a positive thing . . . still getting ready for a long inconsistent season.
Not me. I'm watching you guys post about watching Coby Karl and Adam Morrison playing basketball. FML
That's not really how it works. They gave us money for his contract, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't cost us to cut him.
It would cost us his replacement's salary, plus the embarrassment of having passed on Isaiah Thomas (the UW Husky who started most games last year as a rookie King) to draft Jon Diebler, then Olshey trading Diebler for Sasha, then cutting Sasha.
The game really showed how much work is left to be done. Leonard showed at times how good he can be but his timing is really off, he seems to dive to the basket either too soon or too late and at least once failed to realize he should be going to the basket even though Lillard's drive was in his line of sight. Batum frustrates me; I really wish he would spend a summer learning how to finish instead of playing for France. I also think he needs to be more persistent on defense. One big thing I saw on defense; even though the bigs are now supposed to jump out on the pick and roll, forcing the dribbler back; nobody did it all. Looks like Stotts emphasized it at halftime, and Leonard and Jeffries and Freeland at least were trying; i didn't see Aldridge doing it. And they need to do it quicker and crisper; I'm sure they will get better and more consistent. Another thing that concerns me was the lack of any really dynamic playmaking and aggressive play; actually Koby Carl came the closest and THAT is concerning. I'm still hopeful they can work through all this; but I'm not sure if you can coach aggressive, let-it-all-out play.
There were a lot of near misses, bad passes, guys not finishing inside, coupled with the Suns being red hot from outside. But the Suns got better shots within their offense than the Blazers. Portland doesn't seem to have their offense worked out yet. Leonard can rebound and score inside due to his size and athletisism, but he's still raw, has a lot to learn on both ends.
Quick quiz: without looking at the boxscore, identify these Blazer players by minutes played and +/-: 24 mins, -21 21:29, -11 17:33, +3 11:14, -13 16:39, +6 18:16, +11
can someone give me a quick recap. how lilliard, leonard, freeland (any other blazer) did? also how did kendall marshall look?
Lillard looked okay.... he played better in the second half. He still seems very tentative when he's playing the point. Leonard looked good. I think he looks a lot better than I thought he would at this point. I don't think he's nearly as raw as advertised. Freeland looked solid. He's not an All-Star by any means, but he could easily be a starter or a very good bench player. Marshall looked rather bleh. Nothing special. I think he's a career backup.
I don't think tentative is the right word for Lillard. I think he's too pre-occupied with involving his teammates that it gets in the way of his own game. He's going to have to treat us like Weber State. He simply doesn't have that many offensive options so he is going to need to shoulder more of the offensive load. I know he is trying to prove that he can get guys the ball but even if he does, we're not scoring much of the time.
