Do you think we would be where we are at today? I bet Lillard would be used like Roy and many of us would be complaining to no end. If there is anything to be thankful; thank god Nate is gone.
If Nate were still coach most here would be yelling at me and saying Nate is a great coach Lillard would not have the green light he does Batum would have forced his way to Minnesota somehow or standing in the corner on offense averaging 2 apg
Ronnie Price starting over Lillard, LOL. Jared Jeffries our primary front court backup. Leonard riding pine. Batum either gone, or standing in the corner counting the days until the end of the season, and fans complaining about him. And a lot less entertaining offense.
yeah, he sucked so bad at keeping a team together and making the playoffs that was devastated by injuries year after year while similar teams like Houston, New Orleans, Golden State etc. floundered in the lottery during the same stretch. Nate had flaws as do most coaches but one of the biggest flaws was out of his control and that was having a healthy team to work with but let's blame Nate for that, lol.
The only thing I blame Nate for is running a super simplistic offensive system that was good against inferior opponents but couldn't adjust to quality defensive opponents in a playoff setting. Well, that and sticking Nicolas in the corner for 4 years.
He wouldn't play the bench, Leonard would just sit there, along with Jeffries, Barton, Babbitt and others. Even with a 20 pt lead heading into the fourth none of those players would get any playing time until the last 2 minutes of the game. I am so glad Nate is gone.
My guess is record-wise we would be similar, perhaps a couple fewer wins. But emotionally and visually this team would be so much harder to watch. Even during the recent six game slide, I had fun watching the Blazers. It would have been much more fun had they been winning, but win or lose its a much more exciting brand of basketball.
