Mmm, not really. The Blazers are far more reliant on their top two players than the Spurs are with theirs. The Spurs can take teams down to the wire using only second/third stringers. Can you really picture the Blazers doing that?
Dude if you are going to put patty mills then you have to include Steve blake. Screw it, you need to include blake regardless, dude is straight up ballin for us this year!
Agreed with this 100%. So much of our success is based upon fit. For as much as people complain about Batum, it's not like getting a 20+ppg scorer at SF would make much sense for our team. I'm not a big fan of Batum, but he does fit well. With that said, flipping him for multiple reliable bench options would be reasonable to me. Not saying it should happen, but would be reasonable. With that said, my rankings based off of average performance thus far (not peak or potential or individual 1v1s): Lillard: Top 3 (Curry's having an amazing season, Westbrook/Paul are also doing damage) Matthews: Top 5 (My favorite player in the league, homer goggles aside there are few more valuable at SG) Batum: Top 15 (weak position, inconsistent performances thus far this year) Aldridge: Top 2 (depends on where you slot Davis) Lopez: Top 8 (I value his defense and ability to be in the game in crunch time more than most I think)
I think Batum is an important piece to our puzzle. I'm not concerned about his points, but the efficiency and aggressiveness. He's gotta be at least a 35% three point shooter.
I knew someone would mention Blake, but I was trying to stay true to the spirit of the our starters thread and just list all the guys Lillard will have to face in the playoffs. Let's not forget, Mills played like an all-star in last year's championship run.
I think he will be #1 within the 3 years. Dude is just a beast. Hard to find many weaknesses in his game.
