After the All-Star Break Rolo will be healthy... All the players will get some rest and be re-energize, They will go back to winning at the same clip as the beginning of the season... maybe even go on a 8-12 game winning streak and everyone will be praising Stotts. I don't always agree with his moves but I also am not an NBA coach, We don't know how serious any one of the injuries are. We're not behind the scenes talking with the players. Athletes play hurt all in every sport, its part of the game. So far I have been pleasantly suprised with the way Stotts has handled the team since he's been here. I'm not going to grill the guy for having a losing month with a team that has been injured almost across the board. Rolo is the glue of this team and this has just shown how important he is.
RoLo would be a convenient excuse if we played like crap when he was out. Unfortunately, RoLo went out in Game 25. We then went 8-2. Then Kaman started starting, and we went 6-7 in those games, (3-7 in last 10). Then he and Leonard combined for 17 minutes last night.
I thought about Stotts rotations over the last three games and wondered if we're trying to showcase TRob and CJ before the trade deadline but they failed to help the cause. I also think we've kept Crabbe out because they have some good film on him when he played well. Hard to say but after the Bucks loss Stotts looked extremely frustrated and seemed to have no answer for the media. 2 guys in double digit scoring will never beat 6 guys in double digit scoring and we need more production on offense. Yeah, it's a slump but not season ending by any stretch. I'm frustrated with the game threads and team bashing that now is plastered all over the team's homepage. When I go to the homepage, the center pane for Rip City 2 looks like Knicks fans have arrived. Stotts is mediocre? CJ is horrible...etc. Of all the years I've followed the fanbase, the angry villagers with torches and pitchforks were pretty hard to tolerate within 2 minutes of the first qtr. For me, it ruins a game I settle in to enjoy whether we win or lose. Constructive criticism and objective analysis is great and has its place but the angst has taken over the boards. We all like winning but during a game, a game thread should not be overwhelmed with trade ideas, coach firing and doom and gloom. Those threads have their place but it fucks up a game experience for some of us. That's my 2 cents.
Ha! So happiness is no Nate! Well I suspect Nate would start Blake instead of Nic, park him in the corner and let Damian run the ISO. Results would be about the same. Does anyone else ever wonder why Portland can't find a coach that understand the damn game? Coach Newell would look at this shit that is being played and simply shake his head. No the damn game has not changed, we just have too many friggin coaches that don't know the game and let the players sort it out. We see the result before us.
Joel Freeland deserves max money, by the way. 37-15 last year with him last year, 17-13 last year without him 25-5 with him this year 7-11 without him. For a total of: 62-20 with, 24-24 without.
I know it is hyperbole week and all but seriously of course he doesn't deserve the max but what he does deserve is to be on our team next year which is no slam dunk.
Also, Im still learning this place. Your quoting is much cleaner. I will figure it out for easier reading in the future.
Crabbe hasn't show much of anything other then that he doesn't turn the ball over and plays passable defense (which is certainly a start, don't get me wrong).
Of course we have a Stotts bashing thread also. Lets see? You have a Batum basher. You got a CJ basher. You got a Lillard basher. You got a Neil basher. Stotts seems like a logical choice now. Of course i will be waiting for the Mathews and Aldridge bashing threads still on the way.
Crabbe is 7-0 as a starter. Not sure what that means but with Nic as bad as he has been, I might try that at least until it doesn't work. He hits the open shot, doesn't force the issue, was even starting to go the basket a little bit and plays top-3 perimeter defense on Portland's roster. As for the offense, it is so 3-pt oriented that as teams have have adjusted, there seems to be no 'Option B'. Players will pass up open looks or a completely wide-open lane to through the ball back out for a contested '3'. That just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense but I guess if that is the mentality from the top down, it becomes a habit. Portland shoots very few FT's, forces almost a league low in TO's and rarely gets fast-break buckets. So they are left with hoping they are hot from the outside to win a game. That's fine when everyone is shooting a high percentage from out there but now Dame is in an 8- game slump and Nic has been a no-show for most of the season. An adjustment or two might be in order...
Do you really think a players' coach like Stotts will bench Nic? My biggest criticism of Stotts is that I don't think he's as hard on his starters/vets as he should be.
I agree 100%. Short termers like I noted in another thread. Have patience, stay the course. I never said that. Thanks for quoting out of context. I find the Stott's bashing hilarious...just to clarify. If anyone here thinks that 2-8 is all on him, well then your not a true fan enough to know two things. One... we have been very injured this year...its bound to catch up. Two... We don't know the extent of the inside talk about what Is happening or not happening. Both in Neil/Paul convos, as well as Neil/Terry convos. Many many assumptions about the state of a players health in these threads using that as an opportunity to try to bash the coach. None of us have the in, so to think we know all is ... well ...foolish. Again. Stotts has tried many different things this year and not one of them has outshined the rest as a clear decision to continue doing. Scott's is doing what he can with what he has... The moment the season seems like it might be a loss, I guarantee you he would rest Dame and Nico, but as long as we are pushing for the top spot and home court, you keep your best players on the court playing hurt unless you have someone else who can CLEARLY outperform. NO ONE has outperformed any of the starters, hurt or not, on a regular basis and most of the bench players HAVE had chances.
My biggest complaint is not playing Crabbe. I just don't get it! Crabbe is probably our best bench wing defender. The fact that he's seeing no burn, while out of control Barton and couldn't hit an ocean with a boat CJ are getting more burn is really getting to me.
I like splitting the quotes, so I pick a place to interject and add a (/quote) block and then start writing. When I'm done with it I add a (quote) to get it back to the block quote. And continue. use [] instead of () in the above examples.
My biggest complaint is not playing Vic and giving him the same chance as the rest of the bench guys have received, supposedly the big complaint against Vic is his shooting as he doesn't space the floor, yet both his FG% and 3 pt% in limited minutes this season is better than almost all those guys and much better than Nic. Yes I know its limited minutes but he HAS demonstrated improved shooting yet he basically gets NO run time, I think this is a real bad decision by Stotts.
