They didn't call Biebs "Leonar_", but they probably did worse by going on and on about him. Generally interesting stuff. Nate Duncan thinks we'll be a bottom 10 defense, maybe a bottom 5, and that you can't play Leonard at the end of games because of his defense. http://basketball.realgm.com/wireta...il-Blazers-Season-Preview-With-Erik-Gundersen
That's because Meyers is a 5. He needs to play with a 4 who can play offensively under the basket. I would actually really like to see what a Meyers / Davis combo would look like.
It's not Leonard's defense. It's that, when you're camped out at the three-point line on offense, you can't bang the boards for Offensive rebounds easily. Our successful lineup last night was two garbage men who make their hay getting offensive putback flushes. Leonard can't do that. It's not his game.
Which is why I think Davis makes a good combo with Leonard. Vonleh/Plumlee also can work as Vonleh stretches the floor a bit himself. Davis/Plumlee would be an awful pairing most likely though.
Agreed. One of the things that I see missing in the Blazers' offense is a back-to-the-basket post-up type of player. Meyers is good at pick and pops. Plumlee, Noah and Davis do a great job as garbage men, but there's nobody that you can toss the ball into the low post and have them create on offense. Kaman is still the best option that the Blazers have for that kind of role and I don't see him getting much burn. It will be interesting to see how Stotts adjusts the offense as the season goes along.
Looks like defensive boards are the focus..Stotts has the whole roster getting back in transition on D so offensive rebounds aren't his priority
Sure, but if you're watching meyers on d, I think the guy has came a Hell of a long way. Based on what I've seen of him in the preseason he has been playing pretty good d. There were a couple plays last night where he played d about as perfect as you can against someone without getting a foul. I was impressed
Gunderson doesn't know what he's talking about. As far as I've seen, Meyers hasn't been making any more mistakes than Vonleh and Plumlee. Clearly Davis is a better defender, but Meyers hasn't been bad.
Why does no one see how smart the dude is on offense? You wonder why he's wide open all the time-- it's not because his defenders don't respect his shot as much as it is him reading defenses and being at the right place every time.
I agree. I lost interest after the first few minutes because of all the inaccuracies and stereotypes. Combined they have less information than 95% of the people that post on here.
That's generally all reporters. Unless they're breaking something that we don't have access to, they're still talking about the same games that we watch. They're still sharing their opinions on content that we also got to see, so why does their opinion carry more weight than yours? Because they went to college, got a journalism degree, and worked in sports for enough time to get a job covering a pro team. That's it. Having more experience in journalism doesn't necessarily mean they have more knowledge about the team. When a coach says something I tend to listen simply because they usually know more about basketball than I could ever hope to know.
Meyers is playing fine...he needs to bend his knees more on defense and get into a stance once in awhile but he's gained a lot of confidence from years past
Solid. Mike Rice said this team is gonna surprise. Rice is like a coach in my viewpoint. Has access that we don't have and watches many practices that we don't see or hear anything being reported. There are a few media guys that have some goods, but most of them are just rehashing the(any) article we just read on our own. Id go a step further and say the majority of sports reporters are a bit younger than the average age of this forum ( sorry if your young, I mean no offense) and with those extras years comes more time studying and watching the game...hence I think that man of the members here are actually MORE in tune than most reporters. They are just good for breaking news that we didn't get... that's about it.
