I don't mean now. Now we're bad and it's in our interest to be bad. But if we ever plan to get anywhere, we have to give up on the idea of playing Damian and CJ together. Neither one has the passing skills of a truly top flight PG and neither one has the defensive skills of even a mediocre PG. I shudder to think what Stephen Curry is going to score against us the next time he plays us. It's all very well saying it's fun to score, but I'd rather not be the '90-'91 Nuggets, thanks. Yes CJ is good, and actually he may be my fave Blazer right now, but it's him or Damian, and as long as Olshey is here, Damian is going nowhere. (Please God let Damian find his 3 point shot again.) I still think we're somewhere between the team we saw against the Pelicans and the team we've seen against Phoenix, so we're better than quite a few teams (albeit mostly in the East), but that just makes our draft pick worse. So start looking for disgruntled stars on other teams, because we've got plenty of parts we can bundle, with CJ as the main item. Again, not right now (unless some other GM panics) but certainly at the deadline. Even if the other team is trading because the player might bolt in the Summer, it's worth the gamble. Just not Carmelo Anthony, please.
It might be interesting to see CJ sit out for a month (tennis elbow or something) when Henderson comes back. (We would also have to pass a law that Stotts not play Damian 48 minutes per night though.) I have a feeling that the team would be better for it: there's no question that they would be better defensively.
I think CJ is best suited to be a scorer off the bench. He doesn't bring much defensively because he's not very big or athletic.
Sometimes he is going to have a big offensive game, but when he doesn't, he brings almost NOTHING else to the table. When the Blazer backcourt gets outscored by 22 points (and you know the opponent shot a higher percentage) they have NO CHANCE to win right now. Aminu could be that 3rd score but until they get something out of their bigs beside an occasional dunk, they will struggle on many nights. No worries, most knew this was a work in progress. There is a big learning curve for many of these players who haven't seen a lot of court time before.
You notice last night, they were really backing off the suns shooters, it's like Portland wanted to dare them to shoot rather than take it inside. Not sure if Stotts old defensive scheme is going to work with this crew.
Why do we do this over and over around here? Making judgments about whether a player should stay or go after 3 games, especially when two of the games are against the same team that happens to have guards that are particularly tough match-ups? Come on.
CJ is not a PG, is a volume shooter, and is an undersized defender. That has been the case since he was in college.
By the numbers, this thread should be called "CJ is a shoo-in for Most Improved Player!". CJ has the highest PER on the team (of anyone who has played more than 3 minutes) at 21.6, the highest True Shooting % among our guards (55.6%), only a -0.4 Defensive BPM (meaning he's an average defender, giving up only 0.4 points extra per 100 possessions), and the lowest Turnover % on the team (again, for players who have played more than 3 minutes) at only 4.7%. His Win Shares/48 are behind only Mason Plumlee (and Pat "Three Minutes" Connaughton) on the team, and twice that of Dame. I don't know how much better he could be doing, even in a sample size that includes two losses where their guards dominated us. If that's our season, I think CJ is just fine.
It's inflated by his unreal game 1 of the season performance. Cj is one of those feast or famine type of players. Jr smith, Jamal Crawford, Mo Williams, etc He's def not a scrub obviously, but he isn't the shooting guard of the future like a lot of folks think.
So he puts up good numbers and we lose because of his counterpart on the other team? Not a ringing endorsement.
That is on Stotts not CJ. We have been doing that for years (by design apparently - and if not then Stotts should be canned as his team is tuning him out).
Is the plan to have CJ flourish on offense but the team gets destroyed on defense and losses 50-60 games? Is that bad? Would you rather lose 55 games with boring offense and respectable defense? Maybe the team wants to put on a show for us and get a decent lottery pick? 37 points was a show! Losing at home to likely lottery opposition is getting us those losses. Mission accomplished so far.
Exactly right. Losing to San Antonio, the Clippers, Cleveland, Memphis etc doesn't really do anything. Most Lottery teams lose to those teams. It's the games you lose to other Lottery/fringe Lotto teams that make a difference in terms of Lottery seeding.
