I know he's young and you want to get him comfortable, but he's earned more minutes IMO. His post defense when manned up is so fun to watch
His perimeter defense is quite good. He just gets no shot attempts or anything more than the 1st play of the game run for him. Tough to gain confidence on the offensive end when your entire job is to run around and set screens for the guards and occasionally hand the ball off to them on a screen. He has good instincts (little confidence), a good handle, good athleticism and every game does something that most bigs can't do. Then he fades back into the woodwork.
The only thing he's not clueless about is defensive positioning. But he hasn't earned shit - and definitely hasn't earned the starting spot. Still, because I think this season should be 100% spent on development I do agree that he should play more. But if we're not going to run any sets for him, and try to force his (and others) development, what's the point? Continuing to ride the backs of Dame & CJ to meaningless wins is stupid.
The guy is allergic to confidence. He has no faith in himself and never ever takes the wiiide open shots he has for himself from time to time. I know ppl love to use his age as a clutch for him but it's disappointing a player lacks confidence to show what he has. He does have good defense I'll give him that but other than that he's dead weight out there
I'd rather have a young 20 yr old like him learn and focus on defense and let the offense gradually come. He's shown me enough that I think eventually he will be at least an average offensive PF, his D however could become very, very good, it's already solid
Sure, why not this year? But I could say this about a lot of guys (should play more). Harkless and Ed Davis come to mind. Heck, even Alexander and Montero. Probably can't play them all but get some of these guys more time.
There's no reason Montero shouldn't be playing all of Frazier's minutes. Aminu should play fewer minutes with more going to Harkless and Davis. Not really sure how Alexander gets minutes this season.
Vonleh has a lot of potential, but he gets lost in the guard heavy offensive schemes of the Blazers. The Blazers simply don't play through their big men like they did in the years past with a certain Aldridge, Randolph, Sheed, etc. Meyers gets shots because he moves outside, and Plums and Davis fight hard for what they get in the block. Vonleh is only in the starting lineup because he provides a big body and allows the Blazers to juice up their second string with Meyers. Though I thought they would eventually give Meyers back the starting spot.
The Blazers are completely perimeter oriented and Vonleh is more of an inside guy who can hit an occasional outside shot. Right now, Stotts isn't doing much to take advantage of his skills....or anything else for a big man within 8' of the basket.
Wins and losses don't mean anything this year; it's all about player development. It would be nice to see more plays ran his way even if that means a few less wins coming our way this season
earned more minutes? huh? he doesn't even deserve the starting line-up spot which has been gifted to him - he's 54th in PF in minutes per game in the whole league (those that play a min of 6min pg - 37th equal PER(63PF ahead of him or tied)), and he STARTS...what does this mean?....... he starts and then is benched to be replaced by people that out-perform him cause we need more from that position. I'm ok with 'developing' someone, but ffs let him come off the bench, compete against some 2nd units and build that way. He could end up being something good, but TBH I can't see how he'd feel good about starting, good enough to start but not good enough for more minutes than your 'backup' - smh.
He hasn't done much but there were games he played better than Davis and Meyers and still just got his two 6-minutes runs. MP isn't s good stat since he obviously plays so few. If Stotts is going to start him, than run plays for him like they do when Meyers is in the game. Otherwise I agree, put him on the bench because he certainly isn't being developed.
The situation has been totally mis-managed by Terry. It really speaks to the character of Meyers and Ed that they are at least publicly, if not privately, okay with playing behind Noah. It'd be one thing if Terry was actually developing Noah in a manner that made him useful on both ends of the floor. But he's essentially telling Meyers and Ed that he'd rather run 4 on 5 on offense in a token gesture towards development, than to play an honest game of basketball OR develop our new toy.
Exactly. I have no issue with him putting Vonleh out there but thrown him a bone once in a while and insist he shoot when he has opportunities. You can hear him yelling at Meyers to shoot all the time. Vonleh was a very solid shooter from '3' the last two years, he just has no confidence because he never gets an opportunity to shoot the ball and it's tough to have rhythm that way.
Stotts forced to put Vonleh in due to big men foul trouble. So far 4 points, 5 rebounds and an assist in late game action. 8 rebounds total so far.
