Considering Batum was constantly bashed for it, I'd be curious to see statistically just how "consistent" Aminu is. He has the occasional good game, but it sure seems like he has a lot of 4 point 6 point 8 point games too.
I'm not entirely sure I agree; CJ and Dame get the larger defenders because the wings we have aren't great ball handlers. Batum would have (for example) forced Minnesota to put Prince on Batum, not Dame. Right now, the defensive strategy against us is "Put the fastest SF on Dame, and the biggest SG on CJ and laugh all the way to the bank". A ball-handling SF would help remedy that. Hell, if Mason had a shot out to 18 feet, he'd probably play SF for us.
sadly your son is correct. Portland would have been much better served standing pat and playing Nic 30 MPG along their guard/wing spots. He's started primarily at SG for the Hornets and often runs their offense. Having multiple above average passers makes a team's attack much harder to defend. He also would have been a vastly better defensive option then CJ when closing out games doing offensive/defensive substitutions. I hope you show your son this thread. STOMP
When teams deny or trap the two guards, the middle is ALWAYS open, and we have no one who can exploit that advantage. Someone like Al Horford would be amazing. Hell, LaMarcus Aldridge as a de-facto second option (if he would have ever accepted such a role) would probably make our offense top 3.
Although Nic does have ball handling skills, he does not attack the basket, so I am not sure his ball handling skills would have forced a faster player to cover him. I do agree the more ball handlers the better. But if Batum just floats around the outside running the offense, a slower player can guard him just fine. Maybe he is attacking more this year, but he didn't last year.
Batum was awful last year, Aminu is shooting like Larry Bird from three compared to Batum. I prefer Aminu as a defensive starting SF alongside Dame and CJ, i prefer Henderson off the bench and i rather have CJ as the secondary (or even primary) ballhandler on the team. We should have kept Batum so we could pay him 26mil' a year? you MUST be joking.
It helps having two good ballhanders on the court at the same time though. Right now we have two good ballhandlers period, and they often play staggered minutes. Look at Golden State, with Livingston, Iggy, Draymond, and Curry. They can keep their offense humming along even if they don't have Draymond or Curry in the game.
But that all comes down to coaching. Any way you slice it - playing Nic off-ball, or having him help initiate offense - it comes down to what the coach wants to do. Nic can do it all reasonably well, so the coach needs to figure out what provides the most bang for the buck. But regardless of what that is, Nic would be better than Aminu in any scenario.
I definitively agree with you there. I love small ball because of that. The more ball handlers on the court the better.
There were times last year where he had a wide open lane to the basket and he still wouldn't attack. No way I blame that on Stotts. Granted he would attack and throw an alley-oop, but for some reason he stopped throwing them down in traffic like Henderson or Harkless. We needed some of that as well on this team. The bottom line for me is we need a combination of Nic and Harkless at SF. But just Nic alone for the max is hard too swallow. I don't see how the trade was bad because we can still offer him a lot of money this summer. But lets not forget he and his agent told us to fuck off once before. What makes us think they would have re-signed this time? If he really wants to be here, he has his chance in July. It will be very interesting to see where he ends up. If it is not Charlotte, then we will have a pretty good idea he had a certain destination in mind all along. And we will at least have gotten a young asset out of the deal.
What player performs as well injured as when healthy? Of course the answer is no one and it's pathetic/disingenuous to hold up performance when playing through an injury as an example of what sort of player is. Of course it was reported last year that Nic tore a ligament in the wrist of his shooting hand in December of last season. Last season Nic shot a career low 32% from deep. Before this season Aminu had never shot 32% from 3s in his 5 year career. 2015-16 stats from 3's... Batum 35% Aminu 36% btw, Larry Legend's career 3 point % is 38% nice strawman. No one will be paying Nic anything close to that and no one has contended that the Blazers should STOMP
Actually LMA went on a terror right after injuring his thumb/hand. Second, In his 5 year career, Nic was either fatigued or injured for over 50% I think. How does that help? One thing to judge a player while he is injured, but what else can you do if the player wont get healthy?
Good point. We do often forget about players when they play through injuries. The advanced stats leave that part out. But we also need to take into consideration how often Nic was getting hurt. He wouldn't rest in the off season and it took a toll. If a player keeps getting hurt he probably isn't worth the max. Nic needs to play one more time for France and then shut it down.
And that's why I regret nothing about his trade. I had no doubt that he was going elsewhere in free agency had he stayed. In his absence we've developed two capable replacements at SF, one of whom is starting to flash star potential, picked up a backup SG in Henderson who stands a much better chance of sticking around, as well as playing a brand of ball I simply find much more enjoyable to watch, and a low-risk PF prospect who obviously needs more work on the offensive end but has already shown ability to be a Chuck Hayes type defender/rebounder. I'll take that in exchange for a likely departing UFA any day.
care to offer any reasoning at all for being so completely sure? The only poster here who actually knows him (JL) says he loves Portland and he did immediately take to every social media thanking PDX for his time. I'm not saying he wouldn't have left in FA, but I've no reason to think it was a certainty. STOMP
