Man I swear collectively you guys are depressing to read. It's almost like if there's nothing negative to say make something negative up. If I personally did t watch the team and read S2 to form an opinion I would assume the team was one of the worst in the history of the NBA. Now before specific members get bent about me calling out the collective attitude without providing an actual assessment.... At this point Turner is projecting to be a better scorer than Harkless, Crabbe, Aminu and Napier. He's also projecting to be a far better rebounder and assist guy than Crabbe. While it's true Napier has been better than expected does that mean that Turner is a waste? If we hadn't signed Turner we would be looking at Pat or Jake to fill out the minutes. Ohh yeah and we are 5 games into preseason the guys are not even fully gelling yet.
Do any of you remember how poor Plumlee played to start the pre-season last year? Yeah, he turned out OK.
The Meh-van will Turner the corner, drive down the lane, and deliver what Olshey ordered. Or not, I have no idea. barfo
So you admit you haven't watched a game this preseason and then pass the blame around? It's fucking preseason. Stotts is trying to figure out his starting lineup and define roles for the season. The season hasn't even started and half the forum is on high alert...we're going to be fine. Our bench unit may be a little rough to start the season but look at the talent we have there compared to years past now! Stotts is EASILY a top 10 coach and Olshey has done a great job with the position he is in. We're not a top tier FA destination...not unless we have a championship caliber team to lure someone here ala Durant to GSW.
ET has definitely been decidedly meh.... but I'll (try to) wait for the AS break to actually cement my judgments.
Gotta side with @Blazer Freak here. Kinda tough to take your speculations seriously when you haven't actually watched the Blazers play.
How'd we look last year in preseason? How'd we look during the regular season before Christmas (Hint: Does 11-20 sound vaguely familiar)? Integrating new players into a system takes time - much more than 5 preseason games where most of our key rotation guys are playing less than half the game. Last night Dame played 18 minutes and Turner 23. They played 5:47 together last night at the end of the 1st quarter, didn't play together in the 2nd quarter and Dame sat out the entire second half. One of the supposed advantages of adding Turner was to allow Dame to play off the ball more. We haven't really seen much of that yet in preseason. Like everything else, it will take time playing together for the on court chemistry to come together. Right now, Stotts is playing 14 guys, to see what different combinations look like and who gets the final roster spot. The rotation will shorten to 9 or 10 guys once the real games start, and we will see starters and key rotation players getting 28-36 MPG, not the 18 - 24 they are currently playing. We may want to revisit this topic after the first 20 games have been played. Until then the season isn't over. It hasn't even started yet. BNM
Give Turner a break, he's learning a new system, playing with a completely new set of guys. It will be like Henderson, just needs to dust off, then it gets good.
We need to play smaller, have at least two guards or worst case scenario both Crabbe and Turner with another guard. Harkless and Aminu are both tweeners, same goes for Crabbe and Turner, tweeners are better used in their bigger position. We need another guard to bump all the rotation to play bigger and therefore also need to send out one or more of our bigs
I'll be honest, I think ET is going to do fine as the primary ball handler with the second unit. (Weird that I just typed that since I was the primary ball handler while I was in prison) Obviously he's going to struggle against other ball hawking PGs like we saw against CP3, but usually he will be matched up with the other teams SGs or SFs..... I liked what I saw last night when he posted up and the offense flowed thru that....ala Pippen or Barkley. He has the court vision and skills to see open players while posting up. Don't be surprised if you see him in the post, AC on the opposite side trying to spread that court. Be patient with him. DOn't get it twisted, I don't like him attempting ANY type of 3 ptr, but his mid range drive and kick or post up game is pretty damn good.
I think you may be on to something, but not quite exactly what you think. I was just poking around at 82games.com and made the following observation: Allen Crabbe is better offensively at SG, but much better defensively at SF. Turner is pretty much equal, both offensively and defensively at both positions. That makes sense as Crabbe is pretty much a catch and shoot perimeter player on offense, but doesn't have the quickness to guard SGs on defense. Turner is a true tweener - plays the same at both positions and can play the point forward roll Batum used to play in Stotts' system. So, rather than add another player to an already deep roster, just use the ones we have the right way. When they play together, Crabbe plays SG on offense with Turner in the point forward role. On defense, they swap and Crabbe guards the SF, to hide his inability to guard SGs and Turner guards the SG. I'm sure Stotts and his staff will figure this all out. Probably already have. BNM
Obviously we are going to have problems with teams with big bigs! Denver's front court is HUGE. We will struggle with the Orlandos and Torontos etc...... So lets go small, run and give it to the other 20 something teams right?
One thing that hasn't really been discussed is our lack of a veteran presence. Hendo was added for that last year and of course we had Kamen on the bench all year too. I would definitely give Lillard some credit as he is an all around professional, but having that "old man" on the team may be something that we are lacking. Ray Allen still looking at coming out of retirement?
