Ok, this is getting ridiculous. We are not even competing with the better teams. Our defense is a joke. The coaching staff better figure this out fast, or they are going to be out of jobs.
Stotts has always been an offensive coach. There were times it was better but that was more because of personnel than scheme or strategy. Having Lopez, Aldridge, Batum and Matthews was going to make you at least somewhat better just by the type of player that they were. This team lacks a real element of toughness. Time after time you see straight-line drives to the basket from 20+' away without so much of a hint at redirection. That is coaching, scheme and mental toughness which sadly this team is lacking in a big way right now.
None of the bigs/front court have played well so far. Ed Davis 2 pts/4 rbs and 41% FG. He was 6/7/ and 61% last year. Meyers shooting has been BAD (35% FG/25% 3 pt FG) and that's the only reason he's out there. Vonleh shooting 38% FG, horrid for anyone, but even worse for a PF. Amina shooting 27% FG before he went down. Plums is the only big with PER over 10. If not for some exceptional games from Dame & CJ, it might look a lot worse than 7-6. A regression towards the mean statistically seems likely. I don't buy "they got paid, so now they're not motivated " theory, especially with the bigs because Meyers is the only one who signed an extension last offseason. They're just in a funk. Bad offense hurts your defense. Missed shots = More transition opportunities = better shots and we're not the greatest defensively when we MAKE shots. But we're not this bad either. Eventually we'll need a rim protecting, rebound snatching big to really compete with elite teams, but until then the play should level out to look more like the team we saw at the end of last year. Still 69 games to go . . .
Our backcourt is fine/really good. Dame, CJ, Crabbe and Turner will be very good for the now and future. Our frontcourt players need some change! Keep Vonleh and figure out how to get Noel from 76ers. What can we get for Plumlee, Leonard, Davis? I could see a starting lineup in a year of Lillard, McCollum, Layman, Vonleh and Noel!! Active and determined!
I honestly think the Blazers are playing really hard on defense, and they are still abysmal... which is way worse than lack of effort.
LOL! Last night I think it was Hurd who said something along the lines of "it's not for lack of effort", to which my response was "the alternative explanation is that we just aren't good, if we can't blame it on effort". Either way you slice it, it's not good.
I forgot how bad we were to start the season last year. I was all excited about getting a top draft pick in November. Then in December we were all mediocre. We were 14 and 20 before we got hot in January. It wasn't until March that it looked like we were going to make the playoffs. MARCH. That's five months away. If they go oh fur on this road trip maybe I'll start saying they're worse than last year. Right now I'm saying they're the same level of bad as last year.
The thing is, continuity was suppose to work in our favor. While other teams are working several new players into their rotation, or new coaches are trying to get to know their rosters, we brought back our entire roster from last season with one minor change (Henderson/Evans). I have no doubt that we'll rack up wins later in the season - if you look at the last 6 weeks of our schedule it's laughably soft. But that's just going to further obfuscate the problems this team has. Most will be blinded by the wins, while forgetting how poorly we played against the moderately good teams.
