A lot of you have been saying that you'd give the team 20 games before making any judgements. Now that we are here, what is your assessment? Has Evans improved enough? Will Crabbe bounce back? Meyers? Calabro and Hurd?
Moe Harkless is a freaking revelation. He has all the makings of becoming our third piece. Locked in for 4 yrs at age 23. The defense will come.
My view hasn't changed. Turner, Leonard, and Crabbe are all on terrible contracts. Harkless was the only good signing. Still prefer Mike and Mike, Blazers are mediocre.
I think it took them 20 games to finally turn in a respectable defensive performance. Crabbe and Meyers haven't done anything to show they deserved their deals. Turner looks like a pro; he's never going to be great, but he looks more comfortable and seems to be carving out a niche. Harkless has been a very pleasant revelation. Aside from Lillard he's probably my favorite Blazer in years. 10-10 record is probably earned given how terrible they've been on defense, but maybe with some more effort they'll return to modest respectability at that end and they'll probably finish with about 46 wins (assuming no major injuries to key players). At the end of the day, the team still needs some kind of trade if they want to take another step.
To be a .600 team, you need 50 wins. To get from 10-10 to 50-32, we have to go 40-22 (.645) the rest of the way. I don't see it, even if we get some big star at the February deadline like Cousins. There is no reason to delay the tank; start now and stop any trades in progress.
44-46 wins is probably right where we are at. The defense cannot stay this bad throughout the year, we see flashes of good defense but no sustainability. I believe we can get better on D as the year goes on because we weren't this bad even lillards first year and I just cannot believe in a years time with no major upheavels we can regress thsi badly on D for the entire year.
I also don't think we are going to make a panic trade this year. If a player we covet becomes available then sure a big trade could happen but Olshey signed young talent to mature and be traded based on potential to other teams not to trade them away for garbage just because Meyers/Crabbe are having a bad year so far. I don't think Olshey is in any rush to make a trade and will instead wait for the right opportunity, be that this year in the off season or next year.
Starting in January last year, we went 67% the rest of the way. Maybe we can start doing that in December this year?
I disagree. We had a hole going into the offseason, and everyone knew what it was. We still haven't filled it, but I think that was by design because Olshey didn't want to spend his cap money on guys like Biyombo. I think Neil will make a move for a center by the deadline. Even if Ezeli gets healthy, he's more of a bench player (like a better Ed Davis) than a starter. Doubt the plan was ever for him to be the answer.
You are right, of course. I checked last season's inflection points. After a game on Dec. 23, we were .355, yet went .647 the rest of the season. After a game on Jan. 8, we were .384, yet went .674 the rest of the way.
We'll win at least 50 games. Turner has turned out to be great. So glad I was patient! Crabbe and Meyers are starting to play better. When everyone is hitting their shot, not even Cleveland or GS can beat us as was evident when we blasted both teams last season. Nik- why is Harkless your favorite Blazer in years? Curious. Also, I think Harkless is why we had to re-sign everybody. Lots of potential but we didn't know for sure who would blow up so had to sign them all. Good strategy. Better than guessing.
