I am not really a "homer," but for once, I am more optimistic than most people about this team. My theory of basketball is that a great team is like a jigsaw puzzle. If all the pieces fit, its a beautiful thing, like the Warriors, or the Spurs. But if you have two of the same pieces, or missing pieces, it never works. That's why I don't think either the Rockets (Harden and CP3 too similar) or the Thunder (Melo, Westy, and George all high-volume shooters) will work all that well. Last year, we were missing pieces. Until Nurk got here. Then the whole thing beautifully and perfectly fit into place. He was our missing jigsaw piece, and our play for those 20 games proves it. Just as awful as they were to watch BN (before Nurkic), they were a joy to watch AN. He was like the capstone in the arch we were building, to mix metaphors. It all fit. So, yes, I am optimistic. And yes, the west has gotten better - maybe- but so will we be. Vegas has us at about 42 wins?I think 50 is realistic. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
For this team to be a threat to the playoffs/maybe division, they need to find shooters, hope that Collins and or Swanigan have a real big impact on the team or Moe becomes consistent and a legit threat to keep the defenders honest.
Nice theory. Hope it works out that way. Of course, every puzzle I ever worked on seemed like it ended up missing a piece. No matter where you looked, no sign of it. Well, until you finally see fragments of it in a dog pile in the back yard. BAD DOG, SLY!
Maurice Harkless can jump high enough to jam it, and you hardly ever miss when you throw the ball right in the hoop.
This. I am feeling alright about the season but we don't really have great shooting wings. When CJ comes out that gets exposed hard and that is my worry.
I agree with this on the whole. My reasons for caution (and for not just projecting our record with Nurk over the course of an entire season) are that we were playing several teams who'd given up at that point, and teams didn't know how to scout us. However, the Spurs are always written off every single year and yet outperform expectations, and the Warriors of last year didn't break the previous year's record despite adding Durant for exactly your reason. Chemistry is important. That said, the West is RIDICULOUSLY tough now, and we have the added disadvantage of the longest flight route of any team, which has got to have some effect. And losing Crabbe is probably going to hurt us more than some think, just from his threat from outside (so that you can rest Lillard and/or McCollum but still force teams to guard the three point line). Morrow better come through. Really hoping for health for our big 3 over the season. And also a better integration for Turner, so that his piece fits neatly.
And actually: another team that supports this theory is the Blazers' SL team. They underwhelmed until they lost a couple of players (Pat, Collins) and then really clicked, beating teams which much higher-profile names.
To take your puzzle analogy one step further, I'm actually quite ecstatic that the Blazers didn't get Carmelo. He was the wrong piece to fit into their puzzle. Too old. Too ball hog. Too defensively challenged. Too prima donna. To make him fit, the Blazers would have had to get out the cutting shears and pruned away at other puzzle pieces to try to fit him into the overall picture. I'd much rather see how the existing team meshes and then, if necessary, go find the missing piece.
Well yeah when you go from a Top 5 SG, maybe the best one on one guard playing today, to... *checks roster* Anthony Morrow... it’s going to hurt a bit.
One morning a few years back I was babysitting a 5 year old while her parents were off running up a mountain. We were doing a jigsaw puzzle and I was having a large glass of a nice single-malt to hone my child care skills. I accidentally dropped one of the pieces in my scotch. It improved neither the scotch nor the puzzle, but it did amuse the 5 year old. I mention this because, as we all know, Lillard drinks like a fish, so this needs to be taken into account in the jigsaw puzzle theory. barfo
I agree with the jigsaw puzzle concept - it's why a player might be awful in City A but good in City B. Where he/she fits or does not fit. It's not just type of player on court but also personality. In the old Bulls, Pip was the soother while Jordan was the enforcer; I don't mean with the other team, I mean internally with his teammates and the duo worked; but when Pip came to Portland, we still needed an enforcer. And he wasn't. So he was very good in Portland but not quite enough for that last nudge.
If you don't have talent, you can make up for it with hustle on defense. Didn't see hustle on defense last year, but did the year before. I know they _can_ do it. Otherwise, it is a superstar's league.
