I don't see where he said "in public". Stotts is used to the softball questions most of the softy lob to him. He finally got a tough one with a legit follow up that his answer brought on....and he didn't like it. That's fine....but the questions were very fair given how CJ has played on both offense and defense.
Unless he specifically said “this is off the record” then any answer you give a reporter becomes public. ?
Yes. The questions were fair. Stotts could have answered them in a way that spoke to how CJ is playing, calling him out, while still being respectful to CJ. They weren't hard questions.
that's remedial and devoid of context. Raw FGA's don't mean much at all at the end of last season, Blazers Edge looked at this for 'frequent' shooters: https://www.blazersedge.com/2018/4/...all-hog-does-it-matter-portland-trail-blazers I'll let Scalma speak for himself but I think this is what he was referring to. Klay is a catch-n-shoot master whereas CJ is a ball-stopper. Notice that CJ was far and away the "leader" in the amount of time he held the ball in each possession and the number of dribbles he has each possession. that list really illustrates why more and more people are comparing CJ to Jamal Crawford. They both pound the ball a ton and burn thru shot clocks like crazy. again, in a discussion comparing CJ and Klay in terms of ball-dominance, using FGA's to gauge anything is useless. They are completely different players. If you extrapolate (touches X avg. seconds/touch), Klay on average will hold the ball for 100.5 seconds a game; meanwhile, on average, Cj will hold the ball for 267 seconds a game...close to 2.7 times as much. Klay averages 2.1 assists while CJ averages 2.7. In other words, CJ has the ball 265% more than Klay but only averages 29% more assists. Put another way, it's completely idiotic to try and justify CJ's assist numbers by using Klay as the counterpoint
Can we PLEASE not compare Pop and Stotts as they are so far apart in coaching acumen and accomplishment.
You have to see that Dame and CJ have absolutely no chemistry and no cooperation. We're playing them together to maximize their impact but they're not playing together, they're on the floor at the same time, for the same team, but they're not passing to one another, have absolutely no game between them, we either go to CJ or we go to Dame, it's never the two of them playing together and feeding off each other. Until this changes we won't be anywhere close to reaching our potential, it's like having a handicapped team
coach and media....I think it's more than relevant....you can dig these up on any coach...no coach likes to be baited in an interview and Pop is considered the Gold Standard for great coaching so he's completely stiffed reporters in the past...Stotts rarely has...doesn't mean to me the Blazers only allow softball questions...it means he's not going to vent about CJ
If a player isn't playing well it should be able to be talked about. I'm not saying Stotts should say terrible nasty things about CJ. He should be able to say CJ is shooting poorly, he is in a slump and he will get out of. And in answering that be able to say yeah he can pass the ball to his teamates when he is missing, get other guys open shots. As the coach I need to help him figure that out. There is nothing wrong with that.
perspective? ok then, here's some more: Popovich has made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs 15 times; Stotts has done that twice. Popovich has made it past the 2nd round 10 times; Stotts never has. Popovich has made it to the finals 6 times and has won 5 championships. Stotts has watched on TV
Did he not say “we wish he was shooting better”? What do you want him to say? “He scores but not much else. He isn’t very good”. Maybe lower his value around the league? Piss him off? Piss off the team? What’s the end game?
