Lillard's and Aldridge's relationship. (He will come back Portland one day)

But his turnaround ISN'T killer, and he handles double-teams rather poorly.

As much as I loathe Aminu, I only see LA as a minor upgrade. And that upgrade only happens if he plays Aminu's role and doesn't take more shots than he deserves.

Collins is already a better defender. And LA has no foot work or any other low post skills that he could pass along to others. If we want a mentor for Collins there are much better ones out there. LA can't teach him shit.

 

Well my dad went to Benson many moons ago so I won't say anything bad about them, but with a mom, 3 sisters and myself all being Grantonians, I will always be more loyal to the Generals.

 

No, there is no excuse for going to Benson. The rest of your family sound like truly amazing well grounded people. #GeneralsForLife

 

Well at the time, Benson was the only high school that had a quality automotive department and my dad was a son of a mechanic that owned his own shop so he grew up working on cars and after he got out of the Navy he worked for a Ford dealership while building and owning race cars and eventually owned his own shop so that was a pretty good reason.

 

PER is too much of an offensive usage stat and last season was probably LA's best statistic season so that's cherry picking. Both PER & BPM use box-score stats, but PER uses semi-arbitrary hand-crafted weights while BPM is more mathematically sound. Here is an article that analyses various NBA advanced metrics based on predictive power.
https://fansided.com/2019/01/08/nylon-calculus-best-advanced-stat/

Here is the conclusion:
The best one-number metrics — BPM, PIPM, RAPM, and (probably) RPM — are actually quite good at ball-parking player value, but until we can generate more context-specific numbers, we’re still going to have to do the legwork of analyzing circumstances manually to filter out some of the noise. That, and maybe we can permanently retire PER now.

I used two different stats over the course of 4 years. The two stats I used put LA at 28th and 31st last year, nevertheless, taking 4 years into account LA only comes in around 60th.

 

My wife went to Grant.

Since their team name is the Generals, I always thought it would be great if they named their dance team the Specifics.

My wife fails to see the humor in my wit sometimes.

 

I know why PER is bad, but almost all stats dont tell the whole story, and you can find stats that tell whatever story you’d like to tell.
Thats why ESPN posts all these random stats of x players is the first guy to do thing since Micheal Jordan like it some how puts Jordan Clarkson up there with Michael Jordan or something.

I get that LMA has issues in his game, but the fact is he makes the playoffs a lot, has been the best player on many of those teams. Yes he gets to play for Pop now, but the other part of that is Pop obviously saw something he really liked in LA and went after him.

 

Personally, I like the purity of the RPM stat as it in theory measures basically everything, even things that never appear in a box score. Sadly, it is high variance and requires years of data to be reliable. I consistently use that stat so it's not like I'm cherry picking to suit my opinion about LMA. I also referenced BPM for confirmation because I think a lot of people don't trust RPM as it seems like a magic black box.

Based on those two stats, and my personal observations of LMA games as a Blazer, I think he's overrated and 60th is about right. When I factor in the negative chemistry I think he will bring and the fact that he would probably be rather expensive, I think his net impact would be negative.

 

Cool, what years did she go there?

 

I meant, "You" in the more general way. I think as a Blazer Fan we observed both his really bad and his really good and obviously the way he left, and the last year or so he was here didn't go well. His Chemistry issues, I don't know if he's matured or not. Dame seems to think he has matured though.
I kind of peg him in the 20-30 range. My opinion of him as a player has gone up in SAS, and yes some of that is probably Pop's coaching, but his defense has gotten better. I'll say this though, if the Blazers can consistently get Zach giving them what he's given them the last couple times he's played decent minutes then I'd like to see Nurk and Zach be the starters at 4 / 5. Aminu on the bench next to Kanter is good enough. The other part I dislike about LMA is he seems to only flourish when the offense is built around his skillset. I don't want them to go back to the offense they ran when they had him.

 

Good points tbf as if Lillard and Pops endorse him, how much of a risk could it really be? I'll take their opinion over anyone in this forum.

 

Graduated in 1970.

Yes, that's a long time ago.

Don't tell her that I told you.

 

Say the Spurs were willing to make a trade this year and were willing to take ET a pick and whatever makes it work, off the top of my head we'll say Harkless. I'd probably do that. If the Blazers had to wait til the end of the contract to get LMA, it'd have to be for like the vet minimum or something and at that point I think it would be more about getting some nice stories in the paper then what he would be doing for the basketball team.

 

well then, she was there when I was as I graduated 72 and had sisters that graduated 67 and 68. Let her know I was much younger than her. She graduated with some friends that I played baseball with such as Robin Sinclair, Dan Percich, George Morgan, Artie Wilson and a few others that might have slipped my mind.

 

I think she is reluctant to admit she went there once she learned that The HCP is also an alumn.

 

well, he's only a kid compared to us,

 

Yeah, I would really only be interested in finishing out his contract here as he will be paid much more in his next contract as no way a vet minimum will get him signed.

 

True. Obviously, they really relaxed their standards.

 

I haven't seen LMA too much on SAS but his TS% is way up the past two years, and what I have seen, he seems to play more bully ball instead of all turn-around fade aways like he did with the Blazers. So in that respect I think Pop had made him a better player.

I also want to see Zach get lots of minutes, which is a reason I didn't much like the Kanter signing and don't want LMA. I'm an Aminu fan but I don't see the Zach vs Aminu thing as an either/or competition. If Zach ends up being the better player, more power to him. I hope he becomes way better. But two good players is better than one, assuming we can somehow keep Chief. Whoever ends up better should get more minutes, but as far as who should start, I would say whoever gels better with each unit.

The last thing you said about LMA needing the offense to revolve around his skillset is exactly one of the things I'm picturing when I say I fear his effect on team chemistry. I just don't see LMA being satisfied unless he gets his certain amount of post up touches. In contrast, I see Dame as the ultimate team player. One game he will take over the game if needed. Another game, if it's working, Dame is happy for everyone else to do all the scoring. To me Dame is kind of the opposite of LMA.