If 98% of Blazers fans like this deal, and 99.9% of Hawks fans like this deal.... Somehow the 2% of Blazers fans that don’t like this deal will seem louder than the 2% they actually represent. But the Blazers did a solid job here (even if Bazemore plays 0 games next year).
Actually this is just gravvy. i don't have to watch him every game anymore BUT i get to watching him fuck up on another team and I can even laugh at it ? Sign me up !
So current signed people for next year in a rotation.... PG - Dame, Simons SG - CJ, Bazemore, Trent SF - Moe, Little, Bazemore PF - Collins, Skal C - Nurk, Meyers FA - Hood, Aminu, Curry, Layman, Kanter with Bazemore i guess the retaining of layman and hood arent as pressing, PF still an issue. would be nice to get curry n enes back tho. but we really need a decent PF
As much as I hated his play and fit here, the guy could be trusted enough to not mess up in a game 7 on the road. He contributed real minutes that night in Denver and the moment was not too big for him. For all the shit he deserves, he was a terrific veteran presence. I wanted him off the team but for an actual upgrade. Hell I'd rather have hood over Bazemore. I'd have used Turner to open up full mle for him.
I highly doubt there was anyway to trade ET without taking back an equally bad contract, especially before FA even began.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned about Bazemore (sorry if I missed it) is that we now have his Full Bird Rights next summer. Not that we'd sign him to a big deal but if he plays well for us then we can keep his cap hold while we use the Full-MLE and the BAE and then re-sign him on a cheap deal. That might work out better than actually having cap space.
Turner was a joke on a national level. I heard people on multiple podcasts laughing at his playoffs numbers. I won't argue with that last line. I would rather have Hood too, but we don't know if that option was even on the table.
What if we envision Bazemore as our starting SG and not as a SF? He can play the 2 position. I am sure that Neil is not done trading and making roster moves. But could this move means that CJ's spot is not 100% sure? Even more with all the praise for Anfernee from Neil lately. I could live with a Dame - Bazemore - Harkless - ??? (Piece coming back from a CJ Trade) - Nurkic starting 5. With Bazermore instead of CJ our defensive ability is already instantly better. Or an other iteration could be Dame - Bazemore - ??? (piece coming back from CJ Trade) - Collins - Nurkic. If our 3 guard is a potent defensman, this lineup is pretty balanced in offense AND defense.
That's basically the only time he stepped up in last playoffs from what I remember. His overall playoffs stats were embarrassing.
Simons hype is getting crazy. He's still ultimately a 19 yr old with only 140 mins total experience. We're gonna be relying on him for 20 mpg off the bench every night? I love the idea of throwing him into the fire, but I'd still like a minimum vet PG as our third string-- someone who won't gripe about mins and help nurture the youngins. We can't go with Dame as our only true PG. Someone like Jeremy Lin would be perfect.
Hood only shot 34.5 % for the Blazers last year, (from deep) and he has never shot 39% for a season although came real close) Yet we are all dying for him to re-sign. Maybe Baze is a lateral move offensively for Hood? Which I would be fine with since I think he is a better defender then Hood
Not sure I follow. Kyle Guy usage rate is higher than GTJr. Gary Trent Jr. didn’t dominate the ball at Duke, either. In fact, if you look back at what they said about Trent coming out of Duke, it was the fact he had to limit his game to catch and shoot because they wanted him to camp out at the 3 point line.
You realize usage rate isnt indicative of how much a player dominates the ball, right? But I could simply point to AST% as will. Trent is a chucker. 10 shot attempts per assist in NBA 12.3 shot attempts per assist in G-League. Thats bad.
Then you need to take into account role and usage rate as well. Gary Trent Jr., by the admission of everyone at Duke (and since you watched “almost all his Duke games”) was limited to a catch and shoot 3pt shooter because they had absolutely no shooting / spacing. With that in mind, plus a significantly lower usage rating, makes sense as to why he would have a lower ast % than the rest.
