2019 Offseason Storylines 1: Mario Hezonja

Its my opinion, but what I want to know is can Hezonja play defense consistently? I know he has his high lebron Block and that Layman had some high light blocks. I feel like unless a player is really, really good offensively they’re leash is going to be really short if their defense is bad.
I loved some of Layman’s performances he was a high flier and fun to watch, but his defense was straight bad, it was just oh he got caught on screens, guys literally went by him whenever, his stance is bad he’s gotta fix that.

I really dont expect Mario to be overall better than Layman, I think his role will be closer to ET’s than Layman’s though. I think they see him more of a Point forward for the second unit. Layman was / is more of a scoring wing and slasher.

So anyways long story short, I basically agree with your premise that Mario’s shooting is unlikely to take a huge jump just because of playing with Dame and CJ, partially because I doubt he’ll see a ton of minutes with both of those guys as his role seems to fit more with either one of those guys on the court or playing with Simons.

 

You're horribly underrating Laymans defense and overrating Hezonja's. Some would argue RPM is the best way to gauge defense. Layman had a -0.39DRPM last season. Hezonja had a -0.61DRPM.

The year before, Hezonja had a -1.30DRPM.

Hezonja has 5.8 reb per 36 for his career, and Layman averages a close 5.3 reb. Hezonja grabs an addition 0.8% of rebounds that are available than Layman. That's a negligible difference.

This is a classic case of Blazer fans thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

 

I doubt anyone's ever consistently watched Hezonja defend. I think those couple of plays against LeBron is skewing people's opinions a bit. Meanwhile, Layman seems like a worse defender than he actually is because he was always substituted in for two really good defending forwards in Harkless and Aminu. Layman was subconsciously held to that standard.

Mario as a point forward is silly to me. A career 1 to 1 AST:TOV ratio when he wasn't even tasked with playmaking duties... Somehow 3 games has people thinking of him as a point forward when two of those games were essentially against G-League rosters...

 

You and I have gone back and forth about Layman all year. Hezonja is better in just about every stat then Jake last year, yet you continue to have rose color glasses about him. As for his defense, all you had to do was watch blazers games last year. As soon as Jake came in teams put him in the pick and roll and his man would have a free run. I have not watched a lot of Hezonja, in my first post I even stated it was based on the video that was posted above it, which is obviously not the best to base the entire career on, since it was a highlight video, but it shows he has more ability then Jake.

 

I posed it as a question about Mario's defense because I haven't watched his defense, and so I have no idea if he's any better than Jake or not, I mean high lights are nice but does very little to show you how a player really is overall.
Also no, I didn't hold Layman to that standard, I just thought his defense wasn't very good and it wasn't like he was stuck on the other teams best players either.

I can agree that the idea of Mario as a point forward is maybe silly based on really a minuscule sample size, but I believe that is what the Blazers view him as, and I believe that is the role they will try to play him in.

 

Last season:
TS% - Layman .594 / Hezonja .497
FG% - Layman .509 / Hezonja .412
3P% - Layman .326 / Hezonja .276
BPM - Layman -0.3 / Hezonja -4.0
RPM - Layman -1.41 / Hezonja -3.33

Layman's advantage in all those stats:
TS% 9.7%
FG% 9.7%
3P% 5.0%
BPM 3.70
RPM 1.92

 

Okay, I shouldn't state it for all Blazer fans but I think Blazer fans saw the dropoff in defense from Moe and Chief to Layman and docked Layman more for it when it should've been more of a credit to our starting forwards.

That's a bad gamble for a team trying to contend IMO. He'd have to turn into the best-case scenario of himself in order to keep up with the level of play we're trying to achieve.

 

He played on such a bad team they won 17 games. Jake was on a 53 win team. Of course his metric numbers are going to be better. The fact Jake could not stay on the court because he was abused on defense and as a whole his individual numbers are worse basically across the board is all the matters. Lets see what Mario's numbers are next year when he is not surrounded by the worst roster in the NBA.

 

You may definitely be right that's it may be a bad gamble, but it seems to be at least from the interviews I heard and the talk around it, is that it's a gamble they're taking.

Like I said I don't really disagree with you, just that I think the Blazers for whatever reason see him as their replacement for ET in terms of being a ball handler off the bench, and all that.

 

You can't get a stat comparison with Jake and Mario that's on equal ground....Mario was on tanking teams with rotating coaches and systems as a rookie and sophomore in the nba….Jake had one coach the whole time and one system with opportunities..he started when Mo didn't.....first half of last season Jake was great....last several games he played for us he was terrible......Mario rocked the Knicks for the last few games of the season....one guy ended the year hot...one ended it cold. Jake needed a new team in my view. He very well may have wanted to leave Portland and get a fresh start. I like Jake's game...don't know Mario's well other than some clips and articles. He played well against us I remember

 

You're shifting the goalposts. You literally said "Hezonja is better in just about every stat then Jake last year, yet you continue to have rose color glasses about him".

So I showed you how that was incorrect and now it's "He's played on bad teams so those numbers aren't applicable"...

You wanna talk about sticking to a biased angle...

"Lets see what Mario's numbers are next year when he is not surrounded by the worst roster in the NBA"... That's what I heard about Stauskas as well. Had these same types of arguments. Stauskas was no better than he was before. I'm not going to say he posted this because it doesn't matter, just think it's funny that this was being said about Stauskas.

Sound familiar?

 

Layman consistently got benched for no reason when he was outplaying players who maintained their role in the rotation. Hezonja got to consistently play for 4 whole seasons. I don't see how Layman has gotten the same opportunity as Hezonja.

Jake only needed a fresh start because Stotts didn't like him and refused to give him the role he deserved. Layman's a confidence player. All he needed was a coach to show consistent confidence in him (remember the first half of his season? he was great!). Then the 2nd half his role got yanked around and his production fell off.

 

There's a reason...just not one you are aware of...I hoped he'd enter the playoffs hot...he didn't.

 

Sure.

 

This I agree with.

I think we are likely to see Bazemore as the point forward when looking at veteran forwards: Hood, Bazemore, and Hezonja.

 

Jake played his best with Evan Turner feeding him....without ET...he didn't get those alley oops and his shot stopped falling...whatever the reason...I wish him well and he'll be another Pat Connaughton before you know it in my book

 

Sounds like your arguments for Jake. When he gets more playing time he will ...... He had more playing time last year and played him self off the floor. Even the last game of the year when he was playing with the rookies he was the worst blazer on the floor. Outplayed by Trent, Skal, Meyers and Simons.

Last year Jake Mario

Points 7.6 8.8

Assists .7 1.5

Rebounds 3.1 4.1

FT % 70.4 76.3

Steals .4 1.0

FG% 50.9 41.2

3 pt % 32.6 27.6

So yeah Mario had better stats across the board besides shooting %, where Jake had career year.

 

Honestly Layman had some great games last year, but as the year went on it seemed like he got on scouting reports and people took away the things that got him going, which meant he had a hard time getting going.

I dont think he was going to contribute to many wins this year for the Blazers, and I dont think Mario will either. Im actually more interested in if Bazemore can look like he did a few years ago, or if Hood can take his game up another level, or back to the start of his career (he was effective for the Jazz).

 

I'm going into this season thinking chemistry is going to take at least the first half of it to sort out. It's not like the last 3 seasons with the same basic core.

 

Layman’s TS% is skewed because a bunch of his “shots” were really just alley oops.