Mike Tokito: "Trail Blazers Questions: Did they overtinker with the roster?"

I'm just waiting for that .500 start. The Blazers will be lucky to go 10-10 to start this season. The Haters will be trolling and the writers will be writing away.
Personally from the way it looks to me if this team is at .500 at Christmas it will be a good start.

 

Mathematically I just demonstrated the opposite. I wish that wasn't the case.

Lets cross our fingers that our hopes turn out to be true. I'll remember this conversation... last year PDX shot 0.359% from deep

STOMP

 

I am also just about through with the anointment of Simmons. That kid hasn't even played yet. Can he contribute should be the conversation. Not "How he will contribute". If he has a couple good games he will be scouted and he will go through all the same issues every NBA player goes through. That is "IF" he has some good games. Not games against 2nd and 3rd string d league players. We are talking the rigors of a full NBA season.

 

I haven't seen a lot of Bazemore, so my take on his defense may be off: IMO, Turner came in overrated as a defender. He was a fairly decent defender against perimeter (and some interior) size and physicality. But he was poor against perimeter speed...he just didn't have the lateral reactions to stay with quicker players. I'd say Bazemore might flip that script; he should have the quickness to cover speed. But I'd question if he has the size and length to cover bigger SF's and stretch-4's like Turner could. I think that could end up being the vulnerability of the Blazer defense: losing Aminu, Harkless, and Turner make Portland weaker defensively where the NBA is pretty strong

and, I'm pretty skeptical about Hezonja's "playmaking". A secondary facilitator really needs an assist/turnover ratio north of 2.0 to be consistently effective. Hezonja's mark is only half that
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* Aminu, Harkless, Curry, Turner, Layman, & Meyers combined for 362-995 on three's. That's 36.4%

* Bazemore, Hezonja, and Tolliver combined for 219-667 on three's. That's only 32.8%.

meanwhile, Hood replaced Stauskas. He shot 34.5% as a Blazer. Stauskas shot 34.4%. If you take Hood's entire season last year and add it to Bazemore-Tolliver-Hezonja, that foursome combined for 33.6% shooting from three.

even treating Hood as a new arrival, the new guys are bringing 33.6% shooting to replace 36.4% shooting....statistically at least, that's a fail (and before somebody says Bazemore shot terrible last season and that's skewing things, Aminu, Harkless and Turner all shot much worse last season as well)

so then, the 4 new guys at 33.6% needing to eclipse 36.4% (by how much?). Then there is the Zach/Simons factor. Well, Zach shot 33.1% last season. And Simons shot 34.5%.

like so many things about this new Blazer team, a lot depends on Zach/Simons and a lot depends on articles of faith. There aren't many truly established standards by new players pointing at an improved Blazer team over last year's version...IMO

 

agreed. I like his potential and upside. He might have a high ceiling

but some of the expectations for him around here are downright loopy. He only played in 141 minutes last year and 48 of those came in one game. He hasn't established anything

I mean:

Seth shot 45% last season while Ant shot under 35%. But Simons is going to be close to as effective?

 

Shooting is such a variable stat, I don't know why one would just look at last season instead of career numbers. For example, Hood is much closer to a 37% shooter than a 34% shooter on his career, and on higher volume than any of the guys that left outside of Seth. Bazemore is closer to 35% than 32%, also on higher volume. Meyers was a high percentage shooter, but he was a situational player. His minutes are going to be taken by someone who is also a high percentage shooter, but situational player in Tolliver so I don't see that as much of a loss.

I just don't see the logic of bringing up his 35% shooting last year on garbage time. It's just a tiny sample size in mostly non-competitive minutes I just see no predictive value from it. He shot 10/29. If he shot 11/29 he would have been 38%. If he shot 12/29 threes he would have been 41%. If he shot 13/29 he would have been 45%. Would you be confident in his shooting then? It just seems so silly to me. I'm not projecting Ant as being the same level of shooter as Seth, that would be difficult, but I find this point kind of ridiculous.

And honestly, I am less concerned with Curry in general. He played less than 20 minutes per game, and most of those minutes were with Dame and CJ off the floor. I'm more concerned about the guys that are going to soak the minutes spent spacing for Dame and CJ. IE. Hood, Bazemore, Zach. Zach in particular is going to need to improve as more than a Harkless-level shooter or else he won't stay on the floor in crunch time.

 

Yes he will. Obviously I can't support the argument with statistics, but I believe he will. He is a terrific long range shooter in my opinion.

 

I use that very same stat. Minutes played for a bunch of players. Until they have 1000-2000 mins they are first year players. Run in the D league is not the same. Sometimes it take a player 3 years to get 1000+ mins. It's a real good benchmark.

 

I don't disagree

so then go for the last 4 seasons; Aminu/Harkless vs Hood/Bazemore. Over that time Aminu/Harkless averaged 34.6%; Hood Bazemore averaged 36.1%. That puts Hood/Bazemore at the league average and Aminu/Harkless a little below average.

maybe some perspective on those numbers: assume the duos would combine for 500 three's attempted in a season. That would mean Hood/Bazemore would make 180 while Harkless/Aminu make 173. That's over a season; that's a total of 21 points. Right about .25 points a game. And all the chatter around here has been how replacing Aminu/Harkless with Hood/Bazemore is going to keep defenses honest; change how teams defended Portland because of the poor and inconsistent shooting of Aminu/Harkless. Put it another way, over the course of 11 games, Hood/Bazemore would make 18 three's, Aminu/Harkless would make 17. Does anybody really believe that defense will change how they defend Portland because of the threat of an added .25 points/game?

and of course, three point shooting isn't the only aspect of shooting players bring to the table. For their careers, there's TS%

Maurice Harkless .541 Rodney Hood .538 Kent Bazemore .523 Al-Farouq Aminu .520

the main point is yeah, there's been an upgrade in perimeter shooting in those duo's. But it's not a significant upgrade that is really going to change opposing defenses. And these duos bring other things to the game. While there is an upgrade in perimeter shooting and ball-handling, there's a downgrade in defense and rebounding

that's kind of my point. Simons has not established any predictive value. Just wishful value. We don't know yet how he'll perform with a much bigger role and how he'll adjust once he's scouted

besides that, I was talking about Zach/Simons and there is a lot more predictive value in Zach's shooting numbers

 

Lol

 

Nice house or highrise dwelling for Meyers. I'm happy for him. He needed a new start in a new local. I think the team will gel on the run. I like the new additions, but wouldn't mind the Blazers making a trade for Iggy either. I feel like that old sayings about creme rising to the top is the Blazers path. They're getting better every year. rip city!

 

Yep!
They traded away the only help they had to stop the playoff teams from shutting the Blazers down by double teaming their prime ball handler and top scorer. Every playoff coach worth his salt seizes this upon this weakness.

 

Bazemore might not have the lower body like ET needed to bang with the bigger SF who like to post up, (are there that many?) but he does have a 4" advantage in wingspan over ET. So I think he will be better against stretch 4's.

 

Eh? What did I miss? Did an official admit to rigging this game?

 

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From ex NBA official, Tim Donaghy's book where he rats out his former co-workers....

https://deadspin.com/the-book-the-nba-doesnt-want-you-to-read-5392030

The 2002 series certainly wasn't the first or last time Bavetta weighed in on an important game. He also worked Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Trail Blazers. The Lakers were down by 13 at the start of the fourth quarter when Bavetta went to work. The Lakers outscored Portland 31-13 in the fourth quarter and went on to win the game and the series. It certainly didn't hurt the Lakers that they got to shoot 37 free throws compared to a paltry 16 for the Trail Blazers.

Ten year old news, but it's still something to think about. Especially with the crappy officiating we've seen in the past....

That has to be, by far; the darkest day to be a Blazer fan. That was our second Championship just sitting there, and it was ripped out of our hands.

 

"in tact..."

Goddammit.

 

It's a pretty interesting discussion on here about the changes in three point shooting. I think one piece of context that is missing is the kind of three point shots the players get. How many wide open threes, particularly in the corners, did Aminu and Harkless take? I don't have any stats to back it up, but it seemed like most of them were taken without anyone within 5 feet of them. Dame terrifying teams with his crazy 38 foot range, and CJ running everywhere off the ball (most distance traveled last year once again) meant our role players got to stand in place, catch and shoot in pretty much ideal shooting conditions.

You just can't look at a 3pt FG% number and say with any real confidence that Aminu and Harkless and Turner are significantly better or even equal shooters to guys like Bazemore and Mario. When you are on a shitty team with no superstars, you aren't going to get the same open looks, but you still have to shoot it because somebody has to. Anybody seriously think Meyers Leonard comes anywhere close to his Portland 3pt % if he gets 30 minutes a night in Miami?

In Portland, if you aren't comfortable with a shot you can always give it up to Dame or CJ and know they will probably do something better with it than you would. That fact really skews three point percentages for many of the guys who left.

 

As for Simons, I'm all in on the hype becasuse Dame is all in on the hype. This morning I was watching Kobe's interview after playing Dame in his rookie year, and you can't get a better example of real recognizing real. The look on Kobe's face told it all.


I think there's an element of that with Dame's comments on Simons:


Lillard is a seasoned, smart dude, who famously calls it how he sees it.. He plays Simons in practice, and he knows what talent looks like.He seems to see it as a given that Simons is a star waiting to happen.

I'm expecting big things this year for Ant. He won't emerge as a star this year, but I think he'll put himself on the short list of rising young talent. I liked what Seth Curry brought to the game with his shooting, but Simons already seems like a much more complete player than him. Ant may never shoot 45% from three but he'll take a lot of the offensive load off Dame and CJ with his ball handling, size and shooting. His ability to create for himself is going to make our bench so much more effective.

 

No.