https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27763420/nba-30-teams-rated-top-contenders-bottom-tier Utah? He did the same thing last year when he had them second in the west, while putting us 9th. He put two other conference finalists from last year in our same category of borderline playoff teams.
I get that it's the West and every team is loaded, but just once I'd like one of these prognosticators to be accurate about the changes the Blazers made this summer. While it's technically correct to say that Harkless and Aminu were replaced by Bazemore and Hood, the truth is that Aminu is being replaced by Zach Collins...a much more talented player. And, while it's true that the Blazers will have the assets to make a trade before the deadline, I'd also like to hear someone talk about the possibility that they keep Whiteside for the entire season and how in the hell is anyone in the West going to deal with a two-headed monster center rotation of Nurk and Hassan.
I don't even think it's technically correct to say that Harkless and Aminu were replaced by Bazemore and Hood. Hood replaced Harkless, sure, but Bazemore replaced Turner, not Aminu.
like the platypus said, right now it's looking like Bazemore is replacing Tuner. But maybe that's not even the way it will be. We just don't know yet how the roles will shake out. Will Simons fit the role of Curry? That wasn't a big role last year. Curry only averaged 19 minutes and missed 10 games. From all the hype, is 19 minutes enough for "the most gifted player Olshey has ever drafted" and the "best young guard in the NBA"? And if Bazemore takes Turner's minutes, will Hezonja fill Turner's role as a secondary facilitator? How will those minutes be distributed then? Lowe's take seems a little lazy; at the same time, if you aren't wearing rose-colored glasses projecting how this new Blazer team will perform compared to how it has over the last 3 seasons does generate a lot of questions. And an NBA season is unforgiving of unresolved questions by the way, I'd agree that Zach has a lot more upside than Aminu has ever had. But much of that upside may not be showing up till Zach is 23 or 24 or 25. Aminu was a better player last season most of the time. And we're talking about this season, not seasons 2 or 3 years away. Zach will be thrust into a starting role and he'll be going against 1st unit guys, not 2nd unit guys. As a starting PF he's going to be forced to defend a lot more starting level players with perimeter skills. And he's going to spend more time switched onto SF's. Assuming he's going to be an upgrade over Aminu, this season, may be a bit unrealistic. He shouldn't be a downgrade though unless he can't solve his foul issue and remains a weak rebounder well, they can't play together. It would be a rotation. And neither player is dominant enough offensively in the paint to consistently punish teams like Shaq or Artis Gilmore or McHale did. Besides that, NBA rules have kind of marginalized traditional C's at the same time offenses have evolved 'past' them. The way a lot of teams will deal with Hassan/Nurk is to run smaller faster lineups and create mismatch after mismatch. I'd be curious to see how many C's are still in games that are close in the last 5 minutes. A lot of times anymore it's just 10 perimeter players on the floor. Guys who can handles the ball and be dependable at the FT line
Utah swapped Rubio for Michael Conley. I'm a Rubio fan but that's a HUGE upgrade. Plus they added Indiana's best scorer and Ed Davis (which means they have the TOP TWO NBA PLAYERS in Defensive Real Plus-Minus). They are EASILY better than us.
Maybe it's because he always doubts us or when he compliments the team or Lillard it's in a backhanded manner, but I'm really not a huge Zach Lowe guy.
They say this every year. And taking the ball out of Mitchell's hands doesn't necessarily seem like the best idea.
Yes it does He's pretty inefficient. And shooting was their one weakness and Bogdanovic is a GREAT shooter. Conley may be the most underrated great player in the league. Him or Drue Holiday. People don't value defense as much as flash, I guess - Conley is easily better than Mitchell.
Dame vs Conley -- Dame CJ vs Mitchell -- even Hood vs Bogdanovic -- even, inflated #s with the late season shot increase in Indy. Collins vs Ingles -- even Whiteside vs Gobert -- Gobert Then the so- called depth Simons vs Mudiay -- meh Bazemore vs Exum -- Baze Mario vs O'Neale -- even Tolliver vs Green -- even Gasol vs Ed -- Ed whoop de effing doo. I'm not in the least bit concerned about Utah. Who gives a damn about Ed's RPM when he plays 15 mpg?
Interesting that you cite defense in regard to their comparisons, when Conley's DRPM is farther below zero than Mitchell's is above.
RPM can't be compared across positions. If you're comparing RPM, you need to compare Conley to other PGs and Mitchell to other SGs.
The one and only interesting thing about Utah pertains to their back court: Conley is in the conversation of most underrated players and Mitchell is in the conversation for most overrated.
Some people here continue to overestimate the value of Ed Davis. The man could only get $5 million per year.
RPM is somewhat a measure of a player's role on a team as well. So Danny Green and Iguodala may have had high RPMs because they were so good in their specific role on their specific team. Whenever you try to compress a player's impact into a single number stat you're bound to run into issues.
So I'm instead supposed to point out that Conley's DRPM was 37th out of 87 PGs, while Mitchell's was 18th out of 111 SGs? Kinda paints the same picture either way.
