Seriously? You can say that about almost the entire team. CJ made some shots but he also failed to grab a rebound and made a nice pass to Huerter. What happens to veterans who play shit defense and stay in the game? Is that good for them?
When so many guys are shooting badly early in the season, the guy who's putting up big numbers is usually going to be the next Michael Jordan.....CJ will get in a groove but no arguing Ant is special. Rudy changed after Trevor Ariza knocked him out
Yeah and Ant has played like 11 games in the NBA and is 20 years old. There’s no guarantee he stays injury free or this athletic even two years from now (knock on wood). He isn’t exactly well built, his legs look like toothpicks.
So many shitty trade pitches from other fanbases on Twitter right now for Ant. Like I'm so sure we'd deal him to the Lakers
Ya ain't happening. I haven't been this excited about a youngin since Dame/Aldridge. How amazing would it have been if he was 3 inches taller and could play SF full time?
We have so many guys that haven't even been on scouting reports under Stotts system ...they're scouting for Ant now for sure.
If Stotts is making a single coaching or rotational decision based on fans panicking then he should be fired immediately.
Not necessarily fans panicking, but playing Dame the entire second half last night showed how much he/Dame wanted that win last night.
Stotts is really lucky the Blazers won that game last night. His decision to pull Simons in the middle of his hot streak was very questionable. Instead of using Simons to give Dame a couple minutes to sit down he plays Dame the whole 2nd half in the 3rd game of 5 in 7 nights after already playing Dame 38 minutes and 40 minutes in the 1st 2 games of that stretch.
I think part of that was Dame's decision. He wasn't losing that game. In his postgame presser he said he wanted to get Ant more minutes, but Baze was playing well defensively. That seems to imply that he see's Ant's minutes coming from Baze, where instead we probably would have had a better chance if Ant was playing over CJ....
The problem last night is that we weren't separating from Atlanta in the 2nd half even with Dame staying in and Trae Young sitting a good stretch. I have been saying this several games now but why does Dame have to play the whole 1st quarter every game? If he sits a little more in the first half of these games then he'd be fresher for the 2nd half and his minute totals wouldn't be running up into the 40's.
He actually did sit more in the 1st half. Came in around the 4 minute mark of the second. He usually comes in during the 6 min mark. I was surprised at the end of the game (before OT) cause I thought Dame would be at 40 minutes or more since he didn't come out the second half, but he was only at 39. The funny thing is Ant only played 24 minutes, and that was mostly because of foul trouble. I think Stotts only played him around 8 minutes in the first half (he was pulled pretty early in the 2nd). Then he came in early in the third only because Bazemore picked up 4 fouls. Despite this, and despite putting up 20 points he only ended with 24 minutes.
It kind of sucks to be in a situation where if Dame sits too much we would lose too many games but if he plays like last night he will have no energy for the playoffs anyway so does it really matter? I get just needing to feel a win last night and end the losing streak, we just need to find out ways to not kill our franchise player and Simons seems like the best opportunity for that to happen right now.
It’s a simple fact that other fan bases do not panic or complain nearly as much as Portland fans (the onto places worse are probably NY and Dallas). When Pop rests his stars and has a mediocre regular season, the entire city doesn’t call for his head. The ownership obviously takes the fans opinion into account, they are the ones making the owners money. You’re basically just victim blaming.
It’s interesting how the two most popular opinions on this forum seem to be: (1) we need to take advantage of Prime Lillard and (2) we need to develop this 19 year old! these are basically mutually exclusive goals...By the time Ant is in his prime Dame will be far past his. Our best option is to trade Ant for someone like Love and keep CJ, and that is the most likely scenario. Sucks bc Ant really does seem like he has superstar potential... but the only other option is sacrificing Lillard’s prime years.
