Who/What Is The Culprit To Our Current State

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by ABM, Nov 14, 2019.

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Who/What Is To Blame For The Blazers Poor Start?

  1. Stotts

    6 vote(s)
    13.6%
  2. Olshey

    7 vote(s)
    15.9%
  3. Injuries

    19 vote(s)
    43.2%
  4. Acclimation

    4 vote(s)
    9.1%
  5. Schedule

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  6. Other or Combination (Please Specify)

    8 vote(s)
    18.2%
  1. bobf

    bobf Well-Known Member

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    But I wouldn't use an 11 game sample, and Aminu has to be used correctly. He has have sufficient offensive threats around him so he can stand in the corner and shoot 36% from 3 and never have to shoot a mid-range shot. Here's a large sample. I took average RPM/BPM for the past 5 years weighted more towards recent years. RPM and BPM are "points above an average player per 48 minutes". Each +1 point translates into a bit under 3 wins/season if a player played 48 minutes. So for wins I scaled according to MPG of each player. "Both" is average of RPM and BPM. "Wins" is "Both" x 2.8 x MPG / 48.

    Bottom line, we netted -9 wins per 82 games. But it's really more like -11 because the players on the right are playing less minutes than those on the left and we are having to fill in with other scrubs/raw players. We are seeing this play out on the floor.

    Blazer RPM BPM.PNG
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2019
  2. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

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    You left out turner.
     
  3. bobf

    bobf Well-Known Member

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    I left out turner because I was happy for him to leave. So Turner will bring it down some, but then Tolliver is probably way over-rated since he's falling off a cliff and Curry is probably underrated as an improving player.
     
  4. kjironman1

    kjironman1 Well-Known Member

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    Slow start?????
    Last year they started 10-3
    8-6 the year before
    I'll give you 16-17 at 7-7
    15-16 was miserable 5-9. The 7 game losing streak hurt bad. 4 losses in the last 30 seconds one OT was tough to handle.
    14-15 was 11-3

    Seems like slow start isn't really a Stotts problem. Seems like maybe it has something to do with team cohesiveness.
     
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  5. kjironman1

    kjironman1 Well-Known Member

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    Whoa there now.... There are always plenty of reasons to blame HCP. This post seems lazy and unmotivated!
     
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  6. kjironman1

    kjironman1 Well-Known Member

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    Could add Taxes as well.
     
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  7. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

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    I'm not really sad about any of the departures. I think Harkless and Aminu were a pretty awful pairing as starters (I think a contending team could be ok starting one or the other), not both, even last year in the playoffs their minutes dropped. The real issue is the Blazers banked on Zach being the man at PF. The role players sure maybe they got worse, but they did basically nothing to shore up that position if anything happened to Zach.
     
  8. Chris Craig

    Chris Craig (Blazersland) I'm Your Huckleberry Staff Member Global Moderator Moderator

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    All the above

    It's mostly injuries, or at least it starts with injuries. If Portland was completely healthy to start the season, they would have a winning record right now. As it is they started the season without their starting center. Pau was supposed to be ready, he is still injured. Whiteside came in injured and hasn't had the best start (some of that is him playing in a new system that doesn't involve him and learning how to exist in that system...acclimation, part of it is effort). Hood got hurt. Skal got hurt.

    The Zach went down. Portland was 2-1 with Zach. His injury killed them. It left the Blazers with a huge hole in the front court. It forced them to play younger/role players who are 1.) New to the team and 2.) Not meant to play so many minutes. More acclimation issues to go with youth. The Blazers are starting rookie Nassir Little for goodness sake. (He looks good by the way, but still...acclimation) They were starting Tolliver. Hezonja has disappointed. He has had some good moments, but he hasn't played up to expectations. (Part of that is he is playing more minutes than anticipated). It's like throwing a kid in the water and telling him to swim or sink. The Blazers are sinking.

    Stotts has some blame here, but for the most part it's out of his hands. He has been up to some of his old habits of allowing teams to build leads into double digits before taking timeouts, not bringing players back into the game late who are effective, not to mention the issues with his system. He has help Portland win a few using the coaches challenge late to get calls overturned.

    Olshey deserves some of the blame too. He is the one who put the roster together as it is. He traded/signed all of these players and created a signifigant turnover which has affected the start of the season negatively. He must be feeling the pressure though. He just signed Carmelo Anthony. It is a move that reeks of desperation.

    Oh and The HCP because he is a Laker fan.
     
  9. tlongII

    tlongII Legendary Poster

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    I blame Trump.
     
  10. Ripcity4life77

    Ripcity4life77 Well-Known Member

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    I am going to combine my Melo reaction into this thread to save time --- So who is to blame for this complete mess a few factors but ....

    I am going to say it's NeO but what i am trying to figure out if this was on purpose and / or NeO miscalculating the impact of certain players added and i am sure some are scratching there head at the 1st part of this statement.

    What i mean is for better or worse the Blazers let go 2 good or solid wing defenders in Hark and Aminu go and brought in a avg replacement in K Bazemore and one who is a hybrid SG/SF with more of a SG game but cannot defend worth crap in Mario. This is what i think most feared would happen but were hoping to be wrong in the fact this team can now put up points but for most part cannot stop anyone. Now why i think this might have been on purpose is this puts more spotlight on CJ and how while he is a star he and Dame need to be split up. However NeO kind of knowing this but maybe there is someone who has a say who has stepped into the meddling owner type role who told NeO that CJ needed to stay for now . I know it's crazy but anyone with half a brain could see this coming with how they built this team. It's only real defenders are Whiteside ( inconsistent ( headcase ) , Collins ( young but now injured ) , Bazemore ( Avg Defender ) and of course Nurk ( solid defender but injured )

    This is not a surprise and now this Melo signing reeks of desperation with hopes of maybe bringing in someone with name rec and maybe who can summon 60 to 75 % of what he once was to spark this team into something more. If that is the case then while there is a chance it could happen ( longshot - like Jim Carey quote from Dumb and Dumber ) but destined to fail. This feels like they need a little time to kill before just throwing in the white flag and hoping to get a 6 to 10 (maybe better) lotto pick to help in the rebuild around Dame.

    I really do not know what to say about this team right now it's built like crap and there is very little hope unless Collins and Nurk can magically heal faster and show up in Mid January or so and maybe sneak into the playoffs. Unless Neo makes a bold trade and that is hard to do IN SEASON but unless he can do something bold the rest of this season kind of seems like a throw away cept for seeing what they have in Little and Simons. I really hope i am wrong but i do not think i am
     
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  11. bobf

    bobf Well-Known Member

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    I think they were good, not awful. They’re just the kind of players that don’t look good. Marginal offensive players with good defense who do little things that matter but are hard to notice. Better to have Zach + Aminu than just Zach. Zach could have continued increasing minutes from Aminu with either coming off the bench, whatever worked better chemistry-wise. Aminu being awkward and looking not as good as he is is an added bonus really - undervalued, underpaid.
     
  12. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

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    The problem is they didnt do a lot of small things to win especially Harkless. Aminu had moments. I dont think keeping Aminu was ever really in the plans because of money. I probably overall liked Aminu better than Harkless. However I dont really miss either that much.
     
  13. bobf

    bobf Well-Known Member

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    The players we replaced them with are much worse. What’s the point of letting go of a player who is “not good enough” when the replacement is utter trash. Advanced stats say they did something good and it wasn’t offense. Both are above average players and above average is not so easy to come by.
     
  14. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

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    Sure the replacements havent been good. Heres the issue Meyers, that horse was long since dead, he needed a change of scenery and so did most Blazer fans. Aminu / Harkless we had seen that Merry go round for years and seen that when the playoffs came it just didnt work. It was bordering insanity to just keep doing it with the same results. Nurkic broke his leg, and they didnt have a center. Whiteside on paper seemed like a good addition to a position they needed. Tolliver was definitely a head-scratcher, Mario was a lot like when they brought in Moe and Aminu, a young athletic guy who had way underachieved from expectations, they were wanting to get something out of him.

    ET, Baze are kind of a wash to me.

    I still go back to the main issue being A)Stotts defensive doesn't work with a lack of size. They don't pressure the ball, they play purely reactive defense they don't force teams or game plan for teams much. B)Zach, he was their answer at 4 and they did nothing to have quality minutes behind him, especially if someone had to start. All they did was bring in guys who were Bench players, and its really thrown the whole team out of whack.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2019
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  15. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    yeah, right....because a stress fracture of a foot severe enough to require surgery has a very predictable recovery timeline, especially for a 39 year old, 7' basketball player. I mean, we've never seen recoveries from foot surgeries take longer than anticipated. That was all sarcasm by the way

    my question is, why risk it when the front office had the Ezeli example to use as a template?
     
  16. Jade Falcon

    Jade Falcon Just to piss you off.

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    I'm not expecting Pau to play at all as of right now. What's the point of playing a senior citizen on a losing team?

    He's here strictly for a paycheck and nothing else.
     
  17. HailBlazers

    HailBlazers RipCity

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    A.) 2016

    B.) Injuries

    C.) Stottsfense
     
  18. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    Chief is missed the most...he was our defensive floor general and actually an elite defender...great rebounder and great help defender
     
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