The super Melo to Portland thread + The Big Blockbuster

I'm not. Don't think I ever will be.

 

True. I blame Sabonis and Brian Grant. Those two guys didn't show up in the biggest game of their careers. Sheed was the only guy who came to play and he showed he was the best player on the floor.

 

Yep. We just came back from 15 down with less than 9 minutes to play in San Antonio. There was even less time left when we were 15 down to OKC in Game 5.

 

Prime Pippen was better defender and passer than Prime Kawhi but Kawhi can take over games and lead a team to a championship. That was not in Pippen's DNA as we saw in 1993-94 when he had a fantastic season but wasn't good enough to lead in playoffs.

 

I've seen enough

 

Aldridge: I hope i'm wrong about Carmelo Anthony in Portland, but it's hard to see how it will work out well

Understandable desperation is, nonetheless, desperation.

I hope it works out for Carmelo Anthony in Portland. We know Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum not only want it to work, but also that they’ve been lobbying for it for two years. “Speak it into existence,” McCollum famously said in the summer of ’17, when he went to New York to try to convince Melo to come to the Rose City. And it’s obviously crucial that the Blazers’ two stars be on board if this experiment has any chance of working, beginning Tuesday in New Orleans, with Portland currently 5-8 and tied for 11th in the Western Conference.

But, I have my doubts.

It feels like the most one can realistically expect is the sugar rush of a guy who will be able to put the ball in the basket until his dying day, which will no doubt help the Blazers win some games during the slog of a long NBA regular season. But does anyone think scoring is a real problem in Portland as long as Dame and CJ are healthy and playing every night, or that Anthony can help lift the Blazers back into contending position in the west?

When I asked an NBA guy over the weekend with substantial Blazers and Carmelo knowledge gleaned over the years if he thought it would work out in Portland, he sent me this:
"undecided expression"

Then, he said, “He should help some. Melo can score, period.”

It’s true that the Blazers’ offense has dipped, significantly, from last season, when Portland was third in the league in Offensive Rating (114.7); through the first month this season and before Saturday’s game in San Antonio, when the Blazers rallied from 15 down in the fourth quarter to steal one late, PDX had dropped to 15th (108.2).

But there was almost certain to be disruption early in the season, with seven new players on the active roster. And a big part of that drop-off, of course, is the absence of center Jusuf Nurkic, not just the lack of scoring from either of Anthony Tolliver or Mario Hezonja or rookie Nassir Little or anyone else Terry Stotts has plugged in at the four spot so far this season with Zach Collins injured and out four months following shoulder surgery.
Per Synergy, going into Saturday, Hassan Whiteside, acquired from Miami in the four-team trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Heat, was averaging just .857 points per possession as the roll man in screen and roll sets, an obvious bread and butter play for the Blazers with guards as dynamic as Lillard and McCollum (correctly) on the ball as much as they are. Skal Labissiere was slightly better than Whiteside, averaging 1.05 ppp on pick and rolls, but that only is measured by Synergy as average. And because of that, Portland was dead last in the league in roll man points per possession.
By contrast, Nurkic was just one of seven bigs who averaged at least four pick-and-roll possessions per game last season, per NBA.com/Stats; among those seven, he and Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic finished just behind Al Horford (1.15) in points per possession as the roll man in pick and roll sets, at 1.13.
And an even bigger issue, to me, in Portland is the dropoff in defense since ’17. Two years ago, per basketball-reference.com, the Blazers were fifth in the league in Adjusted Defensive Rating, at 106.79. That dropped to 16th last season (111.01); this season, through Sunday, it was 18th (109.97). With Al-Farouq Aminu off to Orlando in free agency last summer, and Maurice Harkless traded to the Clippers in the Butler deal, Portland lost its best wing defenders, a skill Aminu has taken to the Land of the Mouse. Among fours averaging more than 20 minutes this season, Aminu is tops in the league in Defensive Rating at 96.7.

We can all agree that ‘Melo’s not going to Portland to be a lockdown guy, even if in a lesser role, right?

You can funnel his guy into Whiteside, for sure, as a matter of course, but that’s going to lead to breakdowns and foul trouble for the bigs that Portland does have available.

Billy Donovan wanted it to work with Carmelo in OKC in 2017. Russell Westbrook wanted it to work. So did Paul George. And there were stretches when it looked very promising and everyone said the right things and tried to do the right thing. But the Thunder had elite defenders in George and Steven Adams, and even with them, Anthony was benched for most of OKC’s first-round playoff series loss to Utah.

And we’re not even going to get into whatever that was in Houston last year.

Look, I hope I’m wrong, for a lot of reasons, the least of which is there’s not a bad person among Lillard or McCollum or Terry Stotts – or, most importantly, Carmelo.

I’m not gonna lie: as someone who’s covered this game for a bit, the way players treat you does rub off on you, for good or bad. And Carmelo has been, by far, the most accessible and generally agreeable superstar of his generation. It’s not even close. (Okay, Dwyane Wade is right up there with him.) The dude has never stiffed me in 15 years, and I doubt he’s stiffed many others, either. You show up with a mic or an iPhone, he’ll answer your questions. And he almost always is decent during the exchange, no matter what you ask. That goes a long way with people who are just trying to do their jobs, often unequipped with the right information or ability to spit it out correctly in real time.

In short: I like the guy. And anyone who dealt with the New York media as long as he did, and came out afterward as relatively unscathed as he has, is doing something right.

But, the NBA is merciless and unforgiving. And the last two times ‘Melo’s tried to be the missing piece in the West for a contender, it’s ended quietly, and unsuccessfully. All that’s happened since is that the West has gotten deeper, with more teams even better, while he’s only gotten older. But he has a great personal trainer in Chris Brickley, and Stotts is really smart and will put him in some good sets, and if Whiteside can get back to how he played a couple of years ago in Miami, and Melo’s a proud, proud guy, and…

Eh, I still don’t believe he can pull it off. Maybe he just wants to go out on his terms, on a roster, the way Wade did in Miami.

I’ll sure as hell be watching.

https://theathletic.com/1383538/201...k-out-well/?amp#click=https://t.co/FzpL9xh9TF

 

The bottom line is it's non guaranteed. 0 risk. If it doesn't work out who gives a shit, you cut him. How can people get so upset at a 0 risk move ?

 

He cant be worse than Tolliver and Hezonja, it's impossible

 

The week in early July 2015 after Olshey signed Aminu, Ed Davis, Harkless, and Vonleh to replace Aldridge and Batum, I posted, he didn't get a scoring forward. For balanced scoring, we can't have all our points from the guard position. Fanboys told me it's a temporary patch job, he's not done, he'll do more this summer, if not, in October, if not, at the midseason trade deadline, yada yada. I knew Olshey wouldn't do anything, but I sat back to let events prove me right.

While I think that Anthony became an overrated worthless ballhog by playing in a media center, he's just what we need. Finally 4 years later, we get a forward who can score. Anthony, a taller McCollum nonpasser, fits right in with the awful Stotts playground system. He will increase our wins.

 

I don't think you can say the 93-94 Bulls prove that Pippen wasn't a good leader. There were a lot of good teams in the East that gave the Bulls with Jordan some good series so without Jordan I actually think that season elevated his status as a great player.

If only he didn't have that moment where he got all pissy and didn't go in the game when Phil called a play for Kukoc.

 

Exactly this!

If Melo sucks everyone will be saying he's done and he'll likely not get another chance in the NBA. No one will blame Portland for cutting him. If he's a decent role player then it's a nice redemption story.

 

Well the risk is there’s another however many games experimenting with a player who is done while they keep falling down the standings. Or they feel an obligation to make it work even if its not working. Or he plays ok on the 2nd unit scoring wise and it halts the development of Simons while Carmelo, “gets his”.

 

The bar is really, really low.

 

LOL, most of that wouldn't be on Melo if it happens. First of all this team isn't playing well already so if you think continuing to play Hezonja is going to change that then I don't know what you're watching.

Your point about obligation is a decent one but if they signed him this summer or for a guaranteed contract then I think you may be right but Melo can just be cut if it's a problem and why have a non-guaranteed contract on either side if this was going to be an issue.

If Melo stunts other's growth then either the coaching staff needs to recognize that or he'll be cut. Olshey has been all about letting people go to force Stotts' hand lately so why would this be any different. I don't want it to be about this but you're not buying the Simons hype so it's a little strange that you'd use that as a risk factor.

 

The point is the whole it's, "0" risk isn't true. There are risks. Worst case scenario is that he plays, "ok", but it doesn't lead to winning basketball and he sticks around, they can't really cut him because they'd look terrible PR wise, the defense continues to suck, they don't pick up wins, but he's doing ok getting his 10-15 a night. Simons who they say is are our future ceases to see the ball much. Then we can say well they sucked anyways it's not Melo's fault. IMO the reason they've struggled is mostly the defense and that their rebounding has gone way downhill. I'm not sure Carmelo's gonna fix that problem, he can come and score and give up just as many points on the other end, so he can play ok and the results can look basically the same.

In a vacuum, I'm not really fond of this move. They can do other things throughout the season and it can be fine we all expect Baze or Whiteside (maybe both) to be moved. We all hope Zach and or Nurk can come back this year (though I have major doubts about both).

If I thought the issue of the team to this point was they really needed a bench scorer, I'd be all for it. I will say this, their bench sucks in the half-court, so maybe Carmelo can help there, so yeah there is upside too. However I think the issues have been they can't get a stop, and when they do they give up second shot points, they can't guard the paint at all and I don't think Melo helps there.

 

Still no word on the # he will wear?

 

00

 

Seriously? Oh man, Enes has gotta be pissed lol.