McCollum has got to be the biggest ball hog in the NBA. I’m sick and tired of watching him spend 10 seconds trying to fake his man out while everyone else stands around. It’s time to put Simons in the starting lineup. The guy has loads of talent and he can get his shots off within the flow of our offense. The more minutes Simons gets, the better our chances to win.
I think it's time we forfeit for the year so no one else gets hurt and we can try again next October...
How much of that is CJ and how much is on Stotts for setting up a system in which ISO ball is, in essence, the playbook? CJ is talented but I must admit, the Blazers are not exactly a fun team to watch. So much ISO with both Dame and CJ and the occasional Carmelo thrown in, I actually enjoy watching the second unit better. They are pretty bad for the most part but there seems to be at least a modicum of team effort. Gramps...
Reading Binx's posts today I'm thinking he is wishing for a Nurkic-style injury on CJ so that he doesn't have to watch him for a while.
Me and @hoopsjock shouldve sat next to you during the Rip City Row game. I'm not certain that we didnt annoy the people next to us hahaha.
It is perfect time to start Ant, bc Blazers quite obviously not going to be any force with or w/out CJ in s5 till Nurk and Collins are back. And you know what else? Trying to make some plays for Skal would not hurt either. And letting Little run the floor in the s5 for some time wouldn't hurt. We can go tru schedule and we all know now (till some shift happens - maybe Nurk or trade) that we gonna lose every f single game with teams with winning records and we can win games against teams from our shelf now and then. There is absolutly no point to run Dame and CJ ISO now. They are not going nowhere in this shape. Playing Simmons Skal and Little in s5 will develop their skills, so they can be strong bench next season. Playing Dame and CJ ISO's hurts this team two ways: Short terms - no ball movement. Long terms - no players developed. Why the f can't we go smart mode and prepare this team for next season?
CJ's trade restriction expires on January 29th. You can't bench him before then because it'd nuke his trade value. The last thing you want is a highly regarded guy like CJ getting interviewed about a million times by people asking him how humiliating it is to lose your starting job. It'd not just destroy his trade value, but make Portland a much less attractive destination for free agents. We need to just cross our fingers we can make it to Jan 29th still in the playoff hunt. Give Ant more minutes to gain experience and firm up our confidence he can start. Besides, Ant is going to get all the minutes he can handle coming off the bench. The cupboard is bare at this point. Once we can trade CJ, we need to pull the trigger on it ASAP for a small forward who can defend and score.
CJ for Wiggins straight up. The Wolves need to shake things up and I still think Wiggins could be a star in the right system. Although Stotts would just turn him into an iso player.
So in just a few weeks we went from "Simons is not ready" to "Time to start Simons" ........ The only thing that will increase our chances of winning is getting some healthy quality bigs back.
I can see that deal ending the career of either GM, so I kind of doubt it. But I would be interested to see if Wiggins could become a decent perimeter shooter in Portland. Evan Fournier might be interesting. Good size at 6'7 and shooting well (42% from three). He's got the stink of Orlando failures on him, but that might be part of why he'd be available. I kind of want to see what we could do to revive Markel Fultz's career too if they throw him in. Again, Portland has a history of helping people discover their jumpshot. So maybe CJ for Fournier+Fultz? We'd add depth and height, and CJ probably is an all star in Orlando. I still wonder if Philly will eventually give up on Ben Simmons. In Portland he'd probably play center until Nurk or Zach returns. He'd be a terrible fit next to Whiteside, so we'd have to somehow move him. I can only imagine the shots he'd create for Dame and Ant. Simmons is the exact same player he was as a rookie, so maybe Philly makes the move to have a bona fide go-to guy at the end of games. We'd probably have to include our 1st round pick.
