it's all good TB. I knew you weren't going after me because of my after shave, so it wasn't personal.
I will say my radical statement of the day directly. SKAL IS JUST AS GOOD AS ZACH COLLINS. Olshey thinks Collins is a future all-star, so the board loves him. WRONG. HE'S A PRETZEL. As I've said all along, his ceiling is Ed Davis. Davis was about our 4th-best player per minute, and I still can't believe that Olshey dumped him to give Zach "Foul Trouble" Collins the starting job. Collins couldn't stay on the floor from fouls, was picked out as a target by every opponent driving to the basket, wasn't a starter in college, and is a stick man who will have an injury-filled short career. On forwards, Olshey makes mistake after mistake after mistake.
Pretty much every team goes into the new season thinking championship. I have never heard a team say we are hoping to be a 10th place team. Have you? There are no guarantees when a new season comes around but based on last years success and with the talent before the injuries there was hope still and knowing Nurk would be back some time after the new year.
Hey guys. I get it, I havent really done a good job this year. Ahead of the new year I am making a resolution to admit to my mistakes. The injuries haven't helped, but it's not fair to the players to blame the losses on them. This season's roster is just as good as any that I have coached. I think we would have more wins if we had everyone available but even with the injries we have guys who are just as good as the guys we had last year. Dame is Dame. CJ is CJ. Kent is Mo. Melo is Chief. Hassan is Nurk. Ant is Turner. Skal is Zach. Tolliver is Jake. I'm not really sure why it hasn't worked out very well but Neil is working on bringing in the guys who will equal last years Rodney and Kanter. Once that happens it will hlep Dame right the ship. And when Nurk and Zach are back everything will come together.
Nurk as a crutch? Where do you get that? Is this a fantasy of yours? Although Stotts could use Nurk, Collins and Hood as a crutch I've never seen him do that.
To begin with Skal is still learning and not there yet. He has plenty of games where he stinks. Melo is better than Chief. Bazemore stinks. Simmons has a way to go yet, but you can see he's getting there. Still takes a lot of bad shots. Tolliver stinks most of the time. Hassan is slightly better than Nurk. CJ and Lillard are actually both a little better than last year. Who is better than Collins? There is no Nurkic and there won't be a Nurkic as good as last year until next season. When will Hood be back? Does anyone know?
Again, Nurk injury was already baked into cake. Blazers made it to western conference finals without Nurk. Then they added Whiteside who is arguably playing better, and organization was talking championship. So essential you are saying the net effect of losing Hood and Collins but gaining Melo excuses going from title contender to 5 games below .500
. But before the season, everyone was saying that our success this year would depend on Collins making a leap. Then he got hurt. And since he can play PF and C, it was a big loss. Plus he was part of the core of 4 players returning from the WCF run. Losing him during the toughest part of our schedule killed us.
I think people were saying that our ceiling depended on Collins making a leap. The floor shouldn't be this low without him.
I don't think everyone was saying that I think a lot of people, including me, were saying that too much was riding on Collins and Simons, especially considering the gaps in the roster, and that neither player had established enough of their game to have that much riding on them
What I cannot stand is not the Raptors winning although they got injuries. I cannot stand OKC winning at this pace and even at Toronto while we lose from literally every team with a positive record.i think we have just one against Dallas and a couple against OkC. Everything else againste crap. Why we cannot get some good wins? This is unbelievable! I think the injuries are hiding how bad we really are.
Portland really misses their bench from last year. Curry,kanter and hood were a big reason for our late season surge.
