I was listening to The Ringer NBA show and they were talking about who the third best players were, and one of them said “For Portland, I guess that’s Robert Covington.” got me thinking, who is second, third fourth... Dame (undisputed #1) Nurk (2) Covington? (3) McCollum (4) Trent (5) Hood (6) Collins (7) DJJ (8) Enes Kantor (9) Harry Giles (10 very health dependent) Little (11) in time could rise Melo (12) Ant (13) CJE (14) Dames cous (72) Dang, that’s a pretty deep roster on paper, if they stay healthy
1) Dame 2) Nurk 3) Covington 4) McCollum 5) Kanter 6) Hood (if healthy) 7) Jones 8) Trent 9) Giles 10) Collins 11) Melo *** These guys have a chance to jump up the ranks *** 12) Little 13) Ant 14) CJ#2
How many picks and young assets would you be willing to give up for him in return? Teams aren't going to give us a talented player for him and his contract.
You people crack me up ranking Melo so low..... you understand he is starting this season and will be our 3rd leading scorer. I know there are other aspects, but these asshats have him as the 11th or 12th best player, C'Mon FAMS!
1. Dame 2. CJ 3. Nurk 4. Covington 5. Melo 6. Hood (if he's actually normal after Achilles injury) 7. Kanter 8. GTJ 9. Collins 10. DJ Jr 11. Ant 12. Giles 13. Little 14. Doesn't matter one bit.
You might be right, especially if I were ranking offense, but defense isn't his calling card. He's very important to the team unity, offensive threat and he can be counted on in clutch moments. But he is getting older and was never a defensive stalwart. If the team is healthy I doubt he finishes the season playing starter minutes even if he does keep the ceremonial starting spot. This isn't a slam on Melo, it's a statement of age and inevitable decline.
He’s not starting this year according to Neil. He said that melo understand that he need to come off the bench and be a featured scorer for the second unit. Essentially Neil said that DJJ will start alongside with the other starters
1. Hall of Fame Point Guard Damian Lillard 2. Borderline All-star Nurkic 3. Borderline all-star in a stars studded conference McCollum 4. super role player Covington 5. Future Starter Gary Trent 6. 6th man of the year candidate Melo 7. Best iso defender DJJ 8. Rebound machine Kanter 9. Can he bounce back Hood 10. Need to stay healthy Collins 11. Backup PG Anfernee Simons 12. An exciting developing Nassir Little 13. A diamond in the rough Giles
Dame Nurk CJ RoCo Gary DJJ Hood (if he is 3/4 the player he was before the Achilles) Zach Enes Melo Giles Nas Ant Elleby This is what I think of the guys in terms of overall/trade value not how productive for our team they can be. If that were the case I would have RoCo, Gary and DJJ in front of CJ. Those guys just don't stall the ball on offense and play really good defense. CJ is honestly a liability on both ends for us, obviously an incredibly talented scorer and ball handler which unfortunately is to our detriment when playing with the starting lineup and then he's an atrocious defender. Hood is an unknown I was just giving my best guess with him. I put Melo last among the rotation players because he's a lot like CJ but way way out of his prime and honestly if I had to give up one of those ten guys I'd give up Melo. I do not think that CJ, even with his contract, has negative trade value. I think we could move him, Ant and possibly a pick for Oladipo, McConnel and one of their end of the bench guys to make the trade work. I know that is a big gamble because we would then have to re-sign Oladipo and possibly McConnel or try our hand at free agency which hasn't been too kind to us. The other trade I pretty much know we can do is CJ for Tobias Harris and that one might net a pick coming back to us. So there are teams out there, likely more than the two I just mentioned that would give us positive trade value for CJ.
Damn dude, does every post you make have to be about "dogging" on CJ? CJ is not the reason this team struggled this past year and was a key player for the team to make it to the WCF the year before.
CJ is the biggest reason why we have had the worst three point defense and overall perimeter defense in the league year in and year out for a while now. CJ constantly passes up open threes (which he is one of the most effective players in the league when taking them) to wait for his defender so he can go one on one. He seems like a great guy off the court but on the court he is a ball hog and a huge defensive liability. On a team that doesn't have one of the top 4 best ball dominant players in the league, CJ's offense would be gold but on this team the way he chooses to play on offense it is a net negative. His defense is going to be a problem on every team. Oh and by the way someone else in here said that CJ has negative trade value and in order to unload him we would have to attach picks. I have not and will not ever say that because CJ is such a potent threat to score that he definitely has value. Maybe I put too much on CJ, maybe if Stotts would pull him out of the game and tell him it's unacceptable every time he does his one on five MeJ bullshit, CJ would be fine for our offense but with Dame only being average on defense we just can't have a terrible defender next to him.
CJ is no worse than our third best player, and there's a clear gap between him and the 4th. I can't understand why anyone would put guys like Trent/Roco over him. It's not like advanced stats love either of those guys either. I mean, you do watch the game, right?