My impression of preseason so far: The Blazers look like a bunch of guys who have never played together before getting creamed by the Dream Team.
I do remember the 2000 Lakers team looked like ass in the pre-season. Of course, I'm not saying the Blazers are on par with that team, but at least there's that silver lining.
We have a lot of work to do. Might be a rocky start, but I think we'll get it together about 20 games in.
the defense will improve; I think that's certain (can't be much worse). Not sure it can improve enough to be a top-10 defense with Dame/CJ at the top of the rotation (although Portland was 8th in DR in 2018....but they had Ed Davis) the overlooked component of defense is defensive rebounding. 3 years ago Blazers were 5th in defensive rebounding; 2 years ago they were 9th; last year, they were 27th but then Olshey made a bet last off-season that he could sacrifice defense and rebounding in favor of offense. It was a bad bet. He might have over-corrected this off-season in favor of defense while still ignoring defensive rebounding (and post defense). The Blazers have to significantly improve their defensive rebounding over last season. Going with Roco as the PF makes that a huge challenge
I don't know, between RoCo and DJJ, I think they can get the 11-12 rebounds per game that Chief and Moe got us while they were here. I think Nurk can get us double digit rebounds every game. I think our bench will rebound well, Dame rebounds well for his position. I don't see what the big difference is between 2 seasons ago, 3 seasons ago and this upcoming season... unless Stotts commits 4 guys to the perimeter on D so no one has a chance at a board outside of whoever is playing the 5.
Roco would be good rebounder for SF not as much as power forward and so far jones hasn't shown he is even strong rebounder as a SF. Yes they both block shots here and there but neither of them are rim protector and with defense there trying to play the big a lot of the time is away from the hoop. I give it 10 games before Stotts goes back to his old base defense with the center drops.
Anyone asking for trades and expecting the team to be significantly better is on crystal meth. The coach is holding the team back and it won't get much better through trades after all that we've added. Coach must go first for us to have any chance. Maybe a horrific start the season is the best way to go because we know we won't do shit in the post season under this coach.
I generally agree with your sentiment. However, there are significant structural issues with the way the Blazers are constructed. Everyone is saying how much Portland has improved this offseason. They have gotten better - however there is still a lot of duplication of skill sets (all offence/no defenses types: Dame, CJ, Melo, Kanter, etc)
