At the beginning of the season it seemed like this team had a lot of depth, almost too much, with more decent players than we could realistically find minutes for. After the first 10+ games, it sure seems like that depth is fools gold. Right now we have a very limited number of players that we can confidently play and expect to contribute. The "Good". (These are the rotation players that we can actually play and expect to contribute every night.) Dame CJ Jones RoCo Kanter Trent Melo The Bad (these are the players that can't contribute at all right now.) Hood - unplayable. Not contributing anything on either end of the court. Obviously he's coming back from a massive injury, but that doesn't change the fact that he's basically a higher paid version of Blevins. Simons - similar to Hood, doesn't contribute anything on either end of the floor, but without the excuse of coming back from an injury. He's not a point guard. He seems to have lost all his confidence. Teams see his lack of confidence and hound him mercilessly. Nurk - injured for an unknown amount of time. Collins - injured for an unknown amount of time. Blevins - nepotism. The Unknown Giles - has shown flashes. Not sure yet if he's ready for big minutes. Doesn't seem like we have a choice. Nas - I would rather give him minutes over Hood right now. He'd at least play defense. Give the kid a shot. Elleby - he can't possibly be worse than Simons.... but he's also not a point guard. This team is really going to struggle if Dame and CJ have to play big minutes because we don't have a backup point guard. Trent and Simons can't handle the ball. Elleby is a rookie and also not a point guard. Summary - the depth was fools gold and we are now facing a very depleted bench with Nurk and Collins out.
I know that some of us believed both the talent and the depth were being overrated but more than that is what depth there was didn't look like real roster depth. There was no depth at PG. There was no real versatility and size at PF. There were only 2 C's, both of whom have injury histories and, there were way too few two-way players, especially at wing. It was a thin ice roster in too many ways and the ice has cracked, 12 games in
I keep going back to Christian Wood. I think we could have had him if we wanted him. Just offer him a bit more than that Houston contract. Ugh.
Just my 2 cents... Because of all the new pieces AND a new defense, it's probably not fair or rational to judge this team holistically until much later in the season. Stotts won't say it, but really, the strategy needs to be keeping our heads above water while the team gels. Even that seems to have been asking a lot, so far, but I think a rational take would be expecting this team to grow together through the season and look better and better -- as a group -- as the season progresses. Obviously the injuries will cause issues to that development too, which ain't great. Individually, you're spot on. Hood has been a disappointment, but like the above, I think it's fair to expect him to slowly progress as he puts his injury and rehab farther and farther into his rear view. If you want, I think there's probably another bucket -- something along the lines of "less than a guarantee" -- that you can bucket Melo and Kanter in for their sporadic performances (Melo looked completely unengaged last night, guessing that won't be the last we see of it)... Giles will get his chance now, and agree on Nas -- he should be getting minutes. Elleby and Blevins, to me, are wasted roster spots.
....but Indiana seems to be doing just fine with new players and a new defense. Why is Stotts so special that he needs so much more time?
You can certainly argue that he's not. It's less a defense of him and more of an "I can at least rationalize why we're struggling". Also, and again, not necessarily making excuses for him, but this team has always been a "the whole being greater than the sum of its parts" because of the chemistry and culture. I don't pretend to know whether or not that's the case with Indy, but it's not hard to see how that could've been upset by rejiggering a third of the roster. Some teams operate as more players on a roster, roll the ball out there and play; others operate as interconnected units, so it's certainly possible that the roster turnover in Indy hasn't impacted what they do as much as ours.
Here's the thing, and it's the most damming offense for Stotts. Our offense has changed in five or six years. It's all ISO and creating on the fly. Our "offense" is so predictable and easy to defend that any team with half a brain and decent defenders can completely shut us down. Lillard and CJ have made Stotts look so much better than he ever was. The guy hasn't evolved at all in his time here.
Coming into the season, I was encouraged by some of the roster moves and thought there were reasons the team could be successful. I probably over-estimated Roco's ability and impact. Although his career 3 point% didn't support it, there have been players who shot better in Stotts system and I thought RoCo was a good candidate to be the latest success story. I guess it's still early, but I don't think it's trending toward a career year for him which is what we need. Trent's playing relatively well, but we kind of need more, which probably isn't fair. Nurk's inconsistency is disappointing. I suppose injuries have stalled his progression and that might always be the case. Everyone else is basically performing as I expected them to. Envisioning a best case scenario where RoCo is shooting 40% from three, Trent is going for 20+ points every third game, Nurk is a matchup advantage nearly every night, and I think the Blazers are a dangerous team. I guess it could still happen toward the end of season, but the odds don't seem very good. That's basically how Olshey operates, putting his money on best case scenarios. This team is built on driftwood and certainly isn't made for the long haul, and it's a little frustrating that we can't leave until the entire structure has washed to sea. The only way to hasten it would be Dame demanding a trade and breaking up the 4-pact. Of course, I'm looking at it as a fan looking for a championship, and maybe the team just wants to be competitive and sneak into the playoffs most years. If it's the latter, then full speed ahead.
This place. The Blazers played a crappy game last night on tired legs against a good Indiana team that was fresh and had a day to prep for Portland. The Blazers lost Nurk and it feels like the energy went with him. Now it's time to ignore the generally good start the team has had to this weird season and dump on Stotts and Olshey. I don't feel like playing, but enjoy yourselves.
I had that exact thought last night. We are absurdly ISO heavy. We may never really know the impetus of it, but I think you can also attribute that to having two exceedingly ball-dominant guards, exceedingly limited scoring punch on the wings, and a big who, let's be honest, is somewhat limited in the scope and breadth of ways he impacts the offense. I do think a lot of that is on Stotts, but I also kind of wonder how much of that is chicken, how much of that is egg? Like, no one was ever clamoring for Stotts to run an offense that highlighted Aminu...
We didn't have a way to offer him more than the Houston contract (without doing a S&T with Nurk going out).
We definitely did. Instead of Covington, you do the trade with Detroit instead. Houston got Wood in a S&T, using Ariza and the first they got from the Covington trade.
Correct. But you are also conflating the timeline and revising history. The Covington trade was agreed to and in place BEFORE free-agency started. Unless you have a time machine, you can't say that Portland could pull off the S&T for Wood. By that time, Portland had already played their hand. There is an argument to be made that Portland should've not done the Covington trade - but that also doesn't mean that they would've been guaranteed to get Wood in a S&T either.
Thank you. So many people in this forum obviously understand hoops. I'm a basketball idiot. Yet, even I could see the Blazers were a step slow from the tip. Can no one else see it? Will only can bring so much. At some point, dead legs are dead legs. Gee, I wonder why that could be? Oh, maybe we had to play our key players huge minutes and have them expend a ton of energy against the Kings the night before. If we would have taken care of business and put the Kings away early, we would have much more energy coming into last night. We didn't and paid the price. There's also something to be said about the NBA schedule. It has been said that the second night of a B2B when coming home is like another road game. My thought is if the roles were reversed, and we had a day in Indy to hang out, and the Pacers came in late the night before, we would have run them off the court. It's just the NBA. The loss isn't distressing. Losing Nurk is.
But it isn't a good start. We beat the Lakers and Warriors, but every other team with a winning record has completely bodied us. We lost by 20+ to the Jazz, Clippers, and Pacers. We got down 20 to the Raptors and Kings. We are not a good team man.
Hood's progression has been really frustrating. He moves well, but his shot is all off kilter , and his timing is shot. Durant looks like he's hardly missed a day, but Rodney looks like he's an end of the bench D-Leaguer. The Blazers need him to break out, and soon. Simons just doesn't have that "IT" factor. By now if he was that talented, he would be contributing more on a Trent Jr. level. Very disappointing. Get well Nurk. Dude is snakebit. Good news is he can work on his conditioning, and practice using his other hand once he's over the initial healing period. Get well soon.
I don't think anybody is ignoring the nature of a B2B, although a B2B just 12 games into the season, in the same time zone, shouldn't wipe out a team with the supposed depth Portland has what people DID notice was that Portland's 4 game win streak came against bad teams. So playing the Pacers was going to be a much better gauge of where the Blazers really are in their development. We've all seen, many time before, Portland beat up and fatten their record against lottery teams. The Pacers were a real test and as we saw, Portland failed the test badly not only that, the Pacers were missing their starting SF and had just traded their starting SG who happened to be their best perimeter defender. So the Dame/CJ back court caught a break. Didn't make a difference this wasn't so much they lost but rather how bad they looked as they lost
