OT If you praised Chauncy Billups please raise your hand and take a step forward

I’m glad as soon as Stotts was canned I knew this was going to be a throwaway year (check the post history! “Going to get worse before we get better” “gonna have to suffer through watching them break 10 years of bad habits” etc), especially when the finalists were coming into focus.

Also, if you look at the finalists, they were all first year coaches or Mike D’antoni and a NUMBER of posters were screaming “no retreads!”

But now some of those same posters are throwing a fit that we didn’t hire someone experienced.

Amazing.

And given how Dame and some others have played, I’m surprised we even have 11 wins.

 

Correct, people blamed Stotts in year 9 for certain things because… it was year 9.

Once again, there are some things you’ve got to let a rookie coach work through. He is going to make mistakes. Of course he isn’t going to be held to as high of a standard in his first year as opposed to a coach in his 9th year with the same team — who continued to make the same mistakes — showing virtually no growth as a head coach. Probably why he is currently unemployed.

If Billups is in year *3* making the same mistakes, I’m sure he would get railed for failure to grow as a coach, like Stotts was getting railed (in year 9).

 

Stotts is in his 60s...paid to not work the next two years...he got his whole contract buyout.....why the hell would he want to coach in the covid era and give up a paid two year vacation? You must be young....I'm in my late 60s snd retirement is awesome....Terry has been traveling with his wife Jan and enjoying his payday....it's not that he wont' coach again...it's that he doesn't have to...he'd have the Kings back in the playoffs for the first time in decades if he wanted to coach...as to Terry....it was the roster and injuries....amazing he made the playoffs year after year given the turnover he had with the roster year after year. Injuries forced him to start 19 different lineups last season....and he still made the playoffs....not an easy thing to accomplish in the NBA....I really like the guy and enjoyed his era in Portland much more than I've enjoyed the start of this season, that's for sure.

 

At least they seem to talk during the games now. Early in the season I would see them sitting next to each other but never talking. On a similar note I noticed that Billups has become comfortable standing up and coaching from the sidelines, while in his first couple games he just sat.

 

I thought it might get worse since teams were not accustomed to us doing it at first and seemed to be missing a lot of open opportunities. I don't think it can work, particularly with Nurk.

 

I don't think there is much we can do about it at this point except wait for Billups to correct course, which I think he will do.

 

Exactly. We sit and wait. That is my complaint. We sit and wait while for the theoretical possibility that an unproven will prove itself. Meanwhile, Dame gets whittled away and we lose 9 of 10 and fall to 11th in the west. It's not good a good plan.

 

We're not watching Dame begin to deteriorate and his "funk" isn't due to scheme (at least not for the most part), the guy has an injury that he may be coming back from or may still be hurting him. I think we can all agree that Steph has been dominant since coming back from his last injury, the only difference being that Steph didn't try to play through it. Dame will be fine. I think the reason why the team is "doing this to ourselves" and fans aren't up in arms about Chauncey's early track record is because Chauncey being "great someday" might come very soon. I get being concerned with Dame's window but at the same time we can't be so incredibly short sighted that we deem Chauncey as the wrong person for the job after just 30 or so games all with our superstar (the only guy even remotely close to being one on our roster) fucked up with an injury.

 

I don’t know, man. Dame’s funk could be a number of things. It certainly cannot be said that a big part of it isn’t the new coach and his inexperience. Coincidentally, as I mentioned, there are several players looking lost and playing under expectations. But whatever, I’m sure the rigid dude with zero experience, who calls out players, and has left promises unfulfilled, isn’t to blame…

The thing is, I don’t want him to be. Our roster is better than last season and we are markedly worse. The players seem unhappy, they aren’t engaged, they are playing poorly. Self-inflicted wounds just suck is all. And so does this blind faith. It’s unjustified.

 

Neil setup Chauncey to fail with his brain dead roster construction

 

Terry got more out of a worse roster last year.

 

Yeah, I think Dame is bought in but has a superstar attitude that he can take plays off when we can't afford him to. I think Nas is bought in. I think Larry is bought in. I think Norm is sick of losing, so he's in and out, regardless he's on this team for the rest of the season because he got better than a 20% raise on his re-signed contract. I don't think CJ has it in him to give full effort and nobody's going to make him move the ball here so he's got to go. Nurk isn't bought in and thinks he's a superstar when he's a role player when he's trying so he's got to go. Obviously RoCo can turn it on when he wants to and has decided not to 90% of the time, he's got to go. Ant is going to be a very effective scorer and could play a LouWill type of role on a functional roster but he's going to get paid too much especially since (unless we blow it up) Dame and Norm are going to make around 60M next year... so Ant also has to go. The rest of our players if I'm not mistaken are minimum salary guys; some vets and some second rounders.

So trade four rotation players and try to get two quality guys back that can be part of the roster's top 6 players. They have to be able to move and give effort first and foremost. It would also be nice if they can make the three. Those six can be our core going forward. We can build around them. Chauncey has shown that he'll flex but if we don't have elite athletes that give a shit around Dame we will have a terrible defense.

 

Lillard's 28.9 (p36) last season vs 21.8 this season. I didn't check how many game we would have if he was still on 29.
He won a lot of games by himself for Stotts.
It is like you expect Billups having same run with same car, but you just took the engin off.

 

Agree 100%

Should have kept Terry (and paid him well) until we had a "can't miss" replacement.

 

Dame was much better last year than he has been this year. This year's team is worse because Dame hasn't been anywhere close to the Dame he was last year. These teams still have all the same issues they used do but now they don't have Dame to bail them out. If Chauncey isn't the solution, it doesn't mean Terry was the answer, and if it's the roster then it's the roster, right?

 

That logic while sound works both ways here.
But it was never the roster or injuries the last 4-5 years either, right? Remember 7 years ago when the Blazers shocked the world and actually made the playoffs.

 

Certainly helps. Any coach would want that and use that as an option to win.

 

This team is worse because they have a disorganized offense and defense and stopped running pick and rolls that we are good at.....Terry did a remarkable job of plugging in end of the bench players as his starters dropped out of the rotation due to injuries over, and over and over.....I know you don't like Stotts but he actually handled injuries and adversity much better than Chauncey has so far...and no, I don't think Terry will coach again but I still respect what he was able to do with cobbling together roster after roster and getting them winning games and enjoying being Blazers....in short order Chauncey is starting to look like he's over his head ....his timeouts and rotations and lack of offensive sets has been pretty awful...started better than it's gotten...he might want to start addressing the team after games instead of the next day...we won games with Dame out of the lineup in the past....not this seaason

 

Terry's offense wasn't organized either. Just isoball and pick n roll that was bailed out by Dame and CJ hitting tough shots. I never once heard you mention Stotts lack of offensive sets... But now CJ is hurt and his mind is elsewhere while Dame isn't hitting those same shots. So yeah, the offense will look worse.