Interesting...It was actually a reasonably competitive starting unit last year, and that was without Payton. Hmmm. But your point is cute.
Of course. But I'm fairly confident Jabari will become a legit three point threat and scouted that way.
I love it that we have a group of guys who could legitimately start at SF (Nas, Hart, Winslow, maybe even Jabari or Shaedon if healthy). I think that Jabari is a Summer League all star and will struggle with the speed of perimeter players at the actual NBA level but I hope I'm wrong because if he can beat out Hart and Nas to start at forward next to Jerami then we'll have ourselves one helluva team.
I don't think that Jabari's catch and shoot ability is in question. Dude shot over 50% when he wasn't the focal point of Colorado's offense his freshman year and a respectable 34.6% when he was someone that opposing teams gameplanned for. The question about Jabari and the reason why he fell to us is that he isn't very athletic. I know he moves his feet well against SL players but we'll have to see how he does agaisnt actual NBA players and especially starters.
I'm assuming they're trying to win games and predicting that (barring injuries) this will be the starting lineup for most of the season. If the lunacy that you project starts the season, I don't think it will take long to establish thats not the way to go. Though I can think of a few failures, I can't think of one contender in the last 2 decades that started a backcourt as small as Lillard and Ant. Heck, Dame and CJ is probably the best of the bunch and Simons gives up even more size to 2 guards then CJ. Neither Lillard or Simons has shown the ability to flourish off the ball and of course they'll get killed defensively. STOMP
Ant is going to start the entire season, unless he gets hurt. This team isn't a contender with Ant starting and they won't be a contender with Ant as the 6th man (without any other roster moves). I can't think of the last time a team signed a guy to be their 2nd highest paid player and had them come off the bench the entire season.
Ginobili was a top 3 in salaries in SA for three years between 2011 and 2013. He even had the highest salary in 2013. Started none of the 60 games he appeared in that year. But besides the point, even if it sorta makes sense on paper, Ant is starting. He'll just also lead the second unit and be a token starter and full time finisher.
He would've been my guess, but I wasn't sure. So it's happened once in 10 years and it was with a guy who had been apart of a 10 year dynasty who was continuing his role, along side a top 10-15 players of all-time who was taking pay cuts. Nothing like Ant's situation in Portland's situation.
I’d be interested to see if Chauncey can develop Nas’ ability to make reads off pick and rolls with Nurk. Nas has to improve his shooting, but Nurk is really good at setting screens, he can have the choice of just bullying his guy to the cup or settle for a long 2. The physical tools are there for Nas to be a prototypical Jaylen Brown kind of SF. With one year left on his deal, it just makes sense for us to start him and give him all the minutes he can handle so we can decide on his future. Is he our SF of the future? If he isn’t, we’ll be stuck waiting on Shaedon to grow into a full time contributor. My guess is that if he stays healthy, he will show some consistency if we guarantee him the starting job. It’ll be his job to keep it, he’s been chasing a role his entire career thus far. He’s been through the Blazer organization three years running, one under Chauncey. This is his year to prove he’s a starter.
Really? I don't think he'll do as well playing next to Dame. He seems to play best when he's the primary ball-handler.
I don't know where Brogdon's salary ranks for Boston, but they've already said he's coming off the bench (behind the lesser-paid Marcus Smart).
Agreed. Portland is not going to be a very good defensive club and what success they have will probably come in shootouts. Bringing AS off the bench would still have Dame and him matched together for stretches of the game, just not against the front line guys to start it. Staggering their PT would better allow Billups to always have one of them leading the offense. Again, even as the 6th man I expect to see Ant lead the team in minutes. Can you think of the last time a team's 2 highest paid players were both 6'2 190 lb PGs? I guess the CJ era Blazers were close to doing that but he's got an extra 10 lbs of ballast on Simons. Anyhoo it's... unconventional, but here we are. STOMP
Brogdon is the 4th highest paid player on Boston and Boston didn't sign him this summer either. Signing a player typically means the team paid them what they think the player is worth. Every once and a while there is is an example of a player who gets a big 1 year deal because a team is below the salary apron. You'll also find examples of players who are traded with super high salaries that don't start because the team was able to obtain them for significantly less talent as a reward for taking on a bloated contract. None of these situation are close to Ants where Portland clearly thinks he's highly valuable and therefore the odds of him not starting seem to be near zero. And I'm not trying to crap on people who say Ant being the super 6th man might be the best lineup, because it could be. I'm saying I don't see any scenario where Portland/Billups doesn't start him.
Agreed with the first part. Second part: No, off the top of my head I can think of some starting PG duos but don't know their salaries. We have agreed, and continue to agree that the majority of teams that win it all have a player who is an all-star that is of average NBA height or taller. The Blazers method to continually try to win with one all-star talent, who is short, and is a poor defender has been head scratching to me. They're trying to win in a way that no team has been succesful doing in decades.
I agree that he WILL start. But then we've got the same undersized backcourt issues that people bitched about for CJ's entire post-Wesley Trailblazer tenure, PLUS the glaringly obvious fact that Ant does better without Dame. Of course, trading Dame (ideally for a sweet-shooting forward, or failing that a healthy Ben Simmons) solves these issues, but saying that gets you buried in shit, so I won't say it.
Agreed the undersized thing doesn't work. I'd prefer to keep the HOF player over Ant myself, given that Ant is highly unlikely to come anywhere close to ever being as good as Dame.
