These are catch-and-shoot numbers for the regular season. Simons was #1 in the whole league in catch-and-shoot 3-point percentage. I don't understand how some people say he can't be effective off the ball. Last season, he was deadly.
For me it isn’t about whether he can be effective. I don’t think he will be the best version of himself if he’s not the primary ball handler. Kinda like CJ. I always thought that playing with Dame was holding him back. Was he still good? Absolutely, but I thought he could be better, and I feel the same way about Simons.
No reason why half of his minutes can't be as the primary ball handler. At least the 15 minutes per game that Dame is resting
If Ant ever reaches Dame's peak it will be truly miraculous. However, Ant will likely pass Dame within three years as they're heading in opposite directions.
I'll bet Dame is still a better player come the 25-26 season. Your logic could certainly be taken even further and say: Tari Eason will be better than Dame in 6 years. However, I don't think that's strong enough of a case that you should trade an All-NBA player for a #17 pick in this years draft.
Looking at true shooting percentage, Simons has already reached a level that Dame didn't reach until he was 26 years old in the 2016-17 season. Not even counting the 2020-21 season, age-wise, Simons reached .580 true shooting percentage 4 seasons/years before Dame did. But, looking at where Dame is now, at a very high 62% , who knows if Simons will pass Dame if Dame is healthy. Simons: Dame:
I played NBA2k last night with the Blazers and some dude was the Celtics. This team is rough. I can’t see how Jerami Grant and Payton are going to make that much of difference. I had Simons at the 2 and he was matched up with Jaylen Brown. Yikes!
Why do you think that? Ant has been a really good catch and shoot guy so far in his career, and Dame shouldn’t be playing more than 33-36mpg. Keep in mind that CJ and Dame lasted as long as they did because they let each other get theirs whenever the other was hot. Dame is going to want to see Ant succeed. Ant is locked up for just as long as Dame is on the team, and Dame knows internal development is the only way for him to win a ring here. I don’t ever see this becoming a Dame/LMA situation. The other thing is we as a city embrace Dame more than we ever did for LMA. He knows fully well that no matter how good Ant gets, Portland will always be his city as long as he’s here. The only question that remains is can Chauncey turn him into a legit secondary playmaker on a contending team that is an adequate if not good defender. If he can do both, I don’t see a reason to trade him. But as far as scoring, if he continues to bulk up and attacks the paint more, I think it’s almost a guarantee he averages 20ppg this year. I also said we should sign Ant for $14+4m/yr before last season started (when he would have been pretty much a lock to accept at that price imo) and a lot of people here thought I was crazy. So I might just be a bigger Ant optimist than most, but I’ve also been right so far on him.
Ant's actual starting career is so abbreviated that I don't think any of us have a foundation for saying what situations are best for him. A small sample size of games that didn't matter is a poor gauge it did look like Ant was on a roll when CJ came back and that his efficiency dropped after. I haven't bothered to find out if that's actually true...it just seemed that way to me, at the time. But Dame is not CJ; yeah they are both high usage but Dame has a track record of facillitating other players to get theirs....CJ not so much I think there is enough unknown at this point combined with Ant having a different style than CJ there is at least reason for optimism that it will work better than Dame/CJ did
Kevin McHale was a career 6 man and the second highest paid player on the Celtics championship roster.
He did start 400 games. However, I think the point has been made now that we have like 2 examples of the second highest paid (signed) player coming off the bench in 30+ years. Both of which were vets who had established coming off the bench already. Doubt we'll find a 23 year old, who was the 2nd highest paid, who also came off the bench, on an average team. Ant's going to start whether we like it or not. If come January he's healthy and not starting, that's going to be a really bad sign for us and that contract.
This is the regular season playing time breakdown for the season the Blazers went to the Conference Finals. I don't have any comments. Just thought it might be good for comparison.
