The Blazers have gone 2-8 in their last ten. But they've basically only been as bad as a 5-5 team! They've actually played at about the same level as when they were winning at the start of the season. We've had a weird season where we've always been pretty mediocre, but our record has swayed wildly from great to terrible. It's mostly been about the breaks of the individual games. Check out our last ten stats: Meanwhile, the team that just beat us (the Magic, in case you blotted it out) has gone 5-5, but check out their team stats: Weird, huh.
We shot 17 % from 3 and shot a lot of 3s and turned over the ball a ton....that's why we lose games. Nurk and Hart are keepers. Dame is a keeper, Grant is a keeper. Ant needs to move to a bottom feeding team in the east and take the reigns and get out of Dame's shadow
Some of it is youth, some of it is health, and some of it is lack of proven depth. Keon, Eubanks, Watford, Little, Sharpe, Walker and Brown are all players who should be the 9th man off the bench. That in essence is what the bench has been this year, with only Winslow being considered a vet (who isn't a bench warmer/backup to the backup). And then you take into account that Keon has missed games, Watford has missed games, Little has missed games, Payton has missed games and Winslow has missed games, and it's basically Eubanks and Sharpe who have been consistently coming off the bench. No matter how you spin it tho, it sucks. I know they've pretty much said it wasn't about this year, but on that point it's hard to not want results sooner rather than later, especially with Damian now in his 11th season, and it's not like he's going to continue at this pace for much longer. And you throw into the mix the lack of other things well that Simons does (he's pretty much a scorer first and that's pretty much it) and it's a recipe for a "meh" season. They're losing not because they're lacking talent, they're losing because it appears that they're lacking effort at times, and smarts at other times. Like they're not doing a system, but instead just are out there to do...something.
Question…. The majority of our bench was brought in last season for the tank. These are glorified G-League players. No proven vets who have killed it elsewhere. We have NO depth. Which was why I was blown away when the JinxSpeed guy ridiculed me for not knowing anything about the game of basketball when I had the nerve to claim the Clippers bench was better than ours. HA! Honestly, how could you look at this bench in September and think they would help us. Do you think depth is an issue?
Well, let's not forget we were expecting our bench to include Justise Winslow, Nassir Little (who at one point look like he was developing into starter-quality - so much so that he was the runaway winner of a poll asking who our starting SF was going to end up being) and Gary "broke the Warriors' fans hearts by leaving" Payton Jr. That would give a pretty solid 8-man rotation, and that's ignoring all the members of our SUMMER LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP WINNING team. And personally I really believe that if we played Jabari Walker a shit ton more minutes we'd be much better off. But if we really ARE going to commit to the tank, Dame needs to have a Derek Rose style apple-paring accident. And Jerami just needs to devote more time to his modeling career.
I think some of the bench could help the team, but I'm confused by you asking me if depth is an issue, when I said as much in the first sentence of my post.
I guess what I'm saying is that we're not actually bad ENOUGH. There's a horrible chance we might turn it around and sneak into the playoffs. And that can't be allowed to happen.
I don’t think the bench has swayed games either way for the most part. It’s been turnovers, missed threes, and the 5 players that are closing games. I felt like the team was better when Sharpe was on the floor last night but we pulled him and put in the guys that gave up a 15-0 run to start the half,
The bench has been awful the majority of the season. Undoubtedly those poor minutes combined with the need to play the starters heavy minutes are impacting games. Does it mean they are to blame for every loss? Of course not. Also after Billups "pulled' Sharpe in the 2nd quarter, the Blazers were down out 8. When he returned with 2.1 left, the game was tied. What happened in the 3rd quarter was not related to pulling Sharpe. And while I don't put much weight on +/-, but he's averaged a negative +/- on the season.
I don't remember a Blazers team that consistently makes so many mistakes, bad decisions, and dumb passes as this bunch. That's why they are losing IMO.
