I think it's taking for granted what Dames strengths are, so many years of duplicate guard with DameCJ. If we had come off a run of Telfair, Andre Miller, Jarred Bayless, Raymond Felton, Steve Blake as our guards fans here would be ecstatic to see the growth of Ant and his potential in the year ahead. I'm a huge Ant fan, but do recognize he has weaknesses and room to improve. He has some elite skills very few in this league have as well. Excited to see how he plays next season. Was a bit more excited when a Dame trade seemed imminent, and now am a tad less excited to run back the same starters less Hart though.
That's not conclusive, Ant ranks much higher than Lillard ever has in many defensive metrics. He can get through screens better. Sharpe was worse than both.
No, the Blazers players wont look at it that way. They all saw the team wasn't good enough last year even with Hart, and the only addition was a 19 year old.
Yeah the forum always needs Blazers to hate, it's odd. When CJ was here it was him, and Ant was the golden prodigy of the future. If we send out Ant people here will be ripping on one of Scoot or Sharpe in 4 years for whoever the Blazers next rookie is.
I don't care for the revolving door of guards being drafted and then being traded away before they can get their legs underneath them, but I see Ant for what he is. Ant is a hell of a shooter. He can get to the basket. But, that's it. He isn't a good leader nor does he play defense to any helpful degree. He is overpaid and belongs on the bench.
I started the trade Ant bandwagon 2 years ago and had almost zero support on the forum at the time. I don't think Ant has gotten all this hate over the last two years but my prediction of what he is as a player has proven itself to me already...when Dame came back from surgery it was really apparent to me that Ant wasn't a needle mover by a long stretch. I felt the same way about Nas. I'd trade them both tomorrow for an upgrade if possible.
Do you mean he belongs on the bench or do you mean he needs to come off the bench? You said he is a hell of a shooter and can get to the basket.....which is a pretty valuable skill set, so I assume you are saying he needs to play but not start.
I think he's like CJ...a 6 man..a Crawford or Ginobli or Jason Terry if used in that role off the bench. I'd have less problem with Ant as a 6 man than as a starter
NBA Rankings: The Top 24 shooting guards for the 2023- ...HoopsHypehttps://hoopshype.com › lists › nba-rankings-predictio...
Yes, I would agree, I think he is perfect for that role and have felt that way from the beginning. And I also don't think he would have a problem with it. Sometimes young players pout because they want to start in order to get a big payday, but he has already gotten paid.
Keep Ant, a Sharpe vs Ant dunk-off during All-Star weekend might be the most fun we have this season.
Ant fight !! this will be Simons 6th NBA season. The Blazers gave him a 4 year star player contract. He's going to get criticism. It's part of being a professional NBA player.
SG is very weak in the league right now, the perfect time for Sharpe to explode onto the scene. I also think Jaylen Brown should be number one, he's the only two-way player in the top 4. I guess maybe have Anthony Edwards over him for upside? Sure Booker is the best scorer on that list by far, but he's god awful at defense. If Sharpe could learn to be a two-way player and put it all together, he could easily be the best SG in the league in 3-5 years.
Just hope he plays better than he did in summer league. He didn't shoot the ball well at all, imo. He should have Dominated summer league.
Thats the thing when we have a player like Ant thats been here a few years its easy for hard core Blazers only fans to rip on his faults and all he does wrong. But you actually start listing guards throughout the league you'd rather have and its not as clear cut as people think. A ton of the guys are old or poor defenders or don't shoot very well or are on even worse contracts. If there is a young player that plays defense better than Ant and passes better but is still an elite shooter and can create his own offense, yes while on a cheap contract he's going to be worth a fortune, probably a lottery pick or multiple first rounders.
in post game highlights on YouTube, everyone shoots about 98% FG. Highlight watching and point counting misses the importance of REBOUNDING. Anfernee is a bad rebounder. Rebounding is a big part of defense. Ant is a Point Guard wedged into Shooting Guard in a Blazers system that has Simons mismatched against bigger players almost every contest. I'll post a video below, and give you a description of a somewhat normal daily Blazers oopsy. OKC has the ball, a Thunder player drives inside and attacks the rack. The Blazers "Zone" weakly collapses and Simons hops out of way, escapes the carnage, he's too small to engage contact. The inside shot attempt misses, and J-Dub comes streaking in from the perimeter to flush home a glass crashing offensive rebound. That was supposed to be Anfernee's box out assignment, but Jay Williams is a much stronger Forward then Simons. After the nasty dunk, Anfernee throws his arms up in confusion, not realizing his escape route to avoid contact created the easy looking glass cleanup. Just 1 example of countless "darnit" defensive crumbles the Blazer had last season. The team was just too dang small and struggled against good rebounding teams. the play I described is at 4:55 of these highlights slow it down it the tool bar I don't want to sound mean, but there is lots and lots of tape showing Anfernee too small to be full time SG.
Look at Desmond Bane - he signed a $207 million contract. This "Ant is overpaid" argument is either false or so minor its just totally irrelevant. If Blazers get up against the tax with both Scoot and Sharpe having max deals yeah maybe the Blazers will need to consider moving one of these guards. But we are 5 years away from that being an issue.
