Simons is just now getting into game shape again. Watch what happens now. At this points he's two weeks into his season.
Author of this post -- it has not aged well has it ? Also as much as I love Sharpe until he can be more consistent and such then Ant MUST stay and it's a simple as that . However at some point the decision will need to be made unless Sharpe can show he can play SF that they will need to decide between Sharpe and Ant but we are still a year to two from that I think.
The OP was bad from the moment it was made. Having said that, if we can get an top wing for any one of our 4 guards, I'd likely do it. Nobody on this roster is untradable.
Hypothetically, if Ant keeps up this growth trajectory for the rest of the season (it's a big ask), what is the likelihood the team starts viewing him as THE centerpiece moving forward? He's shown a lot of growth but he has so much more growth to make. If he needs to play 30+ minutes at point every night what happens to Scoot?
Also awesome hearing how the game is starting to become easy for him: Not overthinking coverages, just playing the game.
Chauncey's post game sounded like he wanted Ant to have the last shot going downhill towards the basket but Jerami decided to go one on one.
Yeah, Chauncey was trying to respectfully say that he doesn't have a guy who comes out with the kind of attitude a player needs to have to take over the game from tip off. I thought it was both pretty accurate and a good way to challenge the guys on our roster in the media without singling anyone out. Whoever decided to post that tweet and whoever they were quoting from BE are obviously cool with the bullshit effort this entire roster put out there for the first three quarters. The guys were sleep walking and if any of them had a combination of talent and leadership they would have woken up and in so doing likely brought the rest of the team to life.
that place changed. It went from somewhat non-serious fan discussions to straight up Blazer paparazzi. Portland players can't J-walk across a street without a Blazers Edge writer counting how many steps it took before the ticket was issued.
And the writing is so incredibly boring. I think I’d like Bleacher Report if it just let me filter out the BlazersEdge stuff.
Here is an area where Simons can improve greatly - seeing wide open, good 3-point shooters on his side of the court. Such as Malcolm Brogdon. Brogdon is up near the top of the league in catch-and-shoot 3-point percentage for his 2.9 attempts per game. If I set the number of catch-and-shoot attempts to Brogdon's 2.9 or greater, he's actually #2 in the NBA right now. We saw this (below) with 2:50 left in the game and the Blazers behind by 1 point. How is it that Simons cannot see Brogdon? Is Simons intentionally not passing to Brogdon? This is crappy defense. Isn't it these breakdowns that a good offense looks for and exploits? This is the shot Simons decided to take in this possession. A hook shot that hit the back of the rim.
Here's a video of the play. This happened after Chaucey Billups called a timeout. If Billups drew up this play to get Brogdon an open 3-point shot, it worked exactly as planned. Brogdon went from one side of the court to the other to lose his man, and passed to Simons who was in a great spot to get the ball back to Brogdon.
Oh, yeah. I was screaming for him to pass, and pissed when he didn't. That was probably my strongest reaction the whole game.
at this point, calling him the franchise player is either totally ridiculous or completely re-defining what franchise player means
