Blazers are 0-17 when Brogdon doesn’t play. 15-24 when he plays. Meanwhile, they’re 7-24 when Simons suits up. Now I understand why this ‘tendinitis’ lingers Take that for data!
Ant shot 38% FG in February (not good). The opponents are putting defenders on him. It's not fair, Dame should be here to take pressure off Anfernee's shooting.
I want Ant gone. I would keep Brogdan around to mentor Scoot and come off the bench...be a floor general..eventually join the coaching staff. Ant is streaky and basically CJ with a 3 pt shot sometimes. CJ could score 50 dribbling the air out of the ball in a loss too...Ant has been the go to for the Chauncey era and look at the losses. Completely cut bait with Olshey's draft picks
His game is too manic. I would move him this summer even at a diminished value. I think he's bad for the team concept. Let's actually give ourselves a shot next season.
the obstacle to that may be Cronin. I forget which one it was...may have been Quick or Freeman...but in 2018 one of the Blazer beat guys said that it was Cronin who convinced Olshey to focus on Simons. So it may be that Ant is to Cronin as CJ was to Olshey. Another obstacle is that the Blazer Broadcasts have worked overtime to prop up Ant; there appears to be a PR push behind him. The Hammerblabber has certainly spent a lot of time extolling Ant's virtues and another obstacle may be that Ant just doesn't have significant value around the league
Ant is a great scorer but, IMHO, is not much of a leader going forward. I am generally pessimistic but I challenge anybody to demonstrate some positives about the team. Just simply don’t have 5 bona fide young starters yet. Shae has not proven his worth at all. Of course Scoot needs more time. Other than those two what has POR got to be excited about? Camara and Walker are not starters. Maybe Tumani will get there someday but probably not. Doesnt help that Wemby is a walking quad double!
Career DBPM for guards in the Olshey/Cronin era: Thybulle +3.3 Josh Hart +0.7 Justice Winslow +0.7 Connaughton +0.4 (was negative in Portland) Matthews +0.2 Evan Turner +0.2 Wade Baldwin +0.1 Brogdon -0.4 Will Barton -0.4 Rodney Hood -0.4 Norm Powell -0.4 Crabbe -0.4 Steve Blake -0.5 Seth Curry -0.5 Gary trent Jr. -0.6 Gerald Henderson -0.6 Dame -0.9 CJ -0.9 Afflalo -1.0 Mo Williams -1.1 Nik Stauskas -1.1 Ben McLemore -1.1 Sharpe -1.6 Simons -2.3 for the most part, those marks match the eyeball test now, these are career numbers so they can be skewed from the Portland games depending on other teams. For instance, Pat Connaughton had negative marks all 3 seasons in Portland, but has positive marks in each of his 6 seasons in Milwaukee. DBPM is fairly unforgiving of perimeter players, especially starting guards. Jrue Holiday's career mark is +0.1. But Tony Allen's career number is +1.9. even though Brogdon has a negative career mark, he seems pretty close to a plus defender. This season, opposing offenses are 2.9 points/100-possessions worse when Brogdon is on the floor vs off the floor (but opposing offenses are 8.8 points better when Ant is on the floor). In fact, adding both the on/off for Brogdon of Portland's offense/defense, the Blazers are +9.8 points with Brogdon on the floor, which explains the gap in winning when Brogdon plays and doesn't. And Portland is -6.8 points when Ant is on the floor
Yeah, we have other shooters where we don't need Ant. We have..........oh fuck maybe he does fit a need.
Exactly. But next year we need to try. No doubt he is in a slump, but until we add more shooters to the team why would we move the best one we have? "Not a leader" or "trade him for a diminished return" are head-scratchers for me. When we get his replacement then we can reconsider it. To me, he would be perfect as a 6th man.
Oh that last sentence I’ve been saying all along. The problem is he’s paid like an above average starter but on a bad team.
So Ant really is the worst defender in recent memory by a longshot? Sheesh. As a player wouldn't you want to improve that?
It looks like he's attempting to. I was focusing on his D last game. His on-ball man to man defense isn't terrible. He gives good effort and bodies the offensive player into difficult shots. His off-ball defense and rotations are some of the worst I have ever seen. There was 6-7 times where Ant was in absolute no-mans land. It looked like he was going to double the ball handler, but he didn't come hard enough and the ball rotated out before he got there. At that point Ant, just stood there watching the play instead of rotating back. I have to think that he has the ability to improve on D, at least to a somewhat passable level. I think more than anything, he needs to be locked in a film room and diagram defensive plays all summer long. He has a massive mental gap on that side of the ball.
since this is the Brogdon Effect thread, maybe Cronin decided to keep Malcom around to show Simons some old school tricks on defense?
Brogdon is a quality two way rotational player, surprised Blazers couldn't flip him for a pick at the deadline, who knows maybe it's his injuries. Happy to keep him on the roster next year. Odd how this thread turned into a Simons bashing fest. Although I probably shouldn't be surprised, Blazers fans always need a member of the team to hate. Eventually it's probably be Sharpe or Scoot or whoever we draft in a few months. All the talk about how Sharpe/Scoot/Brogdon need their touches and Simons takes away from those guys...... Yet all three are missing major chunks or most of the season. Don't think we need to ditch Ant just to add another Banton or Hagans to this squad. The Blazers really suck right now and no I don't think Ant will ever be an above average starting player to turn this losing around. The much bigger problem for the Blazers future is I'm questioning if any player on this roster can ever be an above average starting level player.