Game Thread 2024-25 PRESEASON - BLAZERS VS JAZZ - OCTOBER 18, 2024 - FRIDAY - 7:00 PM - KATU 2.2 - BLAZERVISION

You guys are crazy to think that this team can be competitive. This was one of the worst offenses in the league last year, and one of the worst defenses, largely with the exact same personnel.

 

It sure is. Terrible.

 

That could be true at the same time as it being true that he's not worth much.

Again, I'm a big Anthony Black fan, despite the fact that he'll be a bench player in Orlando for the foreseeable future, and I would be very surprised if Orlando would take Scoot in a trade for him. He's bigger than Scoot, as good a passer, and so much better as a defender it's not funny. Neither of them can shoot for shit, mind.

I'm only half joking about trading Scoot for Payton Pritchard. Pritchard is more useful to Boston as they pursue a championship, but he's going to want a bigger role sooner rather than later, so they'll eventually have to let him go unless Jrue retires in a hurry.

(Yes, yes: Pritchard is smaller, less athletic and 6 years older. But you could also make the same comparison between Pritchard and Bronny James.)

 

I'm sure that had nothing to do with sitting all the productive players in favor of a 5-rookie starting lineup.

 

I was still watching the Duck game at the start of the Blazer game

 

Well that was fun! The players smiling and laughing!!! How long has it been since they genuinely look like they are having fun out there???

This game jump started some renewed interest in me.
I said it for a while now. If healthy, i see this team as a playin team right now.
We don't need to tank when we don't know yet the ceiling of so many of our guys.
If we are a playin team this year, odds are in favor of our youngs continued growth from within, pushing into contender status in a couple years.

This roster is very balanced now.

I find it somewhat foolish to think we should trade our guys before we know how good they are. Sure, Simons and Ayton may have reached close to thier ceiling but we all know roster construction plays a factor in individual play. To say Simons needs to be traded is not allowing for a viewpoint that has Simons blending with the current roster much better than the past Dame rosters.
Simons might become a better player due to the improved roster construction around him. Same for Ayton.

Last night was the most fun I've had paying attention to anything Blazers for quite some time.
Lets see what the opening few games of regular season bring us!
I am hopeful!!!

 

Lineups and injuries. Context matters.

 

I admit I also play Blazer GM at times when I am bored. It is kind of fun. But most of the ideas we throw around do not move the needle one way or the other. The need to trade someone because of their perceived value in the future, as opposed to their perceived value now, only works if the other GMs are not as smart as us. Do we think they don't scout the players at all?

 

Right after the Dame Demand, it wasn't looking good. Without Dame, we had 3 good NBA players. But, after the trades, and Rupert and others turning into actual nba players, we are now 15 deep.

Hate to say it, but right now Banton is playing (slightly) better than Scoot. Hopefully, they lock him up.

So, yeah, the minutes crunch is crazy.

 

I won't deny being crazy, but here are some things to consider:

Average NBA scoring last season: 114.7

In preseason, we gave up 101, 85, 100, 86 (average of 93.0). Before you say "ULM doesn't count", know that they scored the 2nd highest against us, and without that game our average improves to under 91.

As the grumpy MM pointed out, we now have FOUR plus defenders. No chance we don't finish top 15 in defense, probably top 10, and MAYBE even better.

Last season we were 18th in ortg, and 27th in drtg. If we remain the same on offense, then we have 15th in defense and 18th in offense. Sounds "competitive" to me.

 

The problem is you said “in preseason “ before posting a bunch of stats.

 

I had assumed Blazervision has "DVR" just like watching League Pass or Amazon Prime or Peacock or any other streaming service where you can skip to anywhere you wish to in the game. Has anyone heard otherwise?

 

Put 10k+ cash where your mouth is and bet the Blazers over if your so sure of it. Blazers win 22 games or more and you have a big profit. Otherwise it's just hollow talk your spewing.

Just because others don't share you delusional perception of the Blazers being a great, talented, or high performance roster doesn't make them less of fans. Your optimism doesn't make you any better of a fan either.

We all have our own way of supporting and rooting for the team. Everyone going to the trouble to post here in years like this is a hard core fan. Your warped perception of others fandom is a reflection of YOU, not THEM.

 

I'll push back on this a tad, if we were actually good enough to push for a .500 or better performance than our roster would be much better than most of us expect and it would be fine to change the timeline and direction from what is the best apparent strategy today.

Now if we're only getting enough wins to still be well down into the lottery but not enough losses to be a high lottery pick I would agree with your statement.

 

I will withhold judgement of how good this team might be this year until after watching 10-15 games of the regular season. A few preseason wins just doesn't tell us enough.

 

Sharpe is already injured for weeks or months or maybe the season if he needs surgery. Timelord is injured. Thybulle is injured. So we already can have the same injury excuse this season.

 

Blazers have sat productive players every year since Cronin became the GM - so shouldn't we expect the same this year with the most loaded draft of them all?

 

Agreed, this roster has very little talent. I'm not sure there was any team that had only 1 player inside the top100 of NBA rank as the Blazers had - and ours was all the way back at #80 with Grant.

Teams like us should be trying hard in preseason. We'll have 4 months to rest when the playoffs start. All the legit teams have to slowly pace themselves over 82 games, then ramp up for the playoffs. So they basically should skip the majority of preseason.

 

Why do you think this?

If that's the case it's so bizarre.... I can watch league pass at any point in the game. So in that case Fubo really is the only good streaming option at least until January when some of this may change.