Absolutely. Thanks for passing it along. The quotes regarding Anfernee at the end were quite interesting as well. I don't know how much to read into them at this point, but they are certainly presented as if Billups believes that Ant will be a legitimately important piece moving forward. Again... could all be coach speak, but I will also admit that I am still curious what Ant will look like now that he will be fully out from underneath Dame's shadow next year.
Yeah fuck that..... “We don’t know how the Dame situation is going to play out,” Billups said. “But you got Anf Simons over here who I’ve also been pouring into the last couple of years. If you look at where he is at this point of his career, I think it will be a great opportunity. If it is that way, Scoot can learn from Anf similar to how Anf learned from Dame. So, I don’t think the urgency is there at all … “[Simons] is All-Star potential, All-Star close already. There are some people that [Henderson] can learn from, which is great.”
Why? Ant had Dame like stats and impact when he was featured in a primary role. I want to see this too. Scoot is a natural playmaker. I think he/ant/shaedon can absolutely coexist.
Yeah.... but that was when Ant was the point guard. The lead guard. The main dude. I don't want that. I want Scoot and Shae. Let the era of the Slash Bros begin!
I would not underestimate Ant. And 2/3 is interchangeable in Chaunceys system so Shaedon should be fine. We dont care about defense and winning this yr any way. Just let em cook on offense and see what we have.
Gah..... I meant my post to say that was when ANT was the point guard, lead guard, main dude. I know there's a good chance that we see Scoot/Ant/Sharpe in the starting lineup. I would just rather try to set the tone now about what type of team we want to be. I want a hard nosed, up tempo, defensive minded team. I don't see Ant doing that.
Exactly. I don't want to continue that trend. Remove any of the players from the past who were part of that Terry Stotts school of defense.
Simons has value as a bench player. I guess I don't understand why we wouldn't have him embrace that role now. That's where most teams would probably want to play him. Sharpe is a shooting guard. That's his natural position and that's where he's going to reach his full potential. That's where I want to see him. We have so many young players now, and we will probably add 2-3 more after we trade Dame.
Ant was quite a bit worse than Sharpe defensively last season; and it was Ant's 5th season. He sucks at defense defensive rating: Greg Brown III 114 Jusuf Nurkić 114 Drew Eubanks 115 Gary Payton II 116 Matisse Thybulle 116 Justise Winslow 118 Josh Hart 118 Keon Johnson 119 Cam Reddish 119 Trendon Watford 119 Jabari Walker 120 Nassir Little 120 Jerami Grant 120 Shaedon Sharpe 121 Damian Lillard 121 Ryan Arcidiacono 122 Anfernee Simons 123 DBPM: Gary Payton II 1.4 Matisse Thybulle 1.1 Drew Eubanks 0.9 Josh Hart 0.7 Jusuf Nurkić 0.7 Justise Winslow 0.6 Greg Brown III 0.0 Trendon Watford -0.4 John Butler -0.8 Damian Lillard -1.2 Jerami Grant -1.4 Nassir Little -1.4 Cam Reddish -1.4 Keon Johnson -1.6 Shaedon Sharpe -2.0 Jabari Walker -2.1 Skylar Mays -2.1 Ryan Arcidiacono -2.4 Anfernee Simons -2.5 Kevin Knox -2.7 Ant fans wanting a 3 guard rotation of Ant/Scoot/Sharpe, or even worse, to start Sharpe out of position at SF to make room for Ant, have learned nothing from the last 8 seasons of the Blazers. If Ant is here next season, Chauncey will start him. That's next to certain. So either Scoot sits or Sharpe plays out of position....for chrissakes, will the Blazers ever logically balance the fucking roster?
Slash Bros will only score two points per amazing dunk though. Ant being available as a long bomber, hopefully learning to play off the ball a bit? Such growth ups his trade value if nothing else! I expect Ant won't be here long unless things really start clicking. So don't worry. The kids are young and we have time.
Oh no, our draft position will only improve the more we lose! Whatever will we do?! This must be fixed immediately! First, let's trade dame or sit him or whatever comes of that. Then, let's see if these kids even win 20 by February. Then we can trade guys. Keeping Ant helps with the CBA floor anyway; it might be why we're planning on keeping him.
And Ant shot .387 from three on nearly twice as many attempts. A three man spread is much more effective if your opponent doesn't know what two of them are there to do. Again, if it doesn't work, we have wasted nothing. Losses are good, time is cheap at 19 years old, and Ant's trade value is set. If you don't like how he looks, ship him later. But complaining now about how Ant will affect the team is silly. We don't have a team worth this much micromanaging.
He hurt his hand in November and that massively tanked his percentages in December. It took a while for him to recover from that.
Exactly. Watch the young guys go off in losing 60 games. That is the goal for the season and see where we stand after next draft. Plenty of touches and minutes for all three guys w/o Dame.
