We've got to feel this way about him.......Now<. Lets re visit when the all star game date is approached and at the end of the season.
I'm actually very fine with CJ being the leading scorer on the team, because it means he's turned the corner as a consistent, valid threat. Makes Damians game easier.
I believe there will still be all star teams made up. I don't know if they're going to do it like they've done it the last few years ("Team X" vs "Team Y" where it's not based on conference).
Don't some contracts have incentives for being named to an all-star team? I can't see them not having the vote. On another note, the next 3 all-star games will be in Cleveland, Salt Lake City, and Indianapolis. I would skip them and go somewhere warm.
I found this in an article about this year’s ASG being canceled and Indy hosting it being moved to 2024: “This will be the first time since 1999 that the league won't have an All-Star Game. The event was cancelled that year due to the league's lockout. There will, however, be some version of All-Star festivities this year, though those plans will be announced at a later date. Something that could honor this season's All-Stars and makes sure they're recognized for their achievements would be nice.” https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cb...ces-indianapolis-will-host-event-in-2024/amp/ Hey, maybe the League could finally throw the Blazers a bone and let them host the non-ASG here. I mean, for 50 years the litany has been we don’t have the hotel space to host the game. Pretty sure we could handle it this year with no game and no fans.
That article was written 2 months ago. In light of the exploding pandemic (and it's getting worse) and an increasing number of games being cancelled, I'd wonder if the league will cancel any kind of festivities around all-stars. I guess this year, we can see a Zoom All-star team
What is absurd to me is CJ's turnover rate. He's averaging 1.1 turnovers with a 4.7% turnover rate. https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2021_advanced.html#advanced_stats::tov_pct Obviously the players that will lead this category are catch and shoot guys, players who don't handle the ball much, or are strictly isolation scorers (Trent and Melo also appear on this list). The difference is CJ handles the ball A TON, and he's managed to improve his AST% from 19% to 26% this year, all while reducing his turnover % from 8% to 5%. He is third in the league based on players qualifying, and no one ahead of behind him has even near the same AST%. You have to go to the 23rd player (Derozan) before you find someone with a higher AST%. I don't know if this is sustainable, but it's a major reason for his success so far.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/ 3rd in RAPTOR. He's an advanced stat darling right now. Kind of nuts considering most advanced stats were not very generous to him the last few years when compared to his raw numbers. Still, it's a small sample, but obviously hoping he keeps it up. SIDENOTE: Based on RAPTOR, Dame has been the worst defensive player in the league with a minimum of 135 minutes played. Matches the eye test as well. Dame has been getting blistered on defense this season. Just looks lazy on that end. Trent and Kanter are there as well in the bottom 20.
AND he’s among the league leaders in steals. If he keeps this up, he’s All NBA. I can’t name 6 guards better than him.
when looking at those numbers, I think you really need to consider rotations by that I mean Portland's regular rotation is around the 6 minute mark of 1st Q, the subs start coming in: Melo replaces Covington; Hood replaces Jones; Kanter replaces Nurkic. Maybe around that time or a minute or two later Trent replaces CJ. Dame stays in until the quarter break. The same pattern generally follows in the 2nd half that means, about half the time Dame is on the floor with some combination of Melo, Kanter, and Hood. And all three of those guys absolutely suck at defense. And maybe, for a minute or two, Dame is on the floor with CJ-Hood-Melo-Kanter. Can you think of a worse defensive lineup?...anywhere? that's not to say that Dame is playing well or defending well. He's obviously out-of-sync on both ends of the floor. Maybe it was too short an off-season, or maybe that knee injury in the bubble was more serious than reported. Still, he's posting the 2nd highest TS percentage of his career and his PER, while lower than it has been the last 3-4 seasons has been rising. I'm still convinced Dame will go superstar sometime this season what I'd like to see...and I still haven't seen it this season even though CJ is on fire...is a team come in and assign their best perimeter defender to CJ instead of Dame. Let Dame spend some time drafting off of attention to CJ like CJ has drafted off Dame for 5 seasons
RAPTOR takes all of these things into account in the on/off component. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/introducing-raptor-our-new-metric-for-the-modern-nba/ Now HOW it takes those into account are not fully disclosed, but a simple description it gives: The "box" component also looks at aspects that are not simple box score stats: CJ is a slight negative based on the "box" component, but he's a sizable positive by the "on-off" component. Dame is a huge negative in both components, and that matches my eye test as well. Watching the games, he is dying on every screen, he doesn't close out on defenders, and he's not even providing much resistance on post-ups, which he has historically been good at. Beyond that, CJ also spends a number of minutes each game with Hood/Melo/Kanter in the second quarter (Hood has actually been a positive defensive player according to RAPTOR, if you believe it). Maybe not as much as Dame, but that should theoretically be picked up in the "on/off" component of RAPTOR. So either way, I'm not really buying your premise. This post isn't meant to shit on Dame, he's earned a lot of leeway due to having 3 MVP calibre seasons in a row, but it also doesn't change the fact that CJ has been better so far this season, on both ends, and it's been validated by both stats and the eye test. Does it mean I don't think Dame will pick it up as the season goes on and CJ may regress a bit? Of course not, but this is a reflection of the team's reality as of 1/12/21. Personally, I think Dame is conserving his energy on defense in the regular season. I've seen him play good (or at least acceptable) defense for stretches of games in a row (like in the bubble), so I think he definitely has the ability. My only wish is that he is a little less lazy on that end in general. Consistently giving effort on that end is a good habit to have, and it's built over time and with consistency. With how many minutes he plays per game, he's been a HUGE part of us having one of the worst defenses in the league.
I would be angry if I was a Charlotte Hornet fan. Of course he kind of did the same with us; really slacked off in his last year.
Welp.... Im an idiot.... It was not until just now, that I realized @calvin natt is not named after Calvin and Hobbes, but an ex Blazer.....
