Guess I missed this thread last month but thanks for putting it together. The stats are a bit different now. I'd say the main difference with CJ and the other 3 is his PER being lower. Dame is near the Roy, CP3 level and I suspect would be right there is we remove the first few games he had the thumb injury from his stats. Hopefully CJ learns to contribute in a few more areas besides scoring as his career progresses. CJ having a PER over 18 is great for never being a fulltime rotational player; so if he can continue to work on that and the team eventually becomes more experienced we have a heck of a duo. Yeah good point. People point out CJ's lack of height and defense and sure those are valid points; but I don't think their looking at the big picture. Big men and wings have more value on defense; thats why DPOY have most often been centers. We can build a great defense with CJ and Dame in the backcourt we just need plus defenders at the forward and center spots. The exciting thing about Dame and CJ dynamic scoring is it allows fairly one dimensional single skilled offensive players to excel along side them. Have a wing who can only shoot threes and nothing else Dame and CJ will make him look good. Have a big man that can only set screens and roll for dunks Dame and CJ will make him look good. So find players with one offensive skill and great defense. If Plumlee improves his interior defense and we got another defensive wing to play with Aminu we could have a hell of an all around team. That is very misleading since LaMarcus was injured with his thumb and missed a number of games. Most of those losses were at the end of road trips which happens for stretches even with the best of teams. People forget how many injuries we dealt with last season before Wes went down. Rolo, Freeland; hell we started Chris Kaman 13 games around that time. We were 5-0 with everyone healthy after the Afflalo trade. The team looked great and that unit closing games with Dame, AAA, Wes, Nic, LMA was absolutely lethal. We were a contender; not a favorite and certainly could have lost in the first round as the Spurs did; but we were a team that had a fighting chance in any matchup. Please don't discount the accomplishments of that squad just to feel better about the present. Perhaps all the moves will work out for the best but that was probably my favorite Blazer team to root for since the Sabonis era. I'm excited about a lot of the players we have here but we have a ton of work with this team to get back to that level.
Can you complement one without insulting the other? Nothing wrong with having the best scoring backcourt duo in the league and enjoying the success of both.
Yeah when I wrote that post, Dame had a PER of 26 (!) and CJ had a PER of 22. Obviously, a seven game losing streak changes things.
It is what it is. I think if both end up 20+ PER guys after this season's done, Neil will go get us what we need.
First example but without Dame, CJ is......praying for his return. 4-15....yuck. Yes he had a double-double but it was empty stats for CJ.
Yes...but the only example we have to go on so far. Hence, "first example". If CJ had excelled with Dame out it would have also just been one game but I would have extolled his exploits. Only fair to do one if you are going to do the other. Or his performance can be completely ignored.
I wasn't able to watch the game, but wasn't CJ 1-9 or something to start out while Dame was playing? Unless the rotations differed from normal, that doesn't tell us much about CJ's effectiveness without Dame. It just means CJ had a bad game.
I think CJ's 10 assists is something to celebrate. He missed some shots he usually makes and he got into some tough binds. But still finding a way to create 10 baskets for your teammates when you're not even a PG to begin with? That's impressive. Sucks we lost, but that's on the coach. He killed our mojo when he started fouling Jordan.
Coming from the guy who says players suck and should never be on the team ever again after one play.....