Free Agent Derrick Jones to Portland

With FA's that are experienced playoff vets, they have to want to come to Portland as a place to play and live. Im not convinced we are an attractive destination with that type of player, especially ones that have lived in good weather cities and tasted success. I would guess we made offers to players that many in here would be happy with but they flat out tuned down coming here. Thats part of the equation wit FA's.

 

Don't base everything on the 3 point line to show how he can help us. The thing he does really well is play defense plus he can score other ways. Really how many opportunities due think this going shoot anyways when majority of the shots come from Dame CJ and Nurk. Plus he also dice up our defense last year for 19 in Miami and had few others games he score big. Because he has trouble shooting the 3 point shot don't mean can't help us in other ways for us to win.

 

Actually, this isn’t quite accurate. LBJ is 35, so in another 15 years or so their trade value should be appropriately equal.

 

The reaction I'm getting in here is very similar to the reaction I got when I tried to tell everyone how trash Mario was last summer when we signed him. DJJ isn't necessarily trash though, just a horrible fit for Stotts.

 

I'm basing everything on the system, which will likely use him primarily as a spot-up shooter. Hopefully Stotts gets more creative than he has been.

 

It really don't matter if you got great 3 point shooters. Team going play the same way against us is to take Dame away by the trap

 

And a similar reaction when you tried telling us how terrible a pick Trent was. Win some, lose some I suppose.

 

Hopeful too.

 

Never said Trent wouldn't develop, literally didnt like giving up two 2nd round picks. Always said Trent would be a steal if he became a good defender, just didn't expect it.

Jones will be a good pickup if he can shoot well, I just don't expect it. Thing is, you're taking about a rookie versus a player we've seen play in the NBA.

 

Just because Jones sign on with us that doesn't mean Little can't beat him out for minutes but right now is Jones to loose.

 

Think D69, as in if he played heavy minutes in the playoffs, and showed, $69 mil wouldn't be enough to get him

When you're getting a 23 year old with the midlevel, you're banking on that player improving. If he didn't need to improve, we couldn't get him. The larger question is, what do you want to give up when drafting, signing free agents, and making trades? Here are some possibilities:
shooting,
defense,
work ethic,
off-the-court problems,
injury history,
dribbling,
passing,
rebounding...

For years, we got players who had off-the-court problems. While some didn't and don't like it, how are you going to get lottery talent out picking in the 20s?

So, with Jones, we're giving up 3 point shooting. I don't like it, but I understand it. He's an excellent defender, which is what we sorely need.

 

Covington is not in the same category as Harkless, Aminu or DJJ in terms of shooting.

And the closing lineup is probably going to be Hood or GTJ instead of one of Harkless/Aminu, which was the shooting issue.

I still think the bigger issue is secondary playmaking, but whatever, as long as we're tied to CJ that's always going to be an issue.

 

We need a damn backup point guard. We can’t have Dame playing 40 minutes a night because the offense shuts down when he’s out.

 

You just blew an excellent opportunity to use the "asking for a friend" line

 

Didn't he get hurt in the bubble.

 

that is true, with some limited context

in fact, my big criticism of what Olshey did in the last off-season (and some in the off-season before) was that he seemingly disregarded any sense of defense in re-tooling the role-player roster

in 2017-18, Portland was actually 8th in the NBA in defensive rating. But then, they did have a roster with several decent-to-good defenders: besides Nurkic, there was Ed Davis, Napier, Vonleh (all gone the next off-season), Aminu, Harkless, and Turner (all gone the following off-season). And predictably, Portland's defensive rating went from 8th > 16th > 28th.

I think pretty clearly, Olshey recognized he fucked up big time by ignoring one end of the court over the last two versions of the roster. The problem may be he's engaged in over-correction. It was a mistake to prioritize offense over defense, especially when the true offensive ability of 'new' players was questionable. It could easily turn out to be that prioritizing defense over offense could be the same kind of mistake

but defense isn't the only critical area where Portland downgraded those two off-season. In OffReb/DefReb ranking Portland went from 10th/5th > 1st/9th > 15th/27th. And the only reason Portland was 15th in off rebounding was Whiteside, and he's gone. That issue is not going to be corrected with Covington, Zach, Gabriel at PF's

one other thing: the biggest issue with the Aminu/Harkless pairing was on offense. And the problem there was that they were wildly inconsistent on offense. One or both could disappear, while on the floor, leaving Portland 4 on 5 or even 3 on 5 on offense. Well, Covington is a great defender nut he's just about as inconsistent as Harkless and Aminu on offense. And Jones appears to be worse, and that's without looking at how his limited offensive ability fits into the Stotts offense. And of course, we really have no idea yet how recovered Hood is

so yeah, I worry that Olshey is over-correcting offense/defense balance with this current roster at the same time he's ignoring rebounding at the 4 positions not C. The best way to find balance between offense and defense to to find balanced players. That's not happening as far as I can tell, but maybe this new template will be better than previous versions

 

Absolutely right.

 

I remember when Layman played good for a one month set driving to the basket getting passes from the guards and Nurk for Dunks. I am guessing we will see even more of that now along with some actual defense. I think Jones gives the Blazers something they have been missing which is a slasher. Someone diving to the hoop, back door cuts and can finish. Is he the greatest 3 pt shooter no, but there are plenty of other guys who can come in and shoot it. Plus if they sag off him, he cuts to the hoop for a easy two.

 

Terry Stotts will not use him primarily as a spot up shooter. Terry Stotts and Neil didn’t get together and say ‘we need a spot up shooter” and come up with Derrick Jones.