Well we don't have a PF as good as Zach was that year, for sure. And we don't have Hoody, before his Achilles injury either. So right now, i'd have to agree. But if, Neil can add a quality PF through trade of CJ, and maybe sign a good backup PF, that will change.
And if he doesn't? Nearly every indication from the media (both local and national) is that we're bringing the exact same roster back. Nurk and Powell have both suggested the same.
Nurkic would not have gotten that team past Golden State, let alone won them a championship. That Portland group was a decent team, but they got a favorable draw and rode it until they finally ran into an elite team.
And we went 2 - 2, including a blowout win in the final matchup that regular season with a HEALTHY Nurk. Get real yourself.
Absolutely. They swept us. They didn't have Durant. Who is pretty much the best player in the league. Even with Nurk, they would have beaten us. Game 4 Meyers scored 30 points. Not sure how taking out his 30 points and inserting Nurk would have made this huge difference. They smoked us. Out of all the things you brought up our WCF trip where we got smoked and had no chance. At least bring up our team when Wes went down. That was the closest we got to feeling like a contender. Doesn't matter though. Neil deserves criticism. If he would have made better moves when he had his opportunities, we wouldn't be sitting here at a crossroads with our biggest superstar ever.
No he didn't play in the WCF games against us. Regular season and playoff basketball are different worlds.
lol no, you are. You're thinking of 2017. KD didn't play a single minute in our WCF series in 2019. https://www.basketball-reference.co...ference-finals-trail-blazers-vs-warriors.html
The only upgrades I see are: - Stotts --> Billups , but remains to be seen how long Chauncey takes to figure out game management. - Kanter --> Zeller - Removing the Kanter/Melo pairing. But every other change in the roster has been a collective downgrade. Going from Melo to Snell/McLemore is a disaster. Losing Zach for nothing is a joke. Why do you think we got better?
I wouldn't call that contending. When Nurkic got hurt, the playoffs three weeks away, Portland was 4th seed in the West and had the 8th best record in the league and, that was a different team. They had Aminu and Harkless; a healthy Hood and Collins; plus Turner, Curry, Layman, and Meyers. That was the closest Portland came to contending in the Stolshey era and they still got swept in the WCF.
Ok, but Durant wasn't able to play in that series. If Nurk is HEALTHY, & Durant doesn't play, the results could have been different.
I don't agree with that. I never once felt like Golden State was being pushed at all in that series; the fact that they had to come from behind in several of the games looked more like disinterest until they had to kick it in gear. Nurkic might have gotten some paint points and rebounds, but Golden State would have abused him on defense, putting him in perimeter pick-and-rolls.
Nurk was a MUCH different player, before that injury. And he was on the ascend. We will never know of course. But you can't say ,absolutely, Nurk wouldn't have dominated. He's been a different, lesser player since he returned. Hopefully with a new coaching staff, and his own commitment to getting better, we see the before injury version, not the latter.