Game Thread GAME# 55: BLAZERS @ PELICANS - FEBRUARY 11, 2020 - TUESDAY, 5:00 PM, NBCSNW

You can be sick of it all you want, but it's the truth and you being sick of it doesn't change that. Nurkic works better with Dame, no one disputes that. Hood is certainly better than Bazemore who held down that spot until recently - and better than Ariza too. Collins is certainly better at defense than Melo, and probably a wash on offense (plus, with him, you wouldn't have to play people like Hezonja, Tolliver, Swanigan, etc.). Tonight sucked, but there are legitimate reasons why our record is what it is.

 

Tired of it or not, Hood is better then Baze / Ariza. Zach who knows where he is at in developement and Nurk would be starting, and had he not got hurt they dont get WS they probably use ML and Harkless for an upgrade at different position. Whiteside, Ariza and Melo wouldnt even be here without all the injuries. So while Id agree with you injuries arent the end all excuse, the injuries to Nurk caused them to go get WS, the injuries to Zach and Hood meant they found a guy who was out of the league, and a guy most people thought was heading out of the league to start for them. You really cant make an argument that the injuries havent played a role in what their roster looks like and who’s getting minutes. Their bench has basically been bad all year, cause they dont have much depth left. Imagine though if they were healthy their depth would actually be pretty good.

Instead they basically win, when Dame goes nuts and they lose when he doesnt, with a few exceptions in there.

 

Would it be better/more accurate if people said Portland is missing their best Center, Power Forward, and Small Forward?

 

After Olshey gave Stotts his lifetime appointment as our coach, we await the next Papal conference when Stotts dies. Meanwhile, every other team changes coaches every 3 or 4 years. Some lazy unthinking Blazer fans prefer stability to improvement.

By the way, I checked the records, and Zion is officially the only 6-11 player ever listed at 6-5.

 

Horribly ran franchises change coaches every 3 years far more often than good ones, right?

 

Bad coaches get 1 year, average ones get 2-3 years, only the big big winners get Stotts' 10 years, and he isn't one. His lifetime Oscar will be renewed in 2022.

 

Literally true, but kind of misses the point.

Nurk is the only impact player on the list - and he is the one they found a fairly decent replacement for. Neither Collins nor Hood have achieved anything in their career to indicate that they are more than "adequate" players. Their loss should not have been crippling.

 

I'm assuming these aren't real stats?

 

Or you can be like GSW and be ruthless about changing coaches until you get it right.

 

I agree with this. However, the big difference is having Swanigan, Mario, Gabriel playing rotation minutes instead of Ariza, Melo, Whiteside, and Skal. That bench could give you longer and more quality minutes, reducing blown leads and keeping the starters fresh. I think that's a big deal that people aren't touching on.

 

Or they waited until they got multiple MVPs, plus 2 all-stars, plus a finals MVP on their roster. This year makes me think the talent played a bigger role than the coach. If we have a coach fall short with that type of talent, we should fire him.

 

Dude, there were countless times i saw Whiteside just standing there doing nothing. It was like we had kanter again.

 

Frustrated he didn't get traded to a contender?

All kidding aside, Whiteside strikes me as a limited defender, as opposed to a lazy one. If he isn't swatting shots, he often seems to be unsure what he is supposed to be doing. Just IMHO.

 

Love this! I think there is a big difference between the two!

 

yeah, there are several legitimate reasons why the record is what it is, and injuries is only one of them

if everything else had been the same, except for a healthy Nurkic and no Whiteside, I'm close to convinced that Portland's record would be about the same. Yes, a gap between them is there, but people are acting like Portland had to replace Nurkic with Joel Freeland

and again, Collins has only started 4 of the 146 games he's played. He was this years starter but we have no real clue how effective he was going to be. As for Hood, Portland was 8-12 with him, and 17-18 without him

it's accurate, but the context it's lacking makes it a flawed analogy. What is the gap between Nurkic and Whiteside measured in wins? Would Nurkic have produced a win tonight? I don't think so. Like I said above, we're not talking about a downgrade from Nurkic to Freeland. Nurkic to Whiteside may be a small downgrade, but it also may be that the things Whiteside does better in rebounding and rim protection are important enough to this new Blazer team to close that already small gap more

we simply don't know if this year's team, if healthy, would have been close to equal of last year's team. There was major roster turnover and Olshey made huge bets on Simons and Collins. We've already seen that the bet on Simons for this year at least, was a bad one. Maybe the bet on Collins wasn't as good as people assume. Maybe the trade-off in the forward positions of supposed better offense while sacrificing perimeter defense and rebounding was a bad bet too. It certainly looks like it

I'm not trying to minimize the impact of the injuries. They've been big and pack plenty of ripple effect. But a lot of people are maximizing the injuries and using them as an excuse for everything wrong with the team. Like tonight's game....that performance, and butt-kicking, wasn't all due to injuries. Portland would be lottery bound if Dame hadn't gone on an historical run over 7-10 games

 

Great post/points.

Would you agree there is a big drop off between Mario, Swanigan, and Gabriel vs Whiteside, Ariza, Melo, and Skal? Would you agree that those four coming off the bench would provide a lot more depth, firepower, and versatility off the bench? Most importantly, they would allow our starters to play less minutes, so they could be more productive in their minutes?

Melo shouldn't be playing 36 minutes, ever, yet it's often by far our best option. Whiteside shouldn't be put on an island defensively, but Swanigan would be an even worse choice. This is the problem with our injuries.

You're right, the difference between Whiteside/Nurk or Hood/Ariza probably isn't much, but I don't think that's the biggest impact of the injruies.

 

I told ya guys. That’s why I didn’t celebrate those wins the past few weeks. Next year is our real play I have no clue why ya want that 8th seed so bad just to get slaughtered on a national stage and possible add another sweep to Dames resume

 

well...that's kind of humiliating. You said in about 50 words what it took me about 500 to say, and you said it better

I bow down to the grouch!

 

At the end of the first quarter, the following lineup was on the floor:

Lillard
Trent Jr.
Simons
Gabriel
Swaniga

No matter how much of a difference we think the missing players make over their replacements - imagine if instead of those the lineup for that stretch had been:

Lillard
Trent Jr.
Hood
Collins
Nurkic

Just that. Players like Simons, Swanigan, Hezonja, Garbriel, etc. would not have spent one non-garbage time moment on the floor tonight if we were healthy (and Little is also looking more helpful than those guys and he too was missing). It's really that simple. We have players who should not be playing meaningful minutes playing a lot of meaningful minutes. The reason? Injuries.

 

They fired Kerr?