| Game Thread | Portland @ Toronto

Ultimately, we lost a guy who could have possibly contributed to our playoff run. Nearly everyone in PDX thought the Blazers would be fighting with OKC for that top spot in the NW this year, and we figured that this would be a good year for us in the playoffs as well. Teams like ours should not trade potentially productive players for draft picks. It was Cho's first move, but a dumb one.

 

Yeah, Rudy got charged with two turnovers that weren't: also the kicked ball. The charge on LaMarcus around the same time was also BS and I believe took away an and-1.

 

I like Bayless' personality, but let's get real here. He's been on three teams in three seasons, and he's currently getting 20 mpg on a team projected to finish 27th in the league. I'm not really mourning his loss that much.

I think Patty Mills has about the same level of talent and upside. The difference being that Bayless is really an undersized shooting guard, while there's at least a little point guard in Mills.

 

I was somewhat ambivalent about the trade at the time, and could see some logic in it. Now, I'd rather have Bayless than Patty off the bench. In the long-term it will just depend on if the pick or what it gets us will help us more in the future than JB would have.

 

FWIW. Our last three winning margins: 6 6 6

 

The Bayless trade kind of came out of nowhere, and it was based on three assumptions - which have all turned out to be wrong. Those assumptions were:

1) Armon Johnson, after a decent summer league and training camp was ready to assume the back-up PG role.
2) The team would be healthy, and therefore, there wouldn't be enough minutes to go around. Based on 1, this left Bayless the odd man out.
3) New Orleans would be worse than they are, likely a late lottery team, or at best a 7th or 8th seed. That would have resulted in the pick being in the 11 - 15 range.

I suppose there was a 4th factor, but I don't think it justifies giving away a young, fairly productive player - moving Bayless freed up more minutes for Rudy, which made him happy. If Roy had been healthy, the plan was Roy and Miller starting and getting the bulk of the minutes at the guard positions. Johnson would back up the PG spot, Matthews and Rudy would split the back-up SG minutes, with Matthews getting the bulk of his minutes at the back-up SF spot. And, that would have left Bayless and Mills fighting for garbage time minutes - something that would not have made Bayless happy.

Well, with Johnson clearly not ready, and Roy injured, that whole scenario goes out the window. There would have more PT for Bayless. At the very least, he would be getting Patty's minutes, and probably a few of Rudy's. too. And, if it comes down to Mills or Bayless, I'd rather have Bayless. They are both chuckers that are undersized SGs, but Bayless is less undersized than Mills and in addition to hoisting jumpers at a high rate, Bayless also drives the lane and gets to the foul line.

Neither player really shoots well enough to justify their volume of shot attempts, but Bayless shoots both better and less often than Mills. Although he plays on an extremely slow paced team, Mills averages 15.0 FGA/36 minutes. That makes him second on the Blazers, trailing only LaMarcus Aldridge, in FGA/36. Do you really want a guy with a 0.394 FG% and 0.291 3FG% jacking up that many shots? I don't. Bayless' numbers aren't great, but they are certainly better than Patty's. Even though he plays on a team with a much faster paced offense, Bayless attempts fewer GFA/36 than Mills (13.1 FGA/36 for Toronto, 12.9 FGA/36 for the season). And, he shoots a higher percentage (0.427 FG% and 0.342 3FG% for Toronto, 0.414 FG% and 0.322 3FG% total).

Given the choice, I'd much rather have Bayless than Mills. Bayless is a better player who can provide back-up minutes at both guard positions. Mills is strictly an sub-miniature SG in an undersized PG body. But that's a bit of 20/20 hindsight. I didn't know Roy was going to be injured at the time Bayless was traded? Did Cho? If he did, it was a bad trade. If he didn't, than why not? Isn't that part of his job, too?

BNM

 

I agree with all of that, Boob. I'd add that, although Bayless' defense is less effective than it sometimes appears through his effort, it is leagues better than Patty's. Patty tries, he just can't.

 

Mills isn't a PG. He's a sub-miniature SG. On a team that is 29th in the league in pace, Mills jacks up 15.0 FGA/36. Bayless is playing on a team with a much faster pace (10th in the league), but "only" jacks up 13.1 FGA/36. Bayless also has a higher AST% than Mills (28.0 for the season, 27.5 with Toronto, compared to 27.2 for Mills). If there is any PG in Mills, he's yet to show it. So far, he's proven to be the exact same player in the NBA as he was in college - a guy who shoots way too poorly to justify his shooting volume. And, he's absolutely hopeless on defense.

BNM

 

clearly LMA made a deal

 

Agreed. One thing I've noticed at the games, which may not come through on TV, is how horrible Patty is defending the pick and roll. This is a weakness of the Blazers PGs in general, but Patty is bad enough to stand out. He's just so slight, he can't fight through the pick, and god forbid if they switch and he ends up "guarding" an opposing big man. At least Miller and Bayless are strong enough to fight through some screens. Miller is smart enough to also know when the pick and roll is coming, and slip the screen. Miller is the slowest, least athletic of the three players, and while his defense isn't great, he does a much better job defending the high pick and roll than Bayless and especially Mills (who is just flat out hopeless).

BNM

 

Lol at this horseshit post.

Your posts are meaningless to me now.

 

That's an extremely unfair, biased assessment. Shaq was nearing the end of the high productivity portion of his career early on in Miami. By the time he was in Phoenix and Cleveland, he had an amazingly large amount of miles on the ol' diesel engine. Just being an above average big man was an accomplishment at that point. Dude's been in the league almost 20 years!

 

Just got to our hotel on 8 MILE! Flew in from Toronto, made it thru customs without having to visit the Ruben Patterson Suite........ Mike Rice was the only one who got the pat down from customs agents!

 

Well, now I am just crushed.

 

Maybe his martini shaker set off the alarm

Edit: ...actually you sure that pic w/ the sheep isn't from the Ruben Patterson Suite?

 

Sergio haters say, 2 teams after the Blazers dumped him. Well, the Knicks didn't--he could have stayed with them. He lasted from 6/25/09 to 2/18/10 (played 39 of 54 games) with the Kings. This is their proof that Sergio sucks.

Bayless lasted from 10/23/10 to 11/20/10 (played 11 of 11 games) with the Hornets.

Sergio lasted multiple times longer than Bayless. Following their logic, this proves that Sergio is better than Bayless.

(P.S. Even if Sergio isn't better, Bayless still sucks. And it wasn't the brand new Cho's move, it was McMillan's wish.)

 

You're making this way too complicated. Watching him play is all anyone needs as proof that Sergio sucks. He can't shoot, is one of the worst defenders I've ever seen and is a human turnover machine. And, as I , and many others predicted, he was out of the NBA as soon as his cheap rookie contract expired. Need more proof?


BNM

 

Because Nate McMillan insulted Sergio Rodriguez by ruining his natural style, Sergio will probably be snubbed by the Hall of Fame, despite entering the NBA as the 2nd-best passer of all time (list). Paul Westphal, who had been officially ostracized from the NBA for 10 years for incompetent coaching, then sacrificed his team to develop Tyreke Evans and have experience on the bench with Sergio. Westphal, a tall SG in his day like Evans who couldn't pass, apparently idolized Evans and was jealous of Sergio, causing his post-Sergio Kings to become the 2nd-worst team in the NBA.

Assists per 36 minutes, rookie season

10.0 John Stockton
9.1 Sergio Rodriguez
8.4 Isiah Thomas
8.2 Oscar Robertson
7.3 Magic Johnson
7.2 Joe Dumars
6.9 Walt Frazier
6.2 Tom Gola
5.9 Calvin Murphy
5.7 Tiny Archibald
5.6 Bill Bradley
5.5 Michael Jordan
5.2 Bill Walton
5.1 Maurice Stokes
4.5 Larry Bird
4.4 Pete Maravich
4.3 Dave Bing
4.3 Drazen Petrovic
4.3 Jerry West
4.2 Earl Monroe
4.1 K.C. Jones
4.0 Lenny Wilkens
3.9 Clyde Drexler
3.8 Frank Ramsey
3.7 Gail Goodrich
3.7 Scottie Pippen
2.9 John Havlicek
2.7 Dennis Johnson
2.2 Hal Greer
2.1 Rick Barry

http://bkref.com/tiny/PSykg

 

Doesn't this actually prove that Nate's coaching allowed Sergio to flourish during his rookie season, and then Sergio regressed from that year to the point that a PG-friendly coach like Mike D 'Antoni couldn't even salvage him as an NBA back-up?