Has CJ surpassed Dame as a scorer?

But their strengths are both scoring off the dribble (or catch/shoot from 3 which seems to be increasingly rare), regardless of where they are shooting from. That's much different (understatement much?) than Stockton/Malone. But maybe we should run more P/R with Dame/CJ - perhaps we can make a Mailman out of CJ yet!

 

Perhaps, but what I'm getting at is that we are better with them both on the floor on offense. They have divergent enough skills offensively to make us a top team on that end. And they don't necessarily need to be moved. If GS keeping Klay over Love has taught us anything, it's that there is value in building a team's strengths (shooting, P&R play, elite ball handling from 2 positions, etc) vs giving up that strength in a trade to build a more conventional team.

How many other teams have 2 guys like Dame and CJ for 48 mins? We have something most other teams don't. Now build on that by finding guys that complement these two and mitigate their weaknesses.

I just think we're too hellbent on giving up the one thing we do have in chase of something we hope to have.

 

Its absolutely semantics.
They are the same weak Defenders. They are both a little small for their position. They are both scores ( So they score in different ways) they both have a 3pt game and they can both get to the hoop.

Come on. You are arguing semantics. OVERALL, they are very similar.

The fact is we have two high scoring guards who don't play enough D to compensate for their offensive skills. How they score is irrelevant at this point.

 

Right. So that guy can foul out every third game because he is overwhelmed with the obsurd amount of guards he is having to cover that come streaking at him.

 

No, I totally get what you're saying. And I've said in many a thread that I would like to see what Dame/CJ could do under a better coach before trading one of them. But I also understand the other side of the argument - it's valid, and it may be proven to be correct. But yes, I'd really like to see Dame/CJ with one legit PF/C and a good coach before giving up on one of them. Unfortunately I think Olshey is going to do it in reverse order and keep Stotts longer than CJ.

 

Exactly. We are in year 2 of this Dame/CJ thing. And last year (for all intents and purposes) was a success. Just because we have failed so far this year, we can't scrap the big picture plan.

 

The main offensive duplication is that they're both at their best with the ball in their hands. Note, I said "best," not that they can't be valuable off the ball. Having both your stars requiring the ball (and, in this context, by "needing the ball," I mean being the main initiator) to be at their best isn't perfectly ideal. That's not the big problem--the big problem is their defensive and size similarities--but it simply adds one more minor issue to the large one.

If they were great defenders, I wouldn't worry much about that issue on offense. But a player who's offensive value is more wrapped up in finishing and brings excellent defensive value would be a better overall fit, in my opinion.

 

Do you mean in exchange for CJ/Dame or next to them?

 

Instead of one of them. I mean, if you can get a third star without giving up Lillard or Gollum, that'd be great--but if I could transform Lillard or McCollum into someone like Butler or Cousins*, I would.

*Pending willingness to re-sign in Portland

 

Well, yes, those are kinda no-brainer deals that we would HAVE to consider. Not sure they're out there for real, however. It's the lateral moves I'm referring to that I would step back and reconsider.

It's hard to hide one player on defense, and we have to hide two. That too, without a rim protector. That said, the Aminu/Harkless combo is producing results.



I really want to see how much our defense improves with a guy like Rolo behind them before scrapping the CJ/Dame experiment.

 

Okay, that's fair. I was under the impression that most on this forum felt McCollum and especially Lillard were, at worst, equal to Butler or Cousins if not better than. My general point, rather than naming precise players (because, yes, we have no idea how available any given player is and for what) is that I'd make a lateral move (i.e. keeping the talent equal) for a player that has more of his value in defense, rebounding and finishing than in initiating offense.