Hollinger takes isolation offenses to task

He hasn't brought in great players to replace the great players who were injured, no.

Of course, neither has any team.

So yes, Pritchard IS a terrible GM...he's just better than all the others ones.

 

Anyone who has better players than ours. Going with the hypothesis (upon which I was commenting) that it's the players, not the coaching, then the Suns have a better GM. Continuing with that theory, any team above us in the standings (regular or playoff) has better players than us and therefore a better GM.

Who are our great players who were injured in the playoffs? Roy is much less of a player in a non-iso system, Oden is a know-nothing until coaches find the desire to teach him something instead of letting him lolligag around his mother's sofa, and who else do you have in mind as a great player that Pritchard has brought in?

 

Roy and Oden. Roy is now a two-time All-NBA and Oden was around 23 PER with top-tier defense.

 

Let's assume your lame-ass theory actually works (it doesn't, but I'll play your fantasy game). We finished above average in the standings, so therefore, we must have an above average GM. Which completely goes against your original statement that we have an "average" GM.

Checkmate.

Game, set, match.

I accept your apology.

 

Glad to see that Hollinger is noticing what seems to be a glaring trend with POR offensively....

The Iso offense may work fine in the regular season, but in the playoffs when teams have the time to pick apart your offense, the iso offense becomes ridiculously easy to defend....

This has got to change if POR has any hope of becoming a legitimate title contender, let alone advance out of the 1st round....

I find it ironic that if you asked Nate or any coach for that matter if forcing the opposing team into an offense where their 3rd or 4th scoring option had to take or create a shot with less that 3-4 seconds left, or their star player had to force shots up through double\triple teams was a good defensive effort, they would all unanimously say yes...and yet I have basically described POR post season offense....

You just cannot win playoff games with that kind of offense...

 

And you think only an above-average GM would have drafted Oden and made the Roy trade over a span of 3 years of drafts, summers, and midseason trade deadlines? Sounds like an average performance to me, especially given the Paul Allen $3M advantage that anyone holding that job has.

Anyway, my response to this thread's "Get better players" is, "To do that, get a less weird Coach and GM, i.e. a Coach without an anti-running bias, and a GM without a radical youth philosophy of building almost totally through the draft."

 

Why don't you create the list of teams that have had as big of an increase in record over the last 4 years as the Blazers. Will that list include 15 teams, and show that KP has done an "average" job?

 

I wasn't using those two players as stand-alone proof of his GMing excellence, just responding to your assertion that Portland not having any true go-to guys on the floor against Phoenix meant that Pritchard hasn't acquired any great players. He has, they were hurt.

Now, if your point is that durability is a part of greatness and them being hurt is a reason they're not great, I can understand that viewpoint, though I'm not yet at the stage where I feel that their injury history disqualifies them from greatness.

 

100% agree. I heard Jerry Sloan, when asked why his offense is so effective, simply stated "we screen you to death". And it's true. Watch the screens they set, and it's not just on pick and rolls. I'm not talking about the half-hearted screens that LA sets (when he's really more concered with slipping through and receiving a pass for an 18' jumper). They don't have great one-on-one players and yet they get quality shots a hellova lot more possesions than we do. It is possible.

 

Utah also has 2 members of the USA Olympic team on their roster now, and Sloan has yet to win a title with his system.

 

What are you saying? Are you saying that Portland's offensive scheme is just as good as Utah's offensive scheme?

 

This was due to Nate's delightful "2 fouls then sit the rest of the first half" rule he applied ONLY to Oden.

In addition, Nate seems to almost pathologically hate the idea of a player fouling out of a game.

Fouls didn't limit Oden's playing time.

The coach did.

 

It also has 6 players who were either undrafted or 2nd round draft picks.

The two players you just mentioned are pretty much the only great players the team has.

 

AK47 and Okur have both been All-Stars as well.

Portland has one All-Star player on their roster.

Try again. Utah has two US Olympians, and Okur (All Star in 2007) and Kirilenko (All Star in 2004) on their roster the past 4 years. What has Utah won?

 

Yes, it's Nate's fault for not letting the opponents get into the bonus early in games. Come on now.

 

We had that last year with Outlaw. Unfortunately, we got rid of him. Blake was a set shooter. He's gone as well. In their place is a guy who can't consistently hit his own shot in Miller, and a center who is basically a liability on offense, and who has a funky set shot he rarely hits in Camby.

 

Camby actually shot very well from the outside with the blazers....47% for 16-23 feet. Although we shouldn't expect that to continue as it's way above his career numbers.

http://www.hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=Marcus Camby

 

Well I wouldn't mind having BOTH Camby and Travis. But ideally that 2nd guy to compliment Roy needs to come from the PG position. He needs to be fast going to the hoop, who can pull up for the J. I doubt we can pry Stephen Curry, but I bet Ellis is attainable for Rudy, Bayless and Pryz.

 

Nate would keep Oden out of the game in the 4th quarter to prevent him from getting his 6th foul all the time.

That essentially made it so that Oden fouled out with 5 fouls instead of six.

Also, you think that not having a guy play late in the second quarter because he has two fouls is a smart move? Why not let him get his third if he can give you 3 to 4 minutes of valuable play near the end of the first half.