It's not about maximizing the potential of its players. It's about maximizing the team. Rudy can rot on the bench every game as long as we keep winning, as far as I am concerned. Ed O.
I thought he'd be a lot more effective this year with a guy like Miller finding him all over the court. However, it looks like his soul mate Sergio was his one and only. I'm sure he'll find his groove, but it's nice to know that we have someone like Jerryd behind him if needed.
I think the minutes crunch is weighing some guys down mentally. The only guy who seems to have responded is Bayless, but he was already used to garbage time and having to come in and do a lot in a little amount of time anyway. Get this team whittled down to an 8 or 9 man rotation and keep enough bench guys around to fill in for emergencies, but frankly I think the 11 and 12 man stuff is confusing roles and causing guys to kind of spaz out.
Rudy can't find his groove. His role is different every time he enters the game. He was playing behind Roy and now he's competing with Blake for SG minutes as well. He's not fitting in well with Nate's rotation and it's really showing. Not being able to get into a rhythm is a killer for a jumpshooter.
Certainly, but wouldn't you also agree that the state of mind of a young player can have an impact on how they perform too? I think there is so much second guessing, hesitation and utter lack of comprehension of what exactly is expected of some of these guys that many of them are underperforming. Rudy just looks like he's on a roller coaster when he's out there, and he's not alone.
Trust me, this will all begin to work itself out once the Blazers start playing some real talent. Currently, Nate has had the luxury of tinkering around some...............while still winning games.
Trust me, a playing rotation of 11 guys (even 10 guys) is incredibly hard to sustain because it makes it so hard for guys to come in and know exactly what it is that is expected of them when they check in ... especially for a team mostly composed of finesse jump shooters that rely on rhythm to be effective. It's not like the Hornets game was a total blowout and Nate just emptied the bench for 12 minutes of garbage time. When this team gets matched up against a team like the Celtics, the Lakers, or even the Hawks, this role confusion and hesitancy is not just going to go away because the competition has gotten better, if anything I'd expect it to get worse.
You missed my point. What I meant was, the rotation will be tightened once the Blazers begin to play tougher talent. IMO, Nate is currently getting plenty of "tape" as to to help determine which players he'll eventually go with.
I agree that it probably will be tightened up at some point, but in the interim nobody has settled in to their roles and few if any of the bench guys will be able to just flip a switch and turn it on. See what I'm getting at?
Yeah, I do. I'm just a Nate apologist to a fault. Call me the antithesis to Mediocre Man in that regard.
Honestly I don't even see this as a Nate problem, he's doing the best he can to get a lot of rotation quality guys minutes -- he's basically juggling 4 balls and doing backflips in between as far as roster management goes. I pin this on KP, who has done zero, nada, zip, zilch to consolidate this roster and put enough hustle/garbage guys on the roster who can be productive in short stints; it's a roster full of rhythm players (like Channing) who are best suited to large roles versus coming in and being energizers. This team needs more Joels and Jerryds and fewer Rudys, Travises and Blakes (attitude more so than skillset-wise).
I feel ya on that, as well. Unfortunately, KP ain't gonna do squat while the team is winning. I hope it doesn't take a long losing streak to move on this, though.
