Why would he want the very same role "elsewhere"? Unless it's back in Europe I cannot see why he would leave? Money is good from whomever pays it. Right now the Blazers write his checks. If he sulks his way off a team again he will never get as good a paycheck as he gets here? Nobody will want a center that proves to be toxic. Nurk needs to play well right now.
he wouldnt, but thats the point he would leave in pursuit of a better situation for him, which may or may not happen, but at least theres a chance, while here in portland hes in situation where hes clearly unhappy if the blazers offer him new contract, a good one, his unhappiness might become happiness... well see how this plays out
Let's see: Denver, Philli, Minni, Clevland, Utah, Miami, Chicago, Phoenix, Indi, the Bucks, Clippers, Warriors, Nets, Lakers have either better centers than him or no need for him. Arguably Atlanta would consider him for the role he has in Portland if they decide they do not want a rim-runner instead of Capella. The Rockets and Thunder are rebuilding so he makes no sense there, Valancuinas and him are about the same value on the Pelicans. Would the Clippers take him over Holmes? I am not sure why, they have large, mobile wings for their defense, he does not give them anything they lack. Maybe the Knicks, Celtics, Wizards, Mavs and Hornets (if they, too decide to move from Mason Plumlee)? I have no idea if the Magic / Detroit would care. On the Spurs he would be held even more in check than in Portland since Pop does not suffer fools - and I am not sure why the Grizzlies would move from one slow center to another. Frankly, I will be surprised if there is much of a market for him as anything other than a backup center behind a better one (and we saw how that went in Denver) or at best, what he is in Portland, expected to be a defensive anchor. Nurk is a good role player, anything over that is wishful thinking, I am afraid.
He's betting on himself at this point. He better play the cards right or there won't be any winnings. Best situation as far as I'm concerned is him doing the dirty work and becoming better at what he is already good at. If he could shoot he might have a bigger role. So maybe he better work on some skills? Look at Jokic torching teams from three? Nurk has to at least develop a shot from the foul line. Maybe even develop a sky hook? That three he is trying to shoot isn't falling.
Billups not going rite this ship and olshey vision of this team is bad vision. The last 2 year what I see was not good years yes we made the playoffs. One winning play-in games and last was couple games being in another play-in game. As I said last year we are very unbalanced roster. This year is not much better we just changed the names on the team with different skill set. But the main indegredents hasn't changed on this team so the cake will bake but fall flat before it's ready to eat.
Actually, yes. This is exactly what I wanted, minus Dame having the worst start of his career. If not for that (and I struggle to believe it’s the fault of Chauncey, I’m sure Wiz can pull the numbers up of shot quality or some shit to prove me wrong) we would actually be sitting pretty decently. Even then, I said I wouldn’t expect much this year. In order for us to get better, we had to get worse first. (Breaking old habits and starting from scratch, if you will.) Invariably, this is going to lead to less initial success. Billups with his quote last night showed exactly why he’s a massively superior coach to Stotts - he’s willing to change his rotation because something clearly isn’t working. Sounds like accountability to me. And I’ll say it again… Olshey should be fired solely for keeping Stotts for 9 years. He built and instilled such poor basketball habits in some players that it’s essentially part of who they are. Billups could’ve potentially changed CJ as a player 6 years ago and built different tendencies by holding him accountable. Now, not so much. Also, I posted elsewhere Stotts record last year with Dame shooting like he currently is. We would be 2-12 with Stotts right now. 3-11 at best.
agree but since he hasn’t been traded yet I won’t write it off as possibility. I think Ben is traded after the December 15th deadline
no I think Dame's struggles are a confluence of negative factors: ) the Olympics and the shortest off-season of his career; ) abdominal injury; ) new coach; ) playing Dame off the ball more in a new offense; ) new basketball; ) new foul rules I think this all worked against Dame and got him thinking too much instead of just playing. Only a small part of that is Billups. I never believed there was good reason to play Dame off the ball more. Taking the ball out of Dame's hands is the goal of every opponent. The offense played into that. And Portland does not have a Draymond Green that can consistently find Dame with the ball. That probably has made it harder for Dame to develop any rhythm, but it's not enough to slam Billups for Billups had less than a year of coaching experience, at any level, when he was hired as HC. He's 14 games into his career and it may be he needs 140 games to get a good handle on what he needs to do as HC. There was never going to be any magic beans in moving from Stotts to Billups
Agreed. I think Billups will eventually figure it out. I really wish he would've packed his bench with more NBA experience. Brooks is OK, but I don't see him as an upper level NBA coach. In many respects - it's the Blind leading the Blind. Billups is/was a good choice for HC. There is just going to be a lot of painful learning experiences before we can start reaping the rewards with him.
A bit of a reality check. Billups has installed new schemes, but it isn't like he handed a 1st grader an abacus and told them to calculate Pi to 100 digits. Can you name anything he is doing that an NBA level player hasn't seen before? Contrary to what has been said, I don't believe the players are buying in. How much of that is on Billups and his lack of experience and how much is on the players has yet to be determined.
Too small of a sample size to judge Billups. The team does seem to play better D at times, other times it’s the lack of effort which comes down to the players. Dame playing like shit isn’t helping things either. Soon I think it will be time to start Little at the 3, Nance at the 4. Bring Covington and Powell off the bench. Little and Nance can bring the energy and hustle from the start, Covington is basically nonexistent in there at times and Powell will be a nice punch off the bench like he was with the Raptors.
No, he probably isn't doing anything differently than an NBA player has seen before. However, what is different is instead of Stotts throwing his hands up and saying, 'well, we'll go back to what we know' (we know what that gets us) and essentially bailing the players out, Billups is saying, nahhhhh nah nahhhh, this is what we're doing because this is what it takes to win. and if we get exposed for doing it, so be it guys, it'll be on you - and ultimately their accountability will be in their next contracts when they become known as a defensive liability as well as on tape in practice -- or not. and, instead of treading water, we'll either go down with the ship (and get a decent draft pick), get our shit together, or hopefully a mix of a&B and realize that the roster needs work WHILE building a culture of accountability WITH ability and willingness to run championship schemes. either way if we ball out or flame out, i like it.
I wonder how different the road routine is between Stotts and Billups. How have things changed since he started? If only we had someone around here that travels with the team.