I think two games above qualifies as "hovering around." My point is that it doesn't seem to matter who we play, we will be within 1 with thirty seconds to go. Then flip a coin on the result, which pretty much spells .500 for the future. BUT we are trending downward. I mean we lost BACK TO BACK to OKC. We just aren't very good. And we are not the Celtics. We cannot and do not play defense. Our coach isn't Ime who tutored under Pop. Our one hope is Cronin. He said repeatedly that we will be active and the roster is not finished. Otherwise--and what I expect to happen--is that Dame will kick us into gear, kill himself to get us in the playoffs, and we'll flop. Along the way, I'll get delusional again and come April? A FIRE CHAUNCEY thread will appear...
Inspired for like 4 months after the team who gave him everything finally kicked him to the curb. And the team they kicked him to didn't even want him. If Only he'd been that inspired a year or two earlier...
This is the same thing as it's been been season after season after season. A group of us that maintain a text chat, were having a merge phone call. One of the people who rarely says anything chimed in. To give context, they are one of the leading software engineers for a company that caters to Fortune 500 Companies. "This team is basically the same year after year. The owner changes, the coaches change, the players change, the game plan may change, but the identity is still very similar to what it has always been. There is one constant through this whole thing....Dame. He is the best player and the leader. It is his team and isn't likely to change for much better or much worse until it is no longer his team." They listen in to these chats/texts threads for years, but this is the first time they have ever spoken up. Everyone else went dead silent.
Dame is Dame. You could of course build a championship team around him, but I think the risk with him, as with all great scorers, is that when things get tight the team always looks to him. Golden State have avoided this by having somebody other than Curry be the dominant personality (and also having great defense and other great scorers that complement him rather than duplicate him, of course). I think it's pretty fucking obvious that Anfernee is not going to be everything he could be until he moves away. (A la CJ.)
Which no where in there does it say Dame is the problem. They simply identified him as the leader (which he is) and that for good or for bad, no much has really changed one way or the other over the years despite changes in everything around him. He has led them to the Playoffs most year.....Good. They have done very little in the vast majority of instances when they got there.....not so good. If you had a taller, longer, more defensive oriented guard next to him, I think some of this would have been remedied. Instead, the Blazers have gone with quite a bit of a replication of Dame's strengths and weaknesses right next to him when that has been proven over and over again not to be a successful recipe.
It's always the talent. Portland has some, maybe a bit more then average, but it doesn't fit together very well which many posters have been pointing out for a while. The addition of Grant has elevated the team from bad to mediocre... their record is an accurate reflection of who they are IMO. Cronin somehow pulling another quality Big from his hat plus Sharpe taking the big steps forward we all hope for and maybe they're approaching legit contender status in a year or two. But to quote Rush on Dame & Ant, if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice STOMP
The bench sucks, because they're either young (Sharpe, Johnson, Walker, Brown III) or really in a role that is above their talent (Eubanks, Winslow) or just in street clothes (Payton, Little). The team started off better than they are, and have hit reality. Since they went 10-4, they've gone 7-12. Even taking into account the injuries to Damian, the team just doesn't have any punch off the bench and that's their biggest issue. But we should have all known that going into the season. You don't win many games when your bench scores 12-14 points.
Like any organization should do is evaluate your strengths & weakness's. To me its the bench and defense in the starting back court. We do ok when we are shooting well but still give up a lot of points. But when we are not shooting well enough we dont have the ability to get get stops. Thats why we are always allowing teams back even when we have a substantial lead. Most mediocre teams have this same issue, to me number 1 area is defense. If Naz and GP11 were healthy those two dogs would help on the d side.
I don't understand what people were expecting. We have a tier 2 star and the 14th highest payroll in the league. The teams clearly better than us that have lower or similar payrolls have key players still on rookie contracts (Cleveland, Pelicans, Grizzlies). The difference in salary between us and the 5th highest (Boston) is nearly enough to fit both Grant and Payton into.
What does that have to do with the term uninspired? Dame IMO, is the best player he can be. He always has been. Rasheed was never the best player he could be. That is how I define inspired play.
I think Rasheed is a better judge of what's the best player he could be. He was pretty fucking awesome. How can you be "uninspired" and still lead the league in technicals? Plus: "being the best player you can be" isn't so great if that's an average player. I may well be the best player I can be, and that's just sad, not inspiring. Finally: I refuse to believe that Dame couldn't be better on defense.
Each of these guys on the roster has the physical tools to play average individual defense. They just don't/won't.
You honestly think Damian is in the first tier? You really are going to pretend to not see the difference between him and the Jokic/Giannis type players?
It appears that we do not agree on what inspired play is defined as. Have a good Christmas. Go Blazers.
My fault, I thought that was group text group dude’s assessment… I obviously agree with you. I like Dame and Jerami and maybe Josh at the two, maybe, but all this deja vu is frustrating times ten.
Yeah, their teams have better quality players around them. Also strange that you happened to pick two guys who are anywhere from 8-10 inches taller than Damian is.
