He might be hampered by an injury or it could be a slump? We'll probably never know for sure. Whatever is going on, I'm not in love with his shot selection; I wish he was a little more judicious with the hero-ball shit, but I suppose he's in a weird situation where he's balancing when and when not to trust himself and probably doesn't have a lot of confidence in anybody but CJ on most plays.
Dame is the number one focus of the defense, even when CJ is on the court, especially late in games. And he sometimes tries to do too much; often because he has to. And he's probably a little banged up, as evidenced by the absence of the explosiveness he had earlier in the season. Let's ride out the season, get him a better supporting cast, and see what happens.
Lillard has to take on a large share, especially late in games. But he also probably has some competitive arrogance, that he's the "big shot" guy. To an extent, you want a bit of that in a star player, but it's also likely to sometimes lead to him looking off actual options because he's tunnel visioned on the hoop. It's a tough line to straddle. I'll worry more about it when he has more talented teammates.
I miss the days when our star players played at least 50 percentile defense. I have no problem with Dame on offense, even in a slump. But, last season he was all about improving on defense. This year it seems like he has mostly given up. There are a lot of players we joke about with their poor defense in this league. Dame is below all of them by almost every metric. It may be an injury now, but what about the first half of the season?
If his ankle is bothering him, sit out against the Jazz. That give him over a week of rest with the All-Star break to let it heal. No sense making it worse when this team is as it is.
I think Dame is driving in traffic and getting to the line more and then trying to play defense better...at the end of the game he's more tired..shots come up short. Folks forget how much pressure opposing defenses put on him game after game...he needs a break..foot problems linger without rest
Hey guys long time reader and long time blazer fan. I'm more lurker than poster on this forum and absolutely love the content and opinions provided on this site. The reason I had the urge to finally say something was what's up with all this Lillard hate lately? I absolutely love Lillard and feel for the guy but man the sudden shift in narrative about him is really concerning. Considering this is the player certain posters in the past have been banned and even ridiculed for constantly bringing up his faults and the pure joy I saw posters defending Lillard is now a complete 180. So are we now all the sudden admitting those Lillard haters were right? What happened to those posters who use to be called out when they centered on Lillard's fault ? Why can't we go back to defending him like we did back then. I just hate to see this hate on Lillard and the Tunchi's of the world being right. Anyways it's Lillard for life for me and it doesn't matter what the haters say!
There are people on this forum who should be ashamed. I'm getting really tired of the way some people have turned on him. Shit fans IMO.
Blazers fans always turn on their star players when things start going South without exception. This was predicted.
Fans of every team turn on their star players when things start going south, without exception. It's not a quaint Portland-only tradition.
Eh, don't blame them. If they want to hate, hate. Just don't be an assmongering buttpirate about it. No, I do not have a fixation on ass. Nope. I do not.
Nah, that's nothing to do with being hipster. It's called "taking your frustrations out on the biggest target."
Still am, really. I never really deviated from it. I just don't really care lately if people are mad this year. The team playing poorly may have a bit to do with that.
You literally just made that up. That one just came right out of your ass. No truth or logic to it whatsoever.
