Lillard is the most amazing blazer I've seen in person.

Good news. It looked like he hit in a way that would have hurt the other guy more. Just nervous.... for obvious reasons.

 

Ahem.

 

You were the board celeb, but you haven't been in anything relevant in a while. You lost your throne.

 

Depends on which NBA player he's been in...

 

There's a joke to be made about who's on top.... but I'm not going to make it.

 

The NBA has some extremely deep market penetration among 25-30 year olds.

 

I LOL'd hard. . .nice one

 

Lillard now has 9 games with a "Game Score" (GmSc on basketball-reference.com) of 20 or more. Roy had 7 in his rookie year. Roy had 19 his second year, which is something for Lillard to shoot for... this season!

 

If Lillard continues at his current 24 pt/7 assist average for the rest of the month, he'll have achieved something Brandon Roy never did in his entire career.

If these numbers are the new "normal" for him (including the gaudy shooting percentages), he has to be in the argument for the best PG in the league. The only guys I can think of who are putting up comparable numbers are Curry and Westbrook.

 

I honestly don't know how he's done it, this constant, immediate improvement. I mean, it's obvious he has a metric ton of talent, but he's been scouted to death, and still is managing to pull off some amazing stuff. No rookie wall, and what feels like 3 seasons of improvement in one year. The drive with either hand, on either side of the basket, finishing with either hand? The jumpers from anywhere past half court, fading away, spotting up, driving and stopping. About the only shot he's missing is that floater (but Maynor can teach him that). And then his passing is really good too, and has gotten better even though he's sometimes smothered by double-teams.

He's the entire package (offensively).

 

Defense is where he needs to improve obviously. J.R. Smith abused him on that dunk he had in the 1st half.

 

To be fair, our team as a whole needs to get better at lob awareness and floor position to catch said lobs, but yeah, he throws a bit high and wide right now. Maynor can teach that too, I think.

 

"The best defense is a good offense" --Mel, the cook on "Alice".

But yeah, he's not superman, or perfect. He's barely passable on defense, but he gets you recovery points.

 

My biggest gripe with Dame this year had been his shot selection and FG%. He's fixed that in a big way. I thought it was what separated him from being in the Kyrie/Steph/Rose/Jrue level vs. the Mo Williams/Jennings/Teague level.

If he ends this season at ~45% FG and high eFG and TS%, then i'd put him in the higher tier easily.

 

I think the scouting report went out the window as soon as we got Maynor. There's no one way to defend Lillard now.

 

His March has been pretty much insane; the struggling he used to do later in games (late 2nd, early 3rd quarters) because the defense had clamped down on him is gone, due almost entirely to Maynor, and the way Stotts uses him as a safety valve to prevent defenses from removing our playmaking ability. Lillard's shooting in March:

54.2 FG%, 43.2 3P%, 24.6 PPG, 7.0 APG over 7 games.

That's insane. He has 5 games of 20+ points and 7+ assists in March, tied with James Harden, ahead of Stephen Curry. (http://bkref.com/tiny/Yhe8Q)

The offensive system with Maynor hasn't fully been scouted, but I don't think there's much defenses can do if you have two legit PG-level ball-handlers on the court.

 

Exactly.

 

Also, check out Lillard's immediate company in this list of games: http://bkref.com/tiny/xBCoJ (24+ points, 7+ assists). here's the same list, counting only wins: http://bkref.com/tiny/OsXIa