I’ve been watching Blazer basketball longer than some of you have been alive, and this is the lowest point of all, as far as I’m concerned. We’re conceding the last twenty games of the season in hopes of getting a slightly better draft pick, which is sickening. Young guys like Watford and Williams and Simons are playing their butts off, and Billups is doing the best coaching he can, but the front office is doing everything they can to make sure the team loses. They’ve already removed a healthy Nurkic, and they’ll invent a reason to take another player out of the lineup if they have to. It’s embarrassing and dispiriting for our young guys, and it’s extremely bad karma. I don’t even want to watch this anymore.
Then don’t watch. It’s not a new concept. It might not be pretty at times, but it allows young guys like Keon, Watford and Williams to get invaluable game experience that will expedite their growth.
If a player is caught trying to throw a game, he can get banned for the season, or even life. If an organization tries to throw twenty games, however, it’s apparently no big deal. Sickening.
Even more important, it helps ensure the team will lose enough games to get a good pick. How is Billups supposed to teach these guys to “play hard” when the Blazer organization is doing just the opposite?
This is the way things go. This isn't a low point. Our best player... probably ever is out, our starting C is out, our starting SF is out. So this is a chance to get a very meaningful asset.
They are playing hard though. They were competitive most of the game. The talent discrepancy just was too much to overcome in the end.
Why are you making this personal? I’m talking about an NBA team intentionally trying to lose, which is something players are taught NEVER to do. Are you saying this is a non-issue?
“Talent discrepancy”?? The Blazers intentionally created a talent discrepancy by sitting Nurkic the rest of the year.
The players are not trying to lose. The team is making decisions on which players to play, giving young players experience and assessing them as opposed to playing the best players they can to get meaningless wins. I do not think that's an issue. It's not throwing games it's developing talent and working towards making the team better.
I am happy some of our youngsters are playing and growing. Having real-world experience for some could make us better next year. We weren’t doing squat as it was so I am all good with playing the youth and seeing clearly keepers and tossers.
I dont think you're alone in feeling this way. But this is a one yr reset. If dame were fully healthy we would not be doing this. It's a way to recover assets that we can use to expedite our rebuild. Every franchise does this to some extent. While our tank has been egregious these past few weeks, I hope you can understand the merits of it. The youngins are getting a ton of run and are showing some sorta improvement. Don't lose hope.
The Blazer front office decided to throw away the last 20 games to get a better pick. You can dress it up any way you want to, but that’s what it comes down to. They made some big trades just before the deadline, giving away players for a lot less value because the “shake-up” would mean all bets were off for the rest of the year, and no one would expect them to win anyway. But Lo and behold, their rag-tag bunch of new players went on a 4 game winning streak and they panicked. The next step, and none too soon (!) was to sit Nurkic for the rest of the year.
This team with Nurk playing is at best a 9th or 10th seed. If Lillard comes back we might even get out of the first round. That's it. We have to do something to get more talent on the team quickly. This is the route our new GM has decided to take. The players are playing hard. That shows we have a good coach. A good coach develops talent. Now we need more talent. That's the GMs job. I say we give him more than a half a season.
nobody is missing shots on purpose. Developing young talent is essential for growth. I get that it is disappointing but the team is essentially rebuilding or undergoing a major remodel. Finding the pieces that can be a part of the next roster is the point of these games.
This is fool’s gold, believe me. The draft is a crap shoot. The Blazers should know that better than anyone. They have made more bad picks than just about any NBA team you can name. The team they had after the trade deadline won four in a row, including one over the world champions. You add Lillard and Little and acquire another player via trade this summer, and you’re in good shape. Tanking to get a slightly better pick is just stupid. It sets a bad precedent, and it’s just bad karma.
This isn’t as low of a point when we threw out a lineup night after night for years that was never going anywhere
