Merged: Miller & Blake: who should start?

Pardon me if I missed something, I don't recall saying any person in particular was hating on Blake, I was speaking in generalities; agreeing in principle that people ought not to hate on Steve. If you took my comments to be directed towards you then I apologize.

 

OK, let's examine the "best fit" argument.

A big chunk of our future is tied to LMA and Oden - 2 young post players. Blake is utterly awful at feeding the post. That alone largely negates any argument that he is a better fit.

A valid point of discussion? Sure. A persuasive argument? That's a very different question. Just because someone disagrees that Blake is a "better fit", doesn't mean they reject proper "fit" as an issue. IMHO, Miller should start precisely because he IS the better fit.

 

I hadn't considered that. I still think Nate wants someone to create on the second team, although Sergio didn't create either, yet they managed somehow to outscore opposing benches. Perhaps other team benches are just that awful.

 

Take a close look at most teams around the league sometime ... the Blazers by comparison to probably 90% of the league, have what I would call a very good bench in terms of raw talent and guys well suited to their positions (a true center, a true shooting guard, a true small forward, and now in Blake a solid, low mistake point guard). Most teams make due with power forwards masquerading as centers and have at best two or three quality reserves.

As for a player to create for the second unit, I wouldn't totally discount Steve; he played off the ball a ton next to Brandon last year, but against reserves he should be better equipped to set the offense and paired up with Rudy I imagine they can muster enough playmaking between them to get the job done.