Yes, Collins and Swanigan have sort of flipped since Summer League. Collins, if anything, looked more useful than Swanigan in pre-season, in part because Collins's strengths are the team's weaknesses. Collins is ahead in defense. Swanigan is ahead in picking fights.
From what I've seen, even other teams bench scrubs are faster and stronger than the summer league guys that Swanigan was beasting. I mean there have been so many guy that have that old school type body and game that he has, but few have succeeded. The game is about speed and length and athleticism. Collins style is more adept to today's style. I think he will have a better career overall. He won't average 10 points a game for damn sure, but should be fun to watch now and then.
Good call. He's the Groupie. Blaker is the angry equipment man. Crap, I just started my own "The Closers" routine. I hate myself now.
Let the self-loathing begin. I'm sure there are people here that can help pound your self esteem into the ground. If you doubt that, just make a spelling, tense or grammatical error and the self-appointed post police come out of the woodwork to damn your posting soul to eternal flames.
We have a bewtter bench than thought, which will help us to rest our stars more (less minutes per game) for when we need them in the end of games and in the payoffs. I dont know if Coach Stotts will have had a more important role to this point. Now he really has some chess pieces. Lets see how good he really is at chess huh? I think he is good enough to get us 5th seed, and it the stars align, 4th seed. Gonna be a great year to be a Blazer fan!!!
Team: If we stay healthy, we're dangerous. We we're ahead by 17 points or more in each of our preseason games. Many of the role players who sucked last year have regained their form from 2 years ago. This is what many of us were hoping to see from summer league. Defense: Looked definitely improved, but our SOS wasn't the biggest in the preseason. Cautiously Optimistic. Rebounding: Outrebounded opponent in each game (I think). Looks good on paper, worked out in the preaseason. Nurk, Biggie, Ed are better than anyone we had most of last year. ========== Collins: Took a step toward being our PFotF. Solid Defender (top 2 or 3 on team?) who will get more comfortable on offense. Had many converts on s2. Biggie: He is who we thought he was.... and who we thought he was was a young Brian Grant. Biebs: We learned nothing. Excelled at times, while at other times looked like he didn't belong. Aminu: Still sucks at shooting and still is a fine defender. Nurk: No surprise, he played great, but for me, the jury is still out. Why? I know he's a beast, and will play like it and we'll win a lot of games, but will the weight loss allow him to play 75+ games this regular season? I'm optimistic, but I'm a homer. My question can't be answered in summer league. So far, so good, though. Dame: Regular season/Playoff form. CJ: Looks a little rusty, but I doubt it's problematic. Hark: Played good. If he turns into amazing, so will we. Turner: Looks like the Boston Turner... hope that continues. Pat, Jake: They seemed to play OK with good players, sucked without them.
If Ed Davis really is our backup C, wither Leonard, especially after all the talk of his changed mindset? It's not like he has the sturdiest of psyches...
We learned that against a bunch of bad teams, Evan Turner is a defensive monster. http://stats.nba.com/players/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1&CF=MIN*GE*15 Also that the Phoenix Suns = the Haifa Maccabi.
We learned that even when Meyers Leonard knocks down 71.4% of his 3-pointers and averages 16.0 points and 12.6 rebounds per 36 minutes, he still gets hate on more in the game threads than all other players combined. BNM
