But, he doesnt. He is terribly overpaid for what he gives. He's selfish. He's predictable. He hurts his team. No GM watching the Blazers play is telling themselves, man I want to trade for McCollum. It's going to be tough to find a fair trade. He wasn't even on Moreys radar for Simmons. The Blazers best bet is to trade him to a shitty team who is desperate like NOLA or SAC.
“No GM would want a 20 point scorer who shoots 45% from the field and nearly 40% from three” is quite the take. A lot of guys are overpaid. I’d say more are overpaid than not. You think guys like Hayward, Wiggins, and Porzingis are worth $30M a year?
Actually if i was Morey i would prefer Maxey and Curry as my starting duo as well and try trade Simmons for someone like Ingram. But there was a report about Morey asking CJ+3 1sts+3 1st swaps for Ben. So maybe there was something there.
Agree with most of what you say. The one part I disagree with is rebounding. Many posters said before the season it was a major weakness of this roster, schemes, starting lineup, and would be a huge problem. That is not what has been the result though. Rebounding is one of the Blazers strongest areas, possibly even the teams #1 strength. The Blazers are ranked 2nd in defensive rebound rate and 10th in offensive rate. They are allowing opponents 43.8 rebounds per 100 possessions while securing 45.6 themselves. The team has been excellent at rebounding. There are plenty of issues with this team, rebounding is not one of them.
If they can't even take the first and fukking obvious step of firing Olshey then this franchise is doomed, I don't want him to have any part of a retool or rebuild or whatever!
Look at shooting percentage allowed, this is far more of a problem; The Blazers offense is 11th in 2p% and 11th in 3pt% The Blazers defense is 25th in 2pt% and 28th in 3pt% Now the offense I can see being tied to Lillard slump, if he was playing as he has the prior 5 years we might be in the top5. The defense has been the problem. Much better defensive personnel than Stotts had with Kanter&Melo. Keeping guys fresh and energetic with less minutes to starters. Yet the team is possibly even worse defensively than their historically awful last season. Rebounding, Lillard hot/cold shooting, CJ's assist, etc won't matter when this horrific defense is taking place. If this team were to even make the playoffs, the eye test tells me the defense could be an even larger issue there. We went from Stotts drop coverage to basically the complete opposite of switch everything and rotate often. Teams will now be able to better prepare and plan how they are moving the ball to the open man for easy high percentage looks. There needs to be a balance of schemes, when the team is getting picked apart with passing go to some drop coverage. When the team is blowing by the defender try more trapping and doubles. I still am hopeful Billups will be an excellent defensive coach, I like some of what I have seen. But 23 games in the results in total have been terrible.
I agree with the first two parts. But no for the third, instead start CJ at PG. Dame hasn't looked good for months going back to before the Olympics. Major concern that with multiple months available to rest prior to the season he couldn't get healthy. Have him rest, or come off the bench until he is back to his old self. CJ despite his many faults has been the superior player this season.
i don't necessarily think sending CJ to the bench is some magical solution. this roster still desperately needs size and athleticism.
Mike James averaged 20ppg on a bad team too. There’s been several non descript players that have conquered that 20ppg mark. Black. Hole. His defense letting guys get past him preemptively turns into open corner 3’s
It is crazy CJ didnt want to make some effort to understand what KD was saying. He even mentioned same mins more shots but no CJ has pride. Too bad he doesn't show pride when a chair can blow past him.
prior to Dame resting the last 2 games, about 123 of Portland's 240 minutes were being played by the 6'3 and under foursome of Dame-CJ-Powell-Simons. That's more than half of all of Portland's minutes. And we're not talking Avery Bradley or Marcus Smart type 6'3. We're talking the lousy defense of Dame-CJ-Simons and frankly, Powell isn't very good defensively either. And if you normalized for Dennis Smith and Mclemore then somewhere around 130 minutes a game have gone to the 6'3 and under troop. 6 of Portland's 14 players are 6'3 and under....for fucksakes that's 43% of the roster! It's lunacy all the yappage about Powell's wingspan was just noise. The basket is still 10' off the floor and the Blazers will always be at a major disadvantage when more than half of their minutes are going to Frodo and his ilk Portland will not be able to scheme their way out of this
I noticed this bit in the article: "Lillard and McCollum had been the starting backcourt for the last six seasons, during which they made the playoffs each season. But that regular-season success — Portland owns a .557 winning percentage in that span — has not been replicated in the playoffs, where the Blazers went a combined 16-30 with first-round exits in four of those six seasons." a .557 winning percentage is an average of 45.7 wins in the regular season. That is only 4.7 wins above .500. Apparently, that's deemed a "success" in Olshey-vision
...the one time I liked KD's opinion on something and hearing MeJ's cavalier attitude makes me despise him even more. Not to mention the fact that nothing has changed since this interview
I love Jason, but this article highlights how disconnected he is with the inner workings of the franchise. He's a terrific writer and finds great stories, but Quick has no idea what's going on behind the scenes with regards to the direction of the team. He wrote this less than 12 hrs before Olshey was let go: The growing theory is that if the investigation had turned up anything substantial, Olshey would have been fired weeks ago. Two agents who have dealt with Olshey said they believe Olshey is going to survive the ordeal, and are stunned that the organization has allowed his name to be sullied and dragged through the mud.
