http://www.csnnw.com/portland-trail...ocker-room-door-part-one-player-introductions This is long but awesome as a precursor to Game 1. Read it. Also, for general NBA fans: Bill Simmons is back doing what he does best: write! (and can a mod please edit the door in the title? thx)
Part 2: http://www.csnnw.com/portland-trail-blazers/blazers-behind-locker-room-door-part-two-scenes-team
Nice! Thanks for posting this. All three articles (the two Quicks and one Simmons) were great. Just what I needed to get thinking about another NBA season.
hahah nah, i had a typo. But seriously tho, the biggest revelation of this preseason and these pieces is Noah. If he pans out to become a solid post scorer and defender, it takes us to a new level.
Yeah, that was definitely the big takeaway for me as well. Vonleh must be showing something in practice to be getting this much hype by his teammates. There must be something that made Stotts want to start him 50 games last year when he clearly wasn't producing well on the court.
I mean, last year I feel like Stotts was just trying to get him minutes where he could. It was forced. Noah certainly didn't earn those minutes. But this year, he has been the clear cut best backup big we saw in preseason -- even better than Ed. I'm buying Noah stock big time.
Huh? Noah has been largely awful throughout his career, and completely bombed in summer league. Did you see anything in between SL and preseason that led you to believe he would actually break out? He was comfortably 13th in the rotation this summer. This news about his UCLA runs with Westbrook/Oladipo seem to have brought out something in his game that translated to preseason.
I am still on the Vonleh bandwagon. I figured his minutes last year were developmental minutes. If he's our best backup big this preseason, the way he was handled and developed last year is a large part of the reason why.
Interestingly, in preseason Vonleh led the team in rebounding while being 9th in minutes played. He was out there out-rebounding Ed Davis, which pre-season or no, is a pretty nice sign.
He was also the leading FG% shooter at 63% of those who played more than a couple of minutes per game.
He hasn't produced but he's shown potential, what he's done so far is hardly a revelation for someone who has watched his game.
Really curious to know what you watched vs. what the rest of us saw in Noah last year. He was by far our worst rotation player, and all his +/- numbers, raw stats, etc matched the eye test of how awful he was. This watched the game argument was old 10 yrs ago.
He's always exhibited the intangibles. Great motor, terrific work ethic. Has always moved well for his size, good footwork, moves well on defense, translates to solid back to the basket game on offense (a skill he had coming out of college). Showed he could hit the mid range/3 point shot even if not extremely consistent yet. I'm hardly surprised that Noah Vonleh is starting to break out of his shell.
His explosiveness for one. We dont have anyone who can explode to the hoop with the ball like he can in the paint and he did it last year too. I saw what @TBpup & @Fonzthecpt1 saw.
Yes that was interesting to hear the players take on Noah. They are expecting great things. Dame's comments on Davis were also interesting: Just super cool. I love Ed,’’ Lillard said. “If I could pick a person – a glue guy, great teammate -- who I could play with for the rest of my career, like LeBron and James Jones, I would take Ed. From other interviews you can also tell Dame loves playing with Mase. He is often complimenting him on his floor general skills. I know a lot of you want a consolidation trade, and of course if you can get a borderline star that helps this team... you have to do it. But if I am management I would be very careful with messing with this chemistry. Certain players need to stay. It really needs to be a no brainer of a trade for them to pull the trigger. But I think Neil realizes that.
Is it bad that I read that and thought as long as it's the right deal it's okay with Dame to trade CJ?
