Of those four, only two have won rings, so: The Heat signed Shaq, then signed LeBron and Bosh. The Spurs drafted Elliot, Duncan, and Robinson, but they signed Elie, Avery Johnson, Antonio Daniels, Malik Rose, Steve Kerr, and Jerome Kersey. SAS is the unicorn here, the college system in a pro world.
Yeah.... I think we can win a few playoff games in a series..will we contend for a title...no...We'll be better in March than November though and the Spurs and Warriors could be injured or fatigued by the spring...stranger things have happened but I'm still cheerin' for the good guys. Way to milk the spacebar!
I think it's far too early to tell with that. Unless you are coaching elementary-school kids with no skills whatsoever, you don't see significant changes in their ability in a month. Give it time. Some of these guys might not ever get it. Some of them might be a lot better at the start of next season.
Paul Pierce is a smart player...to compare him to a rusty Meyers just coming back into playing again is a stretch..Pierce has shut down some allstars in his day
The Wizards drafted Kwame. The Clippers drafted Michael Olowokandi The Cavs drafted Anthony Bennett The Blazers drafted Greg Olden It goes on and on. How else do you see us wasting more of Dame's prime?
Their core is all Draft acquired except Aldridge. Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and Leonard (Draft day trade) so that example seems to be perhaps not the greatest.
Patty Mills, Kawai Leonard, Boris Diaw, David West...it's a long list of guys that weren't drafted there
I'm not even talking about seeing improvement. I'm saying I haven't seen a focused ATTEMPT. The example that brought this up was that Meyers should abuse smaller players in the post. I'm not asking for him to abuse players in the post, I'm just asking that the coach attempts to use Meyers in the post on occasion. Likewise with Plumlee/Davis/Vonleh. Let them put some reps in and see if they can't get better. Plumlee makes things happen from time to time with his dribbling skills, but it seems to be more a function of Terry's Green Light, than a concerted effort to get Plumlee touches. And we still haven't really seen much Pick/Roll to speak of - that was something I was really excited about, with the subtraction of LMA and addition of Plumlee/Davis. The only "development" I've really noticed is that Terry is letting CJ and Aminu handle the ball.
Thanks for providing this. I been all over this site saying Vonleh sucks and get bashed for it. The guy does nothing out there and yet he gets a pass because hes young. Like thats the automatic qualifier of him going to be good. For the 100th time if a team trades a top 10 pick in less than a year, its a pretty damn good chance hes garbage. Vonleh is a waste of time who does nothing but get you happy bc hes "young"
As indicated above, Leonard was acquired on Draft night...like Brandon Roy so to me, that is a Draft acquisition player. Of course there are some filler guys that they didn't draft but the majority of their impact players are all Drafted/Draft acquired.
My personal opinion? The Trail Blazers are not a lucky franchise or set in a big market. We will never get Jordan,Lebron or Durant in the draft even if they literally fell in our lap. We are the kind of franchise that creates it's own luck. We'll take Drexler at the #14 pick, we'll take Lillard with Brooklyn's pick. Our model are teams like Indiana,Memphis and 2004 Detroit, we'll have to scrap and hustle our way to the top. I think you guys are homogenizing free agents too much as well, i mean ffs, Monroe and Jabari Parker chose to play at fucking Milwakee because of their own personal reasons.
If you mean specifically at attempt by Meyers to post up a smaller guy, yeah, I'd agree. And I haven't seen any of that this year, and I'd hoped to ... there was a game late last season where Leonard posted up someone and he used a combination of moves that looked like something Kaman might do, so I've expected more of that this year. However, Leonard's missed some time, and there might be other reasons we haven't seen this become part of his game, yet. We don't know what might be going on in practice, and I am going to give the staff the benefit of the doubt for at least another couple of months before assuming they aren't planning to add that to his game. You might be right, but I'm not going to presume it yet.
And I could make a list of all the amazing players that the Clippers passed on to take Olowokandi. We could have had Durant. Those teams were in the position to take those amazing talents. Are we in the position to sign someone like Kevin Durant? Are we in position to sign someone like Vince Carter in his prime? I trust Neil to get the job done if he's in the right spot.
We are in a position to sign guys like Billups,Tayshaun Prince, Zach Randolph. We are in position to steal guys like Ben Wallace,Rip Hemilton from other teams.
Nobody has been arguing that Vonleh has been good. Of course he gets a pass because he's young, big guys almost always take time to develop.
