I think because our roster is so torched, Nate should file for a 10 day contract and show his team exactly what the hell he's been trying to coach for the last few years by example! I think all Blazer fans would find that to be quite educational.
Yeah the Sonic team with Lewis and Allen were built to run. Weren't they almost last during his coaching years there?
Nate should want to run an up tempo offense. It would help to confuse with speed how little he knows about drawing up effective plays!
We almost certainly won't have a team that's above-average in pace. Why? #1: Nate. He's said this before. He'll say it again. We have a thread like this EVERY year, and EVERY year there's a big chunk of people that think that Nate really REALLY means it this time. #2: Felton. "You can't slow Felton down"? What?!? Let's look at the pace of his teams: 2005-06: 3rd of 30 2006-07: 13th 2007-08: 14th 2008-09: 27th 2009-10: 26th His rookie year was a fluke and probably due more to Brevin Knight than to Felton... Larry Brown definitely took the air out of the ball in 2008, and I would expect Nate to do the same this year (as he always has, that one year in Seattle excepted). Ed O.
That's a really good point. I do wonder, though, how much of the pace on those Charlotte teams was dictated less by coach than it was personnel. You had a lard ass in Diaw (also a half-court creator), and lots of defensive types (Okafor, Bell, Crash) without much other talent. It made a lot of sense to ugly it up as much as they could. (And even then those Larry Brown teams STILL had a faster pace than we did in those years! lol) Then he plays most of a year on D'Antoni's Knicks (pace 3rd in league), playing second most total minutes on that team for the year despite getting traded after 54 games. So while the coach might have been steering all that speed, Felton was clearly the engine powering it. Then Felton moves to Denver (pace 2nd in league) where he never had the reins (never started, played only 600 minutes). *shrug* Watching the Blazer interviews, it seemed like over and over coaches and players kept talking about how much faster they were practicing to play. I don't remember talk like that ever happening in prior years, even when Miller came on. The talk with Miller was always, "Can he fit with Roy?" and not, "Can he push the pace?" Nate would say he wanted to push it more, but things like the 15 second shot clock were never brought up. And you never really heard much enthusiasm for it happening from the players. I guess I don't expect Portland to suddenly be in the top of the pack in pace, or even average. But I do expect them to be around 20th or so, which, I think even you would agree, would be a monumental shift for a coach like Nate.
I don't even care about pace, but a little bit of offensive creativity would be nice. The team at times started to play this way with Roy out, but I wonder how much of that was Andre being Andre and doing it his own way.
I'm wondering how long it'll take RayRay to explain the "and roll" concept of the P&R to the big guys.
Anyway, here's a more complete list of EdO's pace rankings factoring in PER and age: Season / Team Pace / Felton's PER / Age / Minutes played 2005-06: 3rd / 14.2 / 21 / 2406 2006-07: 13th / 13.5 / 22 / 2832 2007-08: 14th / 13.8 / 23 / 2972 2008-09: 27th / 13.7 / 24 / 3086 2009-10: 26th / 15.2 / 25 / 2643 2010-11: 3rd (NY) / 17.3 / 26 / 2074 2010-11: 2nd (Den) / 14.7 / 26 / 663 2010-11: 3rd (Tot) / 16.6 / 26 / 2737 I'd say the most encouraging things about that is: 1. His two highest PER's were in snail-slow and lightening-quick teams. He can play both styles. 2. The last 2 years have been his highest 2 PER's. He's not a great point guard by any stretch, but he's a youngish one with lots of game experience entering his prime, and he's got a decent little trend of improvement going. This isn't a Damon Stoudamire situation where you add a PG with crazy rookie/sophomore stats and then wonder for a decade what the fuck you were thinking when you thought he was good. He is what he is--an average starting NBA point guard with maybe a little upside to become above average.
He is money, but I really think he needs to force the issue inside. His lack of trips to the line are proof. We need to have that player that gets other teams in foul trouble. It can completely dismantle another team's defensive strategy on you. So although the pick and pop works well; it won't hurt the other team's gameplan.
The Laker game last year near the end of the regular season was pretty damn exciting to watch, we made a constant effort to run at every opportunity. That Laker team is old, slow and long, you couldn't beat them in a half court game. I hope we follow that bluepring and take a few selective opportunities this year to push the pace when the opponent is tired and worn out. We really need solid contributions from a backup guard to run our starters that much, the team can't run if the starters have to play 40mpg. But if we have someone step up off the bench to be a competent reserve guard, then along with Nick at SF we can keep our starters in the 30-35mpg range and have some fun in this crazy lockout season. I don't necessarly expect the above to play out with Nate as the coach, but it would make for a very exciting season similar to our '99 lockout squad.
if the coach wants to run, he can run like a mofo, in fact, i would say his game is much more suited to it...if nate makes him slow down to last in the nba as far as pace goes, ray is going to have a shit year compared to what he COULD do
Jwquick My sense is @JCrossover will help change Blazers' style. With Felton, JC, Wallace and LA on the court, you have to run, right? Right? hahaha. Classic when Quick is getting in on it
Barrett doing an interview saying the Blazers run scrimmages with only 15 seconds on the shot clock The Blazers finally have a group that can run, with Felton being the main piece. Hard to run with Steve Blake and an old Andre Miller as your PG lololol
