I'm unclear when the injury occurred, but he started off quite slow, as I recall. But he has the same players around him as last year when he was much more successful surrounded by that level of talent. Dame is very good at what he does, but it's a fairly rigid approach. Walk the ball up, mostly looking to run pick 'n rolls (not the most creative drive-and-dish passer), not much movement when the ball's out of his hands, etc. He has a rhythm to his game that isn't well suited to adapting to different circumstances, e.g., playoff traps. I believe that's what we're seeing this year with the new offense, and what we saw in the Olympics when he wasn't the focal point of the offense. Agreed, but competing [for a championship] and being abysmal in the regular season are two very different things.
Almost nobody has the same quality of offensive numbers after they've stopped being the focal point of the offense. The problem is that the other players aren't playing much better even though they are getting more touches. But that's because they aren't good enough.
i don’t think it’s fair to blame his teammates in this one. He has one of his most talented group of players he’s ever had around him. He’s simply missing shots and not doing a good job creating space. I can’t remember him ever getting so many shots blocked. His game is just off, with time it will come back around.
Nice theory if it were true... Look up the season vs career stats for CJ, Nurk, Powell, RoCo, Ant, and Nas ... all the returning players. They're all at or above career levels in most categories, with the exception of RoCo. Although, even he's not that far off, 34.4% vs 40.5% FG and 34.5% vs 35.8% 3PT, with the real issue being that he's been vastly overrated as a shooter. (His PPG is way down, but that's not as much due to shooting woes as the general narrative would have you believe.)
that's all true but it is also true that as good (or as bad) as Dame's teammates perform, they appear to not have enough talent (& production) to offset bad games from Dame and get wins. The Blazers are too dependent on Dame's elite talent and need A games from him otherwise they pretty consistently struggle, especially on the road
Oh, for sure. He's adjusting to a new style as well. But he also can't create as much if he's expected to pass the ball in a set offense.
I thought the first couple of games he tried to do it Billups way I feel like lately Billups has gone away from the offense he wants to run in order to get Dame comfortable. Bad part is Dame is just struggling to hit shots he normally hits. It’s long season so I think it will eventually right itself. All it’s going to take is Dame to have one or two big games anf he’ll get his confidence back. Honestly think the Olympics kind of messed with his game.
this has me thinking guys like Dame and Harden relied heavily on defenses fearing dame or harden drawing fouls so that created more space and now that they are calling game differently it’s allowing defense to crowd their space on shots thus the increased amount of times Dame has had his shot blocked…..well that’s my wild theory
In general, the team has not dropped off when Dame misses time. Call it sample size or easy opposition if you will, but it's all there is to go on. When he plays and plays poorly, the team struggles. So, I don't necessarily agree that the team lacks the talent to make up for an off game from him. It's that they defer to him too much when he does play in that capacity.
Yep, all our losses, there has been a stretch where Dame "takes over" and misses like 6 or 7 shots in a row and we lose the game as a result. Even the Clippers loss. We fell apart while he chucked threes he used to make and the game slipped away.
I'm all for trading CJ for Simmons for the reasons you state. Simmons would make us better. For CJ or Dame. And he's 25. Truth.
Simons is playing great. The way he's playing, there've been times when he should be closing games instead of Dame or CJ but Billups couldn't bench Dame or CJ so he played them all and that didn't work either.
I don't know about that. Game 4 vs Nuggets, Dame shot 1/10 FG and we won. In fact, it was our most dominant win of the last two playoffs. Now the game where he had 55 & 10? We lost that one.
Nope. You're lost man. The only people suggesting trading Dame at this point are you and Aldo who has been saying get rid of Dame for quite some time. Now CJ? Many people have said that and there have been a couple "Blow it up" posts which would not mean to trade Dame but to rebuild around him better. Then on here you actually have the audacity to think CJ will be an All-Star before Lillard. This is 7 games into a season.
