It's a busted, antiquated theory. After all, the Warriors' best player is a PG and they have won 4 of the last 8 championships. The new NBA has proven that an elite scoring PG can be integral to a championship but maybe it's some people in this forum clinging to that disproved theory that compels them to advocate for trading that elite PG in hopes that somehow, someway, the Blazers can land 2 elite talents at Dame's level when it took Portland over 25 years to have two elite talents like Clyde and Dame. There were more than 18 years between when Portland traded an aging Clyde and when they drafted Dame. So it seems farcical to think that Portland can accomplish in 5 years what they couldn't in 25 years what Portland should have been doing over the last decade is taking advantage of every opportunity to add a talent equal to Dame instead of wishing Dame was bigger
For me it's coaching. Frankly, I think Chauncey's doing a horrible job. He's making SILLY matchup decisions and his choices for who gets time is severely flawed. There are so many things with him. And this trailblazer team (besides Dame) is SOFT and laid back. We trade away our only other "Dog" in Josh Hart because Chauncey didn't use him correctly. SELL THE TEAM JODY!! I can't stand fascist Phil Knight, but I know he'd be a better owner and he'd spend some money on my favorite team.
it was mentioned but Portland won't be any track towards contending with the current ownership. The Vulcans are simply bad news for Blazer fans the tax line is 150M. Think about which teams are truly contenders and look at their payrolls. There's probably some 'cart-before-the-horse' dynamics in this. Still, it sure looks like a franchise has to be willing to commit to not only paying the tax, but paying a lot of it in order to be a contender. Does anybody believe the Vulcans would ever approve of a massive tax bill in the post-Paul Allen era?
this makes sense, as coaches typically deserve more credit/blame for the defense than they do offense. If you have brilliant offensive players, you don’t have to be a great coach to run a good offense. But even with good defensive players, so much of team defense is about the system and how well it’s run.
Doesn't make sense to me. "TLDR: Under Terry Stotts, the Blazers' defenses were mostly solid when key players were healthy, but now our defenses are markedly worse even with better personnel, and the main reason for this is because of Chauncey Billups."
That's what the data says, I believe I pointed this before (and no, I am not related to the reddit thread). The data is hard to ignore, and it makes a lot of sense. Terry optimized for the roster. Chauncy is forcing the roster to play to a system. This will only work if the Blazers are actively trying to restructure the roster, which they probably are as there were whispers of them trying to trade Nurk.
Without Nurk, the Blazers are just too short up front. Eubanks does what he can, but he’s only 6’9”. Also, we’re playing a lot of young guys. It makes a difference.
Blazers are getting outmuscled. Portland is currently flopping all over the place trying to buy whistles. When the refs don't buy the flops, certain Blazers are using antics to complain about it. If players are actively whining during the game, why do fans take criticism for complaining after losses?
Doesn't help that our "star" PF is allergic to rebounds. I've always said control the glass control the game.
you named the exception, who plays and played with multiple hall of famers As for trading Dame, that wasn’t what my post was about…..Not that I don’t think it’s a bad idea
I mean... We knew this going in. Makes it even more egregious that they thought sending Hart out with Nurk injured was a good idea. But wait, it's not about this year. So the team knowingly got worse while wasting Dame's best season. And they won't bother shutting him down to even tank properly. This is my problem. No direction or leadership.
I would challenge the notion that this team is all that TALENTED. Way too many guys that can only play on one half of the court but not the other. There is a reason they are called 3 AND D guys, not 3 OR D guys!
We have a bad team. Our roster has been unhealthy. If we were healthy Chauncey isn't using the players correctly and the roster is very poorly built by Cronin making this team less than the sum of its parts. Even if this team were equal to the sum of its parts (talent) we would still likely get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs. We need more talent and it has to fit together. If Chauncey is staying on as coach then we have to make every personnel decision cater to his philosophies.
I'm not going to name names.... but the team started sucking as soon as they started giving Sly press credentials.
There are a lot of problems and it doesn't help that some of them are from coaching. It's hard to know how much better the team would be with a coach that did things that made more sense. Chauncey laments about the lack of passing after a game as if he's a passive observer. Isn't that kind of his job? To fix that?
