Yes, good point. Houston, NY and Miami all had the same mini-MLE or the larger tax payer MLE available just as us and none of those teams wanted to give it to Mo. He might not be happy with reduced minutes but if it makes our team better I expect he will accept the role. The coach needs to give the best player minutes. If Freeland is better than Meyers so be it; if CJ is better than Mo so be it. Mo will be more accepting of a reduced role if we are winning too. We are talking about CJ being the 9th man; well those Blazers teams of 1999 and 2000 were even deeper than that with more established vets; everybody bought in fine while the team was winning. Mo will be a free agent at the end of the year so I very much doubt he wants to be labeled as a complainer or selfish. He isn’t in any danger of completely falling out of the rotation as we need his PG abilities when Lillard is off the floor. Its only with CJ back he might see a few less minutes alongside Lillard.
Most of this year 's rookies picked CJ to win rookie of the year. You may be underestimating how good he'll be.
Yes I expect that Mo will get minutes over CJ; but CJ should get a chance to earn minutes over other players just as Freeland earned minutes over Meyers. Until we see rookies in an NBA game its hard to know how they will adjust to the competition. They are big question marks that often greatly fall short of expectations and often greatly exceed expectations. Lillard made the jump from college to the NBA without skipping a beat. Many experts projected CJ to be the rookie of the year before we got Mo. This isn’t Europe where the veterans automatically are handed minutes over more deserving youngsters. If CJ displays something special he can earn minutes on the team.
Something to keep in mind is that our SOS is bad is because we won the games. If we lost to Kongs twice and Denver, we'd have a much higher strength of schedule. It's a stupid stat.
Mo has been (as recently as last year) a good player. He has not been particularly good for us, so far. Of he can't get his PER above, say, 13.5 by the time CJ comes back, he will have no valid claim on minutes. That said, I'm not expecting great things out of CJ in the early going either. I think it'll take him a while to really adjust to the NBA game, and things will remain unsettled through the all-star break. But I hope CJ can prove me wrong.
Right now our rotation is pretty solid. I think CJ will get a few minutes here and there, but until he fully comes back and earns some minutes, I don't see him cutting down Mo or Wes' minutes.
Anybody else want to join the club? We're now at 15 games. We don't have to finish with a better record than OKC or the Spurs. Playoffs will be very tough regardless of what seed we get though.
Anything can happen when injuries occur. But I still think the Clippers are deeper and will get better as the year goes on. So I would expect them to end up in third. 4th IMO is just as good to shoot for. We would still have hc advantage and who knows who will be the 1st seed. If it continues to be SA, that matchup is just as good for us as OKC or LAC. (Both have players that get "calls" by the refs) But way too early for this. Long season.
