I like Hood starting....he can guard more positions in my view than Bazemore...Bazemore is a perfect sparkplug to pair with Simons...he'll need to make up for Simons defensive limitations off the bench ...Bazemore will get ET's role and Simons will get Seth Curry's role
This is a good point. Pairing Simons with Bazemore and Hezonja takes pressure off of him to bring the ball up every time.
I think our bench mob is going to rock the house this season...Simons can light it up if he plays off the ball
Neil: "Dame/CJ/Rodney bring us elite firepower offensively on the perimeter, and you have two elite defensive players in Zach and Hassan. It's time for him (Collins) to be in the starting lineup and give us a higher ceiling at his position." https://www.nbcsports.com/northwest...igh-expectations-anfernee-simons-zach-collins Not sure if you guys all saw this but our starting lineup seems to be set in stone for training camp. Rodney at 3. Zach at 4.
Yeah, I don't think Hood signs here if he's not promised the starting job on opening night. Portland almost certainly didn't guarantee he'd keep it all year, but he had to have been promised the role for the first few months.
Wasn't Neil a little surprised that Rodney signed so quickly for so cheap? My impression was that Hood just wanted to come back regardless. I am not so sure he was promised anything.
NO always says whatever makes the organization look good. His message here was, "We're so awesome Hood came back on a huge discount." There's probably an element of truth to this, but I think it also leaves a lot of room for him to gloss over any back room promises. Hood's agent would've been a fool to not require this in the deal, given the other contracts that he could've got. Unless, of course, Hood really doesn't care if he starts. Which is certainly possible. It's not typical among players, but given that he's really had a hard time fitting in with teams in his career, maybe he just wants a spot and doesn't care if he's a scorer off the bench or a starter. I hadn't considered that before....
Here's a wild thought.... What if the market for Hood really wasn't what has been advertised? I'm not convinced that he took a 'huge discount' to re-sign with Portland. Just one year ago, he was a RFA for Cleveland. He was hoping for a contract in the $10-12M range, but the best reported offer he got was $7M/yr (for 3 years) from the Cavs. Ultimately he took the qualifying offer. Hood's play last season was not significantly different enough to result in huge market demand to justify a significant pay raise. The $6-9M pay range is correct for Hood. From Hoopshype:
You can't really base offers for RFA's on what a player is actually worth. If a team was interested in giving him $10 million a year they likely wouldn't bother if they thought Cleveland was just going to match anyway. Also, once a player has a good post season his value gets a bump. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong though.
This may have already been mentioned, but I'm wondering if Hood took the discount on condition he starts.