Now I understand. Good job Neil. Nik has been great for us. He provides shooting, scoring, play making, assertiveness, and leadership off the bench. He also gels well with our starters. His role reminds me of the Gerald Henderson, vet wing off the bench role. A role that we have been sorely missing.
I think its coaching to some extent early on the one skill stauskus had I was impressed by was dribbling and passing in traffic mainly to collins. You know what they went away from completely? Him driving and passing. he became a jump shooter and that was it. So basically since his shot wasnt going in and thats all Stotts was using him for once teams figured out to just stick a guy on him and he’ll take a bad shot or just pass he was basically useless. Curry’s gotten better and better in terms of being aggressive but really whats helped the bench is less of the platooning five bench guys out there and keeing a couple starters in there most of the time. Stauskus really has sucked and if a shooter cant shoot they better learn to do something else he hasnt.
Stauskas is very loose with the ball and struggles to get by guys. This is one thing where I dont blame coaching. He's just simply not good.
Start of the year he was driving and hitting guys pretty regularly though. That was way more impressive than the hot shooting to me. Then they kind of stopped doing it. Could be he finally got scouted, could be coaching, could be his TO’s made Stotts tell him not too. One way or the other the driving and finding Zach rolling to the rim basically stopped.
He hasn't been that type of player his entire career. It seems pretty obvious to me that he was overachieving and playing above his head at a level he couldn't keep up, but Blazer fans bought into "We can always get something out of scrubs so this is another example!" after 5 games... He has to be in a system that has tremendous ball movement to get him an open lane, because he wasn't really blowing by people, and he struggles to maintain ball control with any sort of decent dig from a wing defender. But even then, he showed a couple flashes (like he has his whole career) and people started expecting it. That's not who he is. Layman is much better. Stauskas right now is exactly what I expected.
Never said I expected him to do anything. Honestly I havent bought into Layman or Curry yet either. Its just for really the first ten or so games the bench and Stauskus all played one way then stopped playing that way. Not a single player on that bench has proben to be very consistent this year...
Layman's never had a legitimate chance (and hes made more of this year than any opportunity Stauskas has gotten) and Curry's been good over the opportunities he's gotten. Stauskas has gotten consistent opportunities and he's been consistently bad.
Lets flip their careers you think Curry or Layman is making those Philly or Sacremento teams any better? I dont... Laymans made good on his oppurtunies this year, at lesst for the most part. I think his body / athleticism is more valuable to the team than stauskus. They need a wing who moves without the ball more than they need a shooter that is only hot once a month.
What?... Curry played very well on a bad Mavericks team in the same type of situation that Stauskas has been presented his whole career. Stauskas has never played anything like Curry did in 2016-2017. I have no idea what point you're trying to make by saying "flip their careers"... Layman's body / athleticism is more valuable to the team because it's a positive asset. I don't see a positive asset with Stauskas' play. Stauskas would be a great European player.
Curry averaged 13 and 2 on that bad Mavs team. Which was by far his best year. Even this year for all the talk of Curry he's averaging 5.4 ppg and less than one assist a game, of course he's playing mostly SG while ET pounds the ball so I won't hold the assists against him. He's shooting very well from behind the arc, but he's also not shooting much at all. He's 48% from the 3 that's really good, but he's shooting 31% from 2's which is pretty much terrible. Stauskus has been kind of the opposite, shooting 50% from 2 and 34% from 3 so pretty bad. I think Curry is overall the better player especially when you take into account defense. Neither one though is really all that special in the NBA sense of special. Then theres Layman, he's earned a chance to prove he can play this year in my opinion. He's proven to be really, really streaky. I feel like you didn't like Stauskus from the beginning so whenever he's been bad you've been quick to point it out, when he's been good you've been pretty quick to ignore it or have the "wait for it" mentality. You liked Curry and so the reaction has kind of been the opposite, when he's been bad it's he'll be fine he's playing back into basketball when he's good... I think our bench is full of a ton of inconsistent players, who can look good one night and look like they don't belong on an nba court the next.
I think no matter what folks judge, Curry, Stauskas and the rookies are still just getting used to Portland and their new teammates....Nik started out looking really good first 10 games...Curry didn't...now the roles have reversed but I think Jake has been damned consistent from the opening tip off. Baldwin in my view is poised to make a leap but just doesn't get the nod. He lit up his first game in G league with 34 pts if I remember from this morn recap...Mo has sort of put a clog in bench minutes depending on whether or not he plays...he missed half the season so far.
Youre right and my responses to @BonesJones probably werent called for, so i apologize. Just personally Im not a big fan of our bench as a whole. I am glad Laymans getting minutes he’s earned them. I feel like all of them have had 4-5 games that stick out as good, a handful that they did almost nothing but get excersize (hyperbole) and a lot of kind of meh. I really am disappointed mostly in how Zachs being used or not being used. I think the franchise needs him to be developed as a post player that has excellant foot work and can manuever in the paint. When it comes to stauskus like I said the thing I liked was he seemed to have some chemistry with Zach early but they went away from it. Curry or Nik or Layman, anything they give is a bonus to me at this point, what I want to see is Collins not being turned into a spot up 3 point shooter and a guy who dives to the rim once in a while... Seems like such a waste of his talents.
Zach was given minutes all rookie season and starting this season...fact is Meyers has taken those or many of them. I'm in no hurry for Zach this season..next season I expect him to do what Layman did and make a huge leap..this season he'll have ups and downs ..dude is still young. Needs more bulk for his position. It's the perfect time to trade Meyers as he's gained value. Couldn't have worked out better in my view.
Nik and Curry are just stop gap players until Simons and Trent are ready to play and that's all they are. So I am going get excited about either one of them.
