Terry: I would like to freshen up offense

Edit: if it’s not clear I’m saying I’m not giving a great answer, was not intended as you didn’t give a good answer.
Yes and No - not a great answer it wasn’t so much that CJ needs to average more assists thought that would help. My personal opinion is that assists are an outcome of player movement, at times (in fact quite often) Blazer plays would just stand around and watch on offensive. It could be a lack of trust that guys like CJ and Bazz would get them the ball, but there was a lot of stagnation in both player and ball movement (at least in my opinion).

 

Not really. There's a lot of weakside movement, but it's fairly inconsequential. There are very few sets that end up in cuts to the basket or cuts to open spots -- it's more action to throw off defenses who don't know what's coming. Very gimmicky.

Same with the infinite number of dribble handoffs. They lose effectiveness once the defense realize that only Dame and CJ are the shooting threats and everyone just passes for the sake of passing.

 

I don’t count running around the perimeter handing the ball off as effective player movement. Especially because the entire thing is designed to get one player the ball with a match up they like so they can go one on one.

 

That's exactly what I'm saying when I mentioned that it's inconsequential. But it's hardly standing around. We usually have multiple players who lead the league in miles traveled.

 

No doubt that would be a welcome change.
I also think if I won the lottery, that I'd retire tomorrow.... I don't think either one is ever going to occur.

 

He averaged 4.3 the first year he started in 15-16. I don't think him putting up 5 a game is all that far fetched. He's coming down every year since.

 

This is a reminder of an old saying...
"Work smarter, not harder". It feels like the Portland offense has been doing the opposite of that.

 

I would still look at team assists since the statistical assist is flawed.

Example, say CJ draws a double team. Noticing there is a mismatch he passes but it takes a couple more passes until the easy basket is made. Cj should get credit (and does in the Blazer internal stats) for drawing the double team as well as passing. The ordinary assist only recognizes the last person to pass.

 

And we would have different players who actually could score. Everyone needs to know their role. CJ's role as a shooting guard is to ......shoot.

He should not be a PG with the 2nd unit. That should go to Baldwin.

 

Not on defense...

 

Driving the lane, drawing and kicking uses the same energy as driving and shooting. If not, the difference in energy expenditure is negligible. I'm not sure how that's going to increase the amount of energy he'll have on defense.

 

It's good to know that Terry recognizes some of the problems we have on offense. I wasn't sure if he did or not. While I agree with his assessment I think it will be difficult to fix without personnel changes. Zach needs to step up and improve the 4 spot. Moe needs to be consistently good at the 3. If those things happen our offense will improve.

 

That was such a fun day...

 

So basically everything I've been asking for for years... haha.

 

Then you use the eye test. The eye test says that CJ's eyes have tunnel vision.

 

It's not even about "more assists for player A"... It's about more passing as a team, less dribbling. Passing creates open threes and driving lines (which collapse the defense and creates passing lanes to open guys who have open 3s or driving lan3s, etc.).

Last year, we had a ton of isolation resulting in contested mid-range jumpshots. A Turner fall away mid range jumper with a hand in his face and more than 5 seconds on the shotclock is a horrible shot. Too much of it from CJ and Shabazz, as well as Dame a little bit. Even Aminu isolated at times, which should never, EVER happen.

 

Reading the tea leaves here after listening to Stotts--the one guy who wasn't mentioned at all was Evan Turner. Even Meyers Leonard got a mention, and yet our leading bench player, who put in over 2000 minutes last year, who was the 4th leading mpg guy in our first round sweep, who is our 3rd highest paid player, wasn't discussed at all.

I really think the disastrous flameout in the playoffs will put a nail in the coffin of Evan Turner as a key bench guy. It wasn't just last year--he's at .377 FG% for his career in the playoffs. 2.7 assists/game in the playoffs on 29mpg, vs 3.5 in the regular season on 28 mpg. That's over 47 playoff games, so the sample size is pretty valid. Defenses don't have to respect him, and when you have a seven game series you game plan for him not to score, which is one reason Dame was swarmed so much. We just can't afford to make him a key part of our regular season just to see him fall apart in the playoffs like he has every year of his career.

I think he's a lot like Meyers Leonard in this respect. He no longer has skills that fit into the modern NBA. He's a massive contract guy who you throw in situationally, but you have to move on with your team playing style. We owe him $36m for the next two years, so he's not going anywhere. But it seems like the front office brought in four guys who can all shoot (Baldwin, Curry, Grant, Simons), which Terry did address in the interview. The handwriting is on the wall for Turner.

 

Adding on to my point, the key item that seemed to weigh most on Stotts' mind was maintaining defensive quality while improving the offense. He specifically cited Nurkic as the linchpin for our defensive improvement. I wonder if he unintentionally spilled a little of his own thought process here: "Turner is a decent, experienced defender, and Harkless has provided quality defense too. But both guys left me high and dry in the playoffs, and if it happens again I'm almost certainly out of a job. Can I give up on those two and throw more minutes at the new guys, who almost certainly aren't as good at defending, and hope Nurk and maybe Collins clean up the messes? Between these 4 guys and Dame and CJ, we might even compete with the Rockets on who shoots the most threes per game. But I don't get there with Mo and Turner."

I'm probably reading too much into this interview. But I hope not.