This is the most excited I have been about this team since we traded for Scottie

yaaa, it just wasn't the same Jusuf. Kind of a letdown. You'll see cool highlights of Nurkic to showcase his skills, but they're from a couple years ago.

Last year Nurk had a eurostep layup, a couple chippy dunks, and a falling down basket that almost won the game. Not much to look at.

His big game was early season vs. Jokic. He shut the MVP down!

Cronin must have sent a tape of that Nuggets beatdown to Phoenix. They loved what they saw, and those PHX dummies traded Ayton for Nurkic. lol

 

Um, are you aware of the faults Ayton has?

his motor is questionable at times. There is a clip viral from last playoffs where he was just standing out of bounds and not in the play, with Jokic fighting for offensive rebounds with KD and Ayton never got back in the play. His reaction to that clip going viral is even more alarming. He has an immature side to him, hopefully as he gets older that changes.

he isn’t a good of passer as Nurk either.

overall I think he is better and younger than Nurk. But guys aren’t looking at the faults of Ayton at all while bashing Nurk at the same time.

 

Payton was traded for Nurk and change because of a combination of where phx is, money wise, and the relationship there going south.
The blazers are rolling the dice on the relationship being why he didn't love playing there and his effort reflecting it. It either works or not, but he is a better player than Nurk st this point by a larger margin than what the numbers tell you.

Add the fact that he can play the defense Chauncey wants...

 

we all know Ayton has faults. If he had no faults then the Suns would not have traded him. Their owner does not care about saving money so it was not for the contract.

 

I am excited but not as much as when we got the #1 pick for Oden. Think everyone was counting the championships we were going to win with Roy, LA, and Oden.

 

So many unknowns makes it so completely intriguing and exciting. Anyone who is disappointed with what we have heading into ne t season isnt living in the real world and thinks its all nba2k. Of course it wouod be nice if we had embeed and zion right now but reality is we got about as good of value out of the outgoing players the last couple years, as we could get.
Covington has fallen off a cliff and Powell doesn't start o na healthy team. Joe has done great overall in my book and he, combined with Mike Schmitz’s presence has raised the bar considerably for what i think can be achieved in the next 2-4 years. Im as excited now as when we had oden, roy and lma for 70 games of domination.

 

I saw that Ayton not engaging clip. I think it's a bit out of context. Was Ayton in foul trouble? Jokic missed 3 bunnies in a row. That's normal gigantic big man tippy tap. Just concede and move on.

It's normal for players to overplay, then get stuck near the camera people while the scrum for the rebound ensues. It's not so simple to torpedo back into everyone who's going straight up. There's a ref on the baseline just waiting to blow the whistle.

Blazer PF Jerami averages less rebounds then a lot of guards, because of defensive overplay and landing way out of position by the expensive seats. The "viral" DA clip is a daily basketball scenario, turned into "Ayton quit" by Phoenix nitpickers.

As far as bashing Nurk .... he's a Sun now.
no holds barred.

We don't have to pretend Nurkic is good to up his trade value. Jusuf actually did get traded. Sure, let's root for him to have success in Phoenix. But Jusuf letdowns were all over the map last year. Different then we'd grown accustomed to, which was the hidden gem big man of the Pacific Northwest.

 

This team won 54 games, Lillard's 2nd year

Dame / Scoot
Matthews / Sharpe
Batum / Tisse
Aldridge / Grant
RoLo / Ayton

CJ / Ant
Crabbe / Brogdon
Meyers / Timelord

 

With good health …
With Matisse, Grant, Timelord, and Ayton (and Brogdon for a while) as veterans not known as selfish …

I expect < 30 wins.

I’m looking for:
1. Ant significantly improving his D and ability to get to the line (anti-CJ) would make him good to keep.
2. How big is the 2nd year leap at both ends for Sharpe?
3. Grant having a modest uptick on rebounds AND the guards get him shots.
4. One of the inexperienced forwards (not undersized!) brings into question the need to GO GET a serious, youngish SF. This is not to say he (Murray, IMHO) becomes a Batum-like rookie starter (who at his best was 13-15 points, 6-7 rebs, and 5 assists … but could have been … better). It’s been a while since a SF played and claimed the position … and the team knows it.
5. Matisse and Timelord’s influence on Ayton and the young front court guys.

These are the individual-based markers I’m interested in.

 

I've been watching NBA stats for a lot of years and my recollection is it's really rare for a player with a career FTRate around .150-.175 to significantly improve in that area after 5 years in the league. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's rare. By 24-25 players, especially perimeter players, have firmly established their style

Ant is similar to CJ in that he rarely attacks the rim and when he does, he avoids contact

I think there is a strong correlation between rate of shots at the rim and FTRate. In both categories Ant's marks are real low. He'd have to dramatically increase attacking the hoop to increase his FTRate

 

Yeah, for me it was the following summer actually once Oden was returning from injury. I really thought that Bayless was going to be the ideal backcourt mate with Roy, and I really liked the Batum and Webster combo at small forward. That team also had (what seemed in the moment) decent potential depth with Pryz, Outlaw, Fernandez, Webster, and either Sergio or Blake coming off of the bench. At the very least, I thought we would have a five-to-seven-year window of being amongst the top contenders. It goes to show that you never know.

 

LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy And Greg Oden Played 62 Games Together And Had A 50-12 Record

 

Bigfoot?

 

I agree with your views on all of this. If Simons is going to become more than a highly paid 6th man 3 point sniper, he has to keep getting stronger and get to the rim … which would make his 3’s easier. He has shown more interest in this than CJ did, so I’m hopeful.

 

Here comes the bandwagon. Hop aboard!

The Blazers just started the Perfect Rebuild.

" I can't wait to see what this team looks like this season."

 

Yeah, but then, they had run their course. They came so close, but no shame in losing to the Bad Boys and Jordan's Bulls. Was glad Clyde was able to go home and get a ring.
It was the year they didn't get to the Finals that was the most frustrating because they would have demolished the Pacers IMO.

 

Again no shame losing to a team that 3-peated.

 

absolutely right, and I put about 95% of the blame on Adelman

in case anybody remembers or is interested in my version of events: for the first 64-65 games of the year Adelman, stubbornly, insisted on a platoon substitution rotation. Almost all the starters went out at the same time. And it resulted in Portland consistently losing leads they had built. There was a lot of criticism of the tactic. The Oregonian was all over it. Finally, thankfully, Adelman shit-canned the platoon rotation and went to a more standard rotation. And the result was that Portland immediately went on a 16 game winning streak down the stretch. They won 16 of 17 entering the playoffs. And they won their first two playoff series 7 games to 3

then, in game 1 of the WCF against the Lakers, in Portland, the Blazers had built a 12 point lead by the end of the 3rdQ...and guess what Adelman did...if you guessed he trotted out that failed platoon substitution tactic to start the 4th Q you win a prize. That's exactly what he did and the Lakers won the 4th Q by a 31-14 score, and the game by 5. They flipped HCA and the Blazers never recovered

I was screaming at my TV when the 4th Q started because I was pretty sure what was going to happen...and it did

 

Oh boy. That's bad.

 

Im just as excited. But that's probably because I’m more invested in the Blazers now than i was back then.