the funny thing is i dont think we are far away from being a good team. maybe not this year but i have a feeling we may finally do something progressive this offeseason. from what i saw from batum last night he could actually be a 20 point scorer nightly. that plus LMA is a good tandem. if you cang et a PG like steve nash or if we are looking more down the road and got a good starting PG with youth i think we could be something soon. elliott is our future SG. he may have airballed a 3 and missed some free throws, but did you see that guy attack the rim?? no fear. reminded me of roy a little but much more tenacious when attacking the rim and less under control but that will come with time. i think we do something good on draft day in june
forgot to add..i would trade Gwall asap. he has become one of my favorite blazers of all time but besides maybe batum, he could bring us back the most in a trade..if you can get a good PG or center or a lottery pick for GWall this year you gotta pull the trigger. l
Outside of Batum and Aldridge (and maybe Eliot Williams if he can develop?) this roster looks pretty grim. No point guard to speak of, few shot creators, ancient bigs aside from Aldridge with nobody being developed, a string of bust draft picks (either because of injury or lack of talent). I understand people wanting to be hopeful and having Aldridge is certainly a plus to build around, but this team is treading dangerously close to the territory Toronto found themselves in about 3 or 4 years ago with Bosh and a bunch of scrubs. Don't despair too much, but don't kid yourself either; this team has a ton of work in front of it if they want to reverse what looks like a pretty clear trajectory into mediocrity/suckiness.
I think you are right, I don't think they're far from a good team. But for whatever reason, the Blazers are making bad decisions, not reacting defensively, have no technique/focus on rebounding, and don't make a lot of makeable shots. They need a new voice and even though I think Nate is a good coach, the time has probably come to get a new scheme and give the players some different ideas in practice and some new ways to make in-game decisions.
EWill has a place on this squad but I'm not entirely sure where... I'd personally like to see him at backup PG - no way he's worse than any of our other options there... I think, in some regards, you're right to think we're close. We've got a few pieces that are tough to attain, namely multiple #2 options as well as a guy (Wes) who can come off the bench and shoot and defend. Our #1 need is a killer. Nic and LA are both fantastic pieces to the long-term puzzle, but both are relatively passive. This team is missing that refuse to lose mentality that BRoy had, and I think that's a HUGE deficiency in Nate's coaching abilities - he's passive. He doesn't demand wins. We need a go-to, #1, rip-your-heart-out scorer before we can consider ourselves "there"... We've got some pieces that we can put veterans and role players around, but we need a few more. Based on the below depth chart for next season... Can't exactly say that things look all THAT bright as of now, but hopefully we can flip Wallace, Camby and Felton for a piece or two... PG: ???/EWill (?) SG: ???/Matthews SF: Batum/??? PF: LA/??? C: ???/Freeland(?)
Agree that that's his natural position, but unless you want Wes as our backup SF to make room for EWill at backup 2, I don't see many better options... I think he needs to see the floor, but I also think the talented backup 2 version of Wes that we saw a few years ago is who he REALLY is and backing up at SG is where he's ultimately best suited (and most valuable to us - given his youth and reasonable contract, I think we should keep and use him there)... So then you have to decide if Elliott is a starting 2 or if you want to play him out of position... I, personally, would rather have him as a positive size mismatch at PG rather than being undersized at the 2, and I think his aggressiveness would be nice at the backup point as well. He's shown flashes of having some court vision and seems, at least as capable as Nolan Smith... I admit that it's a square peg in a round hole, but neither he, nor Wes have all that much trade value at the moment and I think they both deserve minutes... Just not sure how or where else to do get them their burn...
I agree... I think that blazedanugz is crazy. Is there a team in the NBA right now that you'd NOT trade rosters/draft picks with right now? Hmm. I'm going to start a thread on that Ed O.
The Blazers being close to ta good team is arguable, but what's not is that the are close to being a good enough team to win a title. They aren't, so they need to start taking steps to getting close enough. Making the playoffs every year in the 6-8 spot is not how to get that done in a market like Portland's
The sky isn't falling on the future like some like to think. Aldridge and Batum is a great young 1-2 punch. They just need better guard play and a coach who knows how to utilize an offense catering to more than 1 option at a time.
Problem is they're arent very many of those in the league. Kobe, Dirk, and Jeremy Lin are the only ones I can think of.
I really, really REALLY hope the Lin bit is a joke given he's all of effectively 6 games into his career... Roy was a killer, Lebron is a killer, Rose is a killer, Durant is a killer, Nash is a killer, CP3 is a killer, Shaq was a killer, Howard is a killer, Carmello (was?) a killer, Westbrook, DWill, Ray Allen (was), Paul Pierce - all current or former killers... If you read my OP I said we have 2 very good #2s but that we need a #1, so yes, we need a star, but more importantly, we need one, even a lower-tier #1 with ice in his veins...
