The frontcourt is jam packed, but we need to find minutes for Noah Vonleh. You can see the improved maturity in summer league. He's still raw. He still needs work, but he needs minutes next season. Right now Terry is going to have to find minutes for Aminu, Vonleh, Plumlee, Davis, Leonard, and Ezeli. They're all worthy of minutes. How do you find time for all these guys? There needs to be some type of consolidation trade. Vonleh wasn't great on offense last year, but his rebounding and defense at least warrants SOME playing time. How are we going to make this work?
Ultimately, my preference is to use the depth to allow the guys to really give all-out effort for 4-6 minute stretches before being swapped out for another guy, rather than trying to pace themselves to be strong at the end of the game. However, I think that runs too far afoul of conventional NBA wisdom, so it'll never happen.
I think out of all our front court players, Ed Davis is my odd man out. I love Eds play but this year as a backup I think Vonleh offers more. The rebounding is going to be similar, the defense a slight edge to Ed but Vonleh is going to continue getting better offensively. His Offense will fit our system better long term. Of our Bigs I believe Meyers, Aminu and Vonleh are here to stay for a bit. Plumlee, Davis and Ezeli will have to battle for one spot next year.
Yea I think he's garnered enough experience for now. He should focus on honing his moves, perfecting his jump shot, and continuing to develop his defense during practice.
While I agree with you, and I like that Plumlee offers something different with his passing ability and his athleticism, BUT Davis is signed for a small contract for the next few years. Plumlee is a free agent next summer and you have to think that dude is gonna get a contract higher than we would want to pay for a backup.
I wish the NBA could have like a loan system how the use in Soccer in Europe. Loan him out to a team that could use him so he gets playing time, and then the Blazers reap the rewards cause we don't sell him definitively.
You know the best thing about all this depth? All these guys are going to be pushing each other in training camp and practice during the season as they all fight to earn their minutes and carve out their roles. That internal competition will make them all better. When the cream rises to the top, we keep it and trade the others - but not too soon. We need to remain competitive this year, but not mortgage our future. Give Vonleh more time to prove he's a viable NBA starter on a contending team. He's at least a full season, probably two, away from being there. Keep him on the bench and hungry until then. He's improving, but still has a ways to go. BNM
Yea, if we give him minutes and he scores 5 points a game Brooklyn might offer him an 80M\5yrs contract
Then again, after what happened with Crabbe, I'm in favor of burying this dude on the bench until after we sign him to an extension.
Depth is good. The 1999 team rolled out 10 guys and came at the opponent in waves. People can fight it out in training camp. Things will work itself out. Stotts tends to play people based on the match ups. Plus, injuries happen.
Since I was like 5 and didn't pay attention, why did we let him go? The depth wasn't THAT great... Rasheed / Grant Sabonis (35 years old!!) / O'Neal
Who loses out to give Vonleh minutes? I don't see it. He hasn't been awful in Summer League, but he's definitely looked a tier below players on the teams we've faced like Kyle Anderson (gets very few minutes in SA) and Trey Lyles (likewise in Utah). I really do not approve of giving Vonleh minutes ahead of any of our older frontcourt players. Yes, he can shoot better than Ed Davis, but Davis is so much better at everything else, particularly defense, which is a real weakness of ours. The only argument for giving him minutes is to complement a non-shooter who deserves minutes. This was presumably the reasoning last season when he got minutes alongside Plumlee. Adding Ezeli means another deserving non-shooter. But quite frankly I'd rather have Harkless and Aminu get minutes at the 4 than Vonleh. He's still very young. He can wait. Things might change if we have a trade, but he hasn't blown anyone away so that he DEMANDS minutes (unlike, say, Lyles). Our other players are just better.
No it didn't. We made a bad trade (which is what you've been calling for i.e. "consolidation trade") That was what cost us. There were minutes for JO but we decided to give them to Dale Davis.
No, what cost us Jermaine was a gamble that Dale Davis would push us over the top, plus a tragic inability to realize that Shawn Kemp was a fat alcoholic.
He wanted out. He was tired of being stuck on the bench. Dunleavy liked playing the vets. Jermaine would make stupid mistakes when we played him and we were a contender at that time, but he was SO young. We finally gave in and traded him for Dale Davis because Davis seemed like a good player for a championship contender. We thought we'd get more out of Davis in the immediate future. Jermaine went on to be a superstar.
I would not be surprised if, by the end of the season, Vonleh is our second best big and proving it with numbers. Its soo hard to keep remembering he is only 20.
One for one isn't a consolidation trade. In fact, that's the very opposite of a consolidation trade. And yes, it did. There weren't any minutes for Jermaine and Dunleavy wasn't playing him. He was pissed and he wanted out. You're not remembering what happened correctly.
