What is wrong with CJ?

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by Rastapopoulos, Nov 9, 2019.

  1. SIeepwalker

    SIeepwalker The lone sane poster

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    His reaction when he finally made a 3 kinda blows away any of y'all theories about him not caring after getting paid...
     
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  2. illmatic99

    illmatic99 formerly yuyuza1

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    He's missing threes. That's all that's wrong with him.
     
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  3. bobf

    bobf Well-Known Member

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    Nothing is wrong with CJ. Variance. Or if you think math & B-Ball don’t mix, then it’s early season rust and he’ll shake it off soon.
     
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  4. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    He'll start making shots...not doubting that. But after 4 declining years, will he finally start to find WIDE OPEN teammates once again?

    Pesky Math: If you drive into 3 defenders who collapse to guard you, that leaves 2 defenders left to guard your other 4 teammates.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2019
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  5. bobf

    bobf Well-Known Member

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    It’s been so long. Did CJ really used to find open shooters?

    Edit: Oh I misread your post. CJ didn’t find open shooters. He fined them. That makes more sense.
     
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  6. royo

    royo Well-Known Member

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    That pass, when two defenders collapsed on him and he found Dame for open three was quite nice.
     
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  7. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    he's missed more than three's

    he s shooting .308 from three when his career mark is .399. But he's also shooting .420 on two's when his career mark is .480. Combined, he's .391 on FG's when his career mark is .453

    his poor shooting may be in his head because his assist/turnover ratio is 1.23 when his career mark is 1.71. A lot of that may be from driving too deeply into crowds, resulting in turnovers, because of worry about his perimeter shot

    he'll turn his shooting around; I think we all know that. It's just unfortunate he couldn't have developed more aspects of his game except his one-on-one skills. When he's missing shots, he doesn't bring much else to the floor
     
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  8. illmatic99

    illmatic99 formerly yuyuza1

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    This isn't something new. What player has drastically changed their floor game in year 8 of their career? Clearly the most obvious thing holding CJ back this year has been his shot, something that is prone to high variance at times. It will come back. To expect CJ to suddenly drive more and pass more is foolish.
     
  9. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    where was it I said he should "drive more"? He definitely should drive less into a pair or a trio of defenders. And he sure as hell should dribble less.

    Also, it's ridiculous to say we shouldn't expect CJ to pass more, and by extension, ball-hog less. That's not a foolish expectation at all, it's just asking somebody making 30 million a year to play smarter
     
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  10. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    Yes it was. IMO, it needs to happen much more often given the amount of attention he often garners during his dribble-dribble-stepback-dribble-crossover-stepback-crossover-pullup jumper forays.
     
  11. B-Roy

    B-Roy If it takes months

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    You're probably right, but it's not the only aspect of his game he can improve. I think it's magnified here when we have Dame, who has literally improved parts of his game every single season he's been here.
     
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  12. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    Both CJ and Dame are adjusting to playing without the screens they've been shooting over for 4 years...Nurk, Chief, Mo, Ed Davis.....with our injuries those big screens aren't where they like them ...work in progress...Hassan set better screens and both Tolliver and Skal seemed to be finding those spots last game...chemistry....Dame and CJ are hunting for their spots more than just getting to them second nature. I expect this to be awkward up till the break...sucks to be down so many bigs right now
     
  13. SIeepwalker

    SIeepwalker The lone sane poster

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    I'll say one thing, I like Ant game more than CJ's (I mean their style of play)

    Ant is more straight to the point. It's either catch and shoot, or straight drive with a nice array of floater finishes around the rim, or he can give you a couple of dribble moves and has a nice and smooth step back.

    CJ sometime can dribble in circles for the whole shot clock. And if he misses, well the possession looks BAD.
     
  14. royo

    royo Well-Known Member

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    I think Dame is changin it, not to search far. This season his drives under the basket are basicly unstoppable for example. His passing is much better than it was IMO and he is not lazy i defence anymore.
    CJ choose to be one-dimensional and it was fear few years ago that he's going to be Jamal Crawford. And he is now. Is Jamal worth 25mil and coul he be 2nd option in championship team?
     
  15. illmatic99

    illmatic99 formerly yuyuza1

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    The Dame point is fair and I accept that but even his improvement has been incremental. CJ has stagnated in his development basically for the past four years. We can't expect that to change drastically.

    As far as the worth question, we can't forget that our second best player is sidelined with a broken leg, and on an absolutely ridiculous 11 mil/yr deal. It makes CJ's 30 mil a lot more palatable.
     
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  16. Reep

    Reep Well-Known Member

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    I don't agree with that. He is also getting blocked at the rim repeatedly. He is also missing a lot more mid-range shots than usual. Compare his success at the rim to Dame. It's not even close. Now, Dame has taken it to another level (which in itself is amazing), but CJ seems to be moving in the other direction. Some may be correct in that he used his off arm to clear space and that has been taken away so now he doesn't have a counter. Maybe.
     
  17. hoopsjock

    hoopsjock Well-Known Member

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    My issue with CJ isn't that he's not improving it's that his main passing flaw is getting worse. In his breakout season his assist % was 21.6% which is pretty decent and shows that he is capable of being a distributor. Without his usage really changing all that much his assist % in following years has been 18.0%, 15.8%, 13.8%, and now this season is at a really poor 13.1%. If he could just get that back up into the upper teens, say around the 18% he had 4 seasons ago then I think he'd be close to being an All-Star, even if his shot was off.
     
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  18. gatorpops

    gatorpops Allen Crabb hits winning shot on Nov24 vs Blazers

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    He made 6 passes against the Hawks and I believe at least three were assists.
     
  19. Strenuus

    Strenuus Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    The issue with cj is hes still on the team.
     
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  20. hoopsjock

    hoopsjock Well-Known Member

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    Oh, CJ had a decent game. That post wasn't a reflection of just one game, we were discussing improvements from season to season.
     
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