I think it's more roster construction than scheme, but certainly, the iso-heavy Stotts offense leaves Portland more vulnerable to Dame-centric defenses. as an Olshey supporter, I'd imagine even you might admit that Olshey does seem to have a tendency to force Stotts into playing guys Olshey thinks deserve the playing time. I think that's been part of the issue because Olshey's apparent stubborn insistence that CJ can play PG has kept him from adding somebody that could actually run the offense when a defense forces the ball out of Dame's hands. CJ can run his own offense effectively, some of the time, but not the team's. Turner, and Napier, and Curry couldn't do either that well. And I seriously doubt that Bazemore, Simons, and Hezonja will be any better at it, and most likely worse from what I've seen so far I suppose some of that is unfair to CJ because it's kind of like blaming him for not being Lebron or Paul George. On the other hand much of it is fair because he's not even a Rondo or a Van Vleet or an Iggy the roster construction issue is that opposing teams get a 2-for-1 bonus by shutting down Dame: they take out Portland's best scorer, and they take out the only guy who can consistently run the offense. If Dame was paired with Jrue Holiday, or Malcolm Brogdon, or Bradley Beal, or Devin Booker....guys who have proven themselves capable of consistently implementing an offense, the Stop-Dame defense would not be nearly as effective. Even having a SF similar to the Batum of 5 years ago would be an improvement, although it would only be a step in a good direction
wow, that's one of the dumbest analogies I have seen in this forum and there have been some real doozies. Comparing Anthony Davis in a trade for Whiteside is similar to a Whiteside package for a Harrell package. Thanks for the pre Christmas chuckle.
Portland will get worse this season by trading Whiteside. That doesn't mean that we should keep him. Though a blockbuster including Bazemore as well as Whiteside could net any number of possibilities.
I really wish there was a team that wanted to pull a Knicks from last year and do whatever it took to clear salary and gave up a really good player or picks or something to do so. It's unlikely given the free agent class this summer but I'm holding out hope that a team will be dumb anyway.
This is how teams like Portland can hope to compete. Stop wasting resources for a chance at free agents. We need to plan for high dollar expiring contracts and have good relationships with other teams. Then we need to strike when that fire is hot. If it doesn't happen this year we need to figure out how to push it to next year. Hopefully it happens while Dame is in his prime. If not, do what Dame wants. If he wants to go to a contender then trade him for the best return you can get and start the process over. Keep great culture. Bring in former skill players with winning history as coaches and staff. When it's time to reset, tank hard, draft well, trade well, forget free agents.
This is why I'm in favor of trading expirings for guys like Snell, Dieng, and Otto Porter IF they can't make a better trade. All of those guys have expring contracts next year so it keeps the window open to make that type of trade. If we hold on to Whiteside and Bazemore then they'd have trouble matching salary for any big trade next year.
