I actually don't think he is a lousy teacher. I think he is lousy at teaching X's and O's. He is great at teaching his players to compete.
On this point we agree, Nik... Though I don't necessarily think that it has to be defensive toughness (I'd love it if it was). I think the thing we're missing is a tough big who can instill something fierce into Greg and LMA (and Channing, to a lesser extent). For the guards, I'd love to see someone who's a playmaker, who can show Roy what getting easy baskets is like. Just look at the Olympic team...LBJ and K*be and CP3 and Deron Williams are all guys who "dominate the ball", but all were able to coexist b/c they had playmakers. That's why I keep saying that in a dream world, I'd kinda like to see how Kenyon Martin and Steve Nash would fit on our team. You don't get easy layups on Kenyon Martin, you get a forearm in your chest. You don't have "stagnant offense" with Steve Nash in the game.
Ok I'll throw this bone out there. Shooting percentage defense not so good. But when you look at steals per game, Portland is 12th. That is upper half of the league. The really surprising stat if you ask me, is that Portland is in the middle of the pack in blocks. But if you consider that Oden has maybe played half the games so far, that is not a shock. I expect the Blazers to go up that chart in the next few weeks.
This is what I was trying to say yesterday. Take the toughest opening schedule in history and I'd bet most teams were in the bottom rankings on defense. Or we all need to continue with the plan on letting our guys develop.
I think this may be the biggest deficency of the team right now. Roy is pretty tough in his own way as is Joel, but not as overtly as Artest or Wallace. I wonder if we could hire Charles Oakley to be our big man coach. That dude built an entire career out of being tough as hell.
With Oden on the team, thre is talk about bringing in toughness? I'm disappointed with Oden's quickness/explosion, defensive rotations, ability to get up and down the floor and other aspects . . . but can't we at least count on this guy being our tough guy in the middle . . . I know at times it seems he is made of glass, but if there is anything that I'm not disappointed (and where he has lived up to the hype) is his size. He is our tough guy, right?
There's a distinction, but it's an important one: tough and a veteran. Tough and a rookie aint gonna cut it. And I'm not really talking about a tough guy clogging up the middle, I'm talking about a tough guy that helps instill fear in opponents and inspires toughness in teammates -- like Ron Artest (minus the crazy would be a bonus). We need at least one more guy who says to themselves when they get the ball, "I'm gonna ram this goddamn ball down your throat and there's nothing you can do to stop me." Right now we have exactly one guy that does that, and that's Brandon. Greg might be able to do this some day, but that could be a ways off.
I think our D will continue to slowly get better. Our Off. will start to cool down a bit. I'd rather be a great D team and an average Off. team than the other way around.
I hope you are right about our D - but I have no idea why our offense would get worse. It would only get worse uif our post play (Aldridge / Greg and to a lesser degree - Joel) - does not improve. I have no idea if Oden will ever be an elite post player - but he has all the tools in the world to be much better than he is right now - so I would be shocked if he does not become better. The same (to a lesser degree) is true about Aldridge - he is just a lot more along in his development than Greg.
Because we will start to cool down a little more from the outside. 2 games ago we were #1 in 3 point %.
Yes, but 3 games ago we were #2 (where we are now) - we just had one crazy 3pt game in Sacramento. Blake has been a 40%+ 3pt shooter his entire career. Rudy shot the long ball well in the Spanish league as well. Travis was a 42% 3P shooter last year. Brandon has clearly worked on his shot in the off-season - I am not going to doubt his prowess. Batum - I do not know if he can stay at 42% - but who knows? We are getting Marty back - and he is not a bad 3P shooter. I can't see us falling too much in the 3 ball - this team just has many good 3P shooters.
Right on MrJayremmie. Great defensive teams always give themselves a chance to win ball games. Jordan era Bulls, Bad Boy Pistons, and Spurs (Duncan era) were great defensive teams. Hopefully, the Blazers follow suite to make defense the first priority, in that I would hate to see them go the way of those "run and gun" teams that fail miserable in the playoffs. I'm still reeling from the defensive potential the Adelman coached Blazers had during the title runs. Just imagine, the outcome could have been different had Adelmen prioritized defense. This current team has the personnel to be a great defensively and therefore their identity should be defense. Hopefully the coaching staff doesn't plunder this opportunity. Defense wins championships.
