Subscribe Feed (RSS)Not sure why, but I have thought all along that Portland still has some sort of point-guard deal on the back burner that would be announced after the free agency chase is done. Not sure if it’s Kirk Hinrich, but that’s the one that makes the most sense.
Part of my suspicion is based on the fact that Portland hasn’t seemed to show a lot of interest in the free-agent point guards out there. They’ve been after forwards. Could that be because they’ve got a point guard already in their grasp?
I’ve also wondered if the Bayless point guard experiment in Las Vegas is a bit of a showcase, too. Perhaps they’re trying to prove to other teams Bayless can play the point. If so, that’s probably not going so well. It would make some degree of sense, though, because if you’re going out to acquire a point, you’re probably going to have to give one back.
Just idle summer musings.
Tags: Dwight Jaynes, free agency, Jerryd Bayless, Kirk Hinrich, point guards, Portland Trail Blazers
I think this makes sense. I mean, right now the Blazers have one legitimate/proven point guard in Steve Blake. If they don’t improve this position and Steve gets injured or something, what do they do?
Say what you want about Bayless, but he certainly hasn’t proved he can be a point guard in this league. The use Rudy or Roy as a PG idea sounds interesting, and may work, but is also unproven.
I think they should just bring in an old timer like Brevin Knight Johnson. He’s probably still better than Pooh Jeter, right?
Mike, I agree and have been saying as much. Also around are Jason Hart and Kevin Ollie. Brevin Knight would be my fave of the group. Hart is younger and solid.
Maybe this has something to do with Bayless saying he did – or didn’t – work out with Greg. Maybe he knows he’s trade bait so he’s copping an attitude.
It was interesting seeing Bayless in Vegas again. He immediately went back to one of his familiar moves from last year’s summer league: The one where he drives and then bounces off the low-post defender with his body and flips it up and in.
That was one reason I was super-high on his prospects coming into the NBA, but it didn’t translate. The bigger, quicker types in the paint in the NBA took that move and just smothered it.
I think that’s what they mean when they say, “learning to play in the NBA”. You have to adjust your game to the new capabilities of your opponent. Bayless struggled to do that. Frankly, Bayless was a big disappointment to me last year, especially after he lit up summer league.
This year the temptation is to get carried away about Dante Cunningham, but I’ve learned to wait and see.
So who’s still out there at guard? I think Andre Miller went to the Knicks. Kirk Hinrich would be – at this point – a Godsend. Is Felton in play – the North Carolina guy with Charlotte?
Maybe we could just ask for a show of hands in the league to see if anyone wants to come here.
Whether it is subterfuge or not, the Blazers seem to be happy with the PG position now, they have (forgive me, I can’t remember where exactly I read it) stated before that they have no plans to trade Blake. Maybe they are actually telling the truth?
Blake knows Nate’s system and plays well off of Roy. He can hit the 3 off of penetration (something we know Andre Miller can’t do). he is a defensive liability, but maybe the Blazers are confident Oden will provide a better defensive backstop, making Blake’s lack of D less of an issue?
In my mind there is no doubt we could get a better “player” at the PG position, but maybe the team thinks Blake is the better choice right now for THE TEAM.
Kirk would be an upgrade defensively..and I wouldn’t mind seeing him in a Blazers uni. Maybe KP and the Gang (Wasn’t that a disco band?) see things differently.
One of Blakes big glaring shortcomings, given the talent around him, is that he shoots WAY too much considering he’s got lamarcus and Oden and Pryzbilla under the hoop. Hopefully we’ll see his shots/attempts go down next season as LA’s post prowess continues and Oden gets more solid down there. I would be very disappointed as a fan if Blake continues to rack up shots as much as last season.
9 per game, half of which are wide open 3s on kickouts – he HAS to take those.
9 per game is hardly excessive for a starter playing ~28 minutes per game, and Blake rarely if ever takes a forced shot that he shouldn’t – he’s a smart player who knows his limitations.
The vast majority of his shots come on kickouts to him for wide open attempts. That’s his job to take those. If he didn’t, he’d be on the bench.
Thanks- I agree.
Hopefully the 10-15 fade away prayers from Outlaw as well as the 4-5 flailing airballs from Sergio will also be allocated to LMA, Roy and Oden.
Blake doesn’t shoot too much. At all.
Blake shoots too much? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. When he’s open, he shoots. He shoots exactly when he’s supposed to. If he started passing up open 3’s, he’d be hurting the team.
You can make several criticisms of Blake, but shooting too much is not one of them.
Seems like I heard a lot of “we didn’t get the ball inside and settle for the 3″. “Ball movement wasn’t there and the jumper wasn’t going in”.
And our point guard shot/had the highest percentage of 3’s of his career. I get it, he takes the open shot and generally has good decision-making, and I get that Martell is out…but it all seems to come cost of not enough ball movement with the default being “shoot, and don’t keep passing”.
Am I way off base here?
im all for pushing the ball inside more and increasing ball/player movement. no argument there. but that doesn’t necessarily equate to saying “blake shoots too much”. You have to take what the defense gives you. If you get the ball down low, and LMA gets doubled, then you kick it out to a wide open Blake, you have to take that shot.
I personally would love to see more pick and roll (not the pick and pop or pick and drive we do almost exclusively), and a lot more plays that get players cutting to the basket. But in the end, if blake is sitting on the 3 point line with no one near him, that’s a good shot, and him hitting 42.7% of those is like hitting 64% from inside.
I have felt the same way for some time. I became somewhat concerned though when Ben Gordon signed with Detroit.
We need a point guard and yet we seem to be ignoring point guards, why? Even the immediate comment about Patty Mills passport speaks of a stronger point guard position than what I see.
One other omission that I find interesting is a seeming lack of emphasis on Rudy’s improvement over the off season. Clearly Rudy broke down somewhat during the season last year. He seemed to get thinner as the year went on.
Why is there not talk of him bulking up a little bit and getting stronger in order to endure the physical demands of the NBA? It is the only thing that separates him from having a very solid NBA career. Batum puts on twenty pounds, Greg drops twenty, yet maybe the player who needs the most work on his body is not mentioned. Curious.
Batum put on 20? Awesome.
He says he is at 220 now.
Dwight, I hope your hunch is correct, but KP did say publicly that they were happy with their current pg situation and when someone asked if they were going to look to upgrade he said that it wasn’t a priority. Obviously, KP is going show his cards, but it seems to me that they really like Blake a lot. I like the idea of adding a solid PG and making Blake the third guard (pg/sg, first off of the bench). Bayless is a talented player who has a tremendous work ethic, but he is clearly a scoring guard. Nate and KP know what he is so the thought that they may be showcasing him makes sense, but it also makes sense that he could play next to Roy eventually. He wouldn’t be the distributor, he’d be a slashing backcourt scorer who could take pressure off of Roy. He’s not as bad of a shooter as he’s made out to be either. He’ll have to shoot better, but he’s not horrible and the fact that he works so hard, has talent and is only 20 yrs. old leads one to believe that he’ll improve. He’s a solid ball handler and can bring the ball up the floor. He’ll just never be a playmaker as a true PG. At this point though I can’t see how they would be happy going into the season with Bayless and Blake.
I’m still holding onto hope that we make a deal for Devin Harris, but I’m doubting it at this point. If they were to throw in Eddy Najera, they’d clear another long term contract.
However, I’m not going to be upset if we wait a few months to do anything. I’m not crazy about Hinrich, Miller is old, Felton might be ok he’ll be expensive and his shot selection sucks. There has to be something going on at some point.
On the PG issue, is it possible that this spot on the roster is the mysterious KP pronouncement, “if you only knew who we were talking about?” I keep thinking about that comment and it’s driving me crazy–which PG might he have been talking about? Where would a surprise player come from?
On the other hand, maybe it was Hedo he had in mind when he said that way back when?
CP!!!!!!!!
If it were CP, there’d be general celebration in this town.
Dwight, why in the world would they try to showcase Bayless as something he isn’t? Come on, he’s a scoring gaurd who can get to anywhere on the floor he wants to, finish draw fouls. That’s like showcasing Chis Dudley as a guy that can win you a close ballgame from the free throw line.
CP!!!!!!
Seems like nobody’s mentioning David Lee anymore. Good.
actually, one of the idiotic new york news sources is still trying to insist that Portland is interested, especially now because Utah matched. I did read this morning that apparently Chris Paul thinks he could be traded.
For the David Lee “news”
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/2009/07/17/2009-07-17_jazz_move_provides_david_lee_room_to_move_to_trail_blazers.html
For the Chris Paul thing:
http://www.probasketballnews.com/story/?storyid=647
Given Jerryd’s shortcomings/unproven game, it is fairly obvious we need another PG.
Right now there isn’t any one reliable besides Blake. IF they make a move for Hinrich, it needs to be done in a trade for a SF.
Personally, I like Blake on this team and would be happy to find a vet PG, who signs for the minimum and can provide a stop game until Bayless proves himself. Hopefully that Vet will be better than Sergio.
Brevin Knight, Kevin Ollie, Jason Hart. Luther Head? PG? Head’s career has gone downhill and since I don’t know why, he’s a question mark. But the other 3 fit what you said very well.
Let’s say for a moment that Jerryd had the following stats from the last summer leaque game: 21:19 6-11 0-1 3-3 1 1 2 6 3 0 1 0 15
That’s six assists – one turnover – 15 points – in 21 minutes. I think that would be a very nice line score from him.
Well – it turns out someone did have that line score in the game. I wonder if P. Jeter will be able to keep doing that. It sure takes some of the wind out of the excuse “the guys Jerryd is passing to are missing shots” excuse.
Tree,
Did you see the mauling Ty Lawson put on Jeter last night?
As intriguing as Jeter is, I just don’t think his slight frame is fit for guarding any NBA proven PG.
Who knows though, maybe I’m wrong.
His frame isn’t slight. He’s short; is that what you mean?
Dwight, what would it take to get Chris Paul and give N.O. the cap relief they so desperately need?
In your opinion, would N.O. really look at trading Chris Paul?
I think it’d take some combonation of 3 players, one being Roy. Probably Roy, Outlaw, and Bayless. Is it worth it?
Yes
but Roy doesn’t give them cap relief. trading one guy making the max salary for another guy making the max salary is not going to help your finances really.
CP3 was talking hypotheticals “hey anything’s possible”. New Orleans isn’t even close to considering trading him. They would have to be about to go under to do that, and if they get that desperate, they will want a straight salary dump for draft picks and young guys with several years left on their rookie contracts.
Roy isn’t a max guy yet and hasn’t been extended yet. Right now he’s an expiring contract.
You guys are missing the point of any Chris Paul trade. If New Orleans ever does decide to deal him, it won’t be for equal talent or salaries. It would be to get rid of salaries. You’re talking about a very unbalanced deal. Give them a couple of expiring contracts and then gather all the cap space you can muster and ship it off. I just don’t see NO as quite ready to do that. He’s their drawing card so you won’t seem them make this deal until they’re totally ready to give up.
Plus all of your 1st round picks for the next 5 years and Paul Allen’s yacht the Octopus….
LOL
exactly. i just posted the same in the previous thread above. they will want draft picks, expiring deals, and young cheap talent (like rudy or Batum).
it makes ZERO sense to trade him for another max contract guy (Roy)
but they are no where NEAR ready to do that yet.
Paul is next to impossible to be traded now, because he has one of those poison pill contracts. Whoever takes him has to absorb the average of his new contract, and NO can only take back (since they are over the cap) last year’s salary. We would have to have 12+ million of cap space, and NO would have to take back just Rudy.
Once the season starts, he will be in year 1 of the new deal, and NO could take back whatever salary he has (13 million?). From Portland’s side, Roy and Aldridge (assuming they sign extensions) would have poison pill contracts and would become next to impossible to deal.
Portland could still have their space, though, so we could move Bayless and Rudy for Paul once the season begins. I offer up Rudy only because NO will want something of value and Rudy could probably be a 20pt a game guy, especially on what would be a bad team.
If Portland had a chance to land Chris Paul, I seriously doubt Paul Allen would worry about the poison pill
Bottom line, that is the type of point guard that could win us a championship
Dwight,
I’ll take your hunch about this, especially over Pasero’s hunch that Tiger would win the British Open. He didn’t even make the cut.
Too many hunches and your posture is going to suffer…
ESPN Insider today says CP3 acknolwedges they may be looking at trading him.
Dwight,
Explain to me why New Orleans would bother compiling our future draft picks when we’ve been picked to be a winning team for the next few years.
Get your heads out of your asses people. This is as big of a pipe dream as could be.
Having any real knowledge of the game, ie, high level experience, is not required in order to voice one’s opinion about it. I liken it to speaking with authority about high performance automobiles without ever having driven one. It becomes an imbalanced world of combine measurements.