Looking ahead to the Trail Blazer season
Geesh, enough about the 15th roster spot. Kevin Pritchard and Nate McMillan got to pick the first 14 players, isn’t it OK if Paul Allen, who is picking up the tab for all this frivolity, is allowed to choose No. 15?
The more I think about it, keeping Patty Mills is the better long-term play anyway. A year from now, he may have some value — either as a player or as a trade piece. A whole lot of people I respect a lot believe the kid can play. And given the roster logjam, it doesn’t hurt to have a guy around who isn’t ready to play.
It’s kind of funny, though, I thought it was Minnesota that was supposed to have the obsession with point guards?
I mentioned yesterday that I thought having so many players is hurting Portland’s preparation for the upcoming season. I firmly believe that to be true.
But I wouldn’t want that to be construed as thinking the Blazers won’t eventually find themselves. I believe they will but it may be quite a few games into the regular season.
I’ve seen good teams muddle through the exhibition season and then take off as soon as the real games start. It’s hard to motivate veteran players for exhibition games. I don’t think it’s going to be easy for this bunch. There are too many young players trying to figure out where they belong in the league.
But it’s going to happen for them. It might take a month — maybe even two. It might take an injury or two to thin the roster down. But there is too much talent here to expect the team to struggle for more than about 25 games.
And while it’s so easy to look at the offense and find fault, it’s still the defense that’s the most troubling. The Blazers so far have not improved at all from last season on the defensive end of the floor. And to get anywhere, they’ve got to tighten up — a lot. What we’ve seen so far just isn’t anywhere close to as good as they’ll need to get past the first round of the playoffs.
That’s why I expect Nic Batum and Greg Oden in the starting lineup when the season starts. They’re solid at the defensive end. And if that happens, the real intrigue will be as Oden introduces the New Greg to the real referees, assuming they’re back by then. He needs to start getting respect from those guys. If he does, the Blazers will be changed a great deal.
For the better.
NBA, Trail Blazers | Dwight Jaynes | October 22, 2009
Dwight Jaynes, Ime Udoka, Jarron Collins, Kevin Pritchard, Nate McMillan, Patty Mills, Paul Allen, Portland Trail Blazers
Dwight:
Patty Mills is a stud. He is raw to be sure. He is a victim of 2 things that dropped his draft status:He came out after his junior year when he was advised by virtually all scouts to stay for his senior year…and, he played at a small WCC school (St. Mary’s).
As a Zag, I can tell you…I watched this kid, and he is very, very good.
If he would have stayed his senior year, he would have been drafted 30-35 spots higher.
I know PDX loves Ime. I do too! However, lets face facts. At this stage in his career he is a 10-day contract type of player. Collins? Seriously? The guy is Frankenstein in lead boots.
work the potential. The Blazers have their geriatric big man already in Juwan. One is enough.
Mills came out before his Junior year and had a broken wrist to boot. He hasn’t shown great ball handling skills as he’s a bit turnover prone, but the potential is there. He fell because of the wrist and the fact he played at a small school putting up huge offensive numbers with high turnovers and few assists. I don’t dislike the signing, but he’s a project.
Dwight,
One gets the feeling that Nate isn’t all that concerned about the preseason or the roster. Nate is a realist, he knows he has to play the hand dealt. Until now this team lacked overall speed and ballhandling and that certain defensive mindset. Oden appears to be developing at a pace that will change these limitations some time later this year. If Oden develops into a passer off the low post this Blazer team could be dangerous this year – to anyone.
With all due respects to Roy and Alderidge, Oden is the key success. Nate The Realist knows this and will quietly work into the rotation a point guard who understands this (Andre Miller). It could very well be that Miller and Oden, at the beginning of the season, come off the bench together or start together. Either way Blake works better with Roy and Pryzbilla and will not see the same amount of playing time this year or next as he did last year. As Oden’s time increases with his development Blake’s time will diminish.
Dwight,
I completely agree with your post. It will be quite interesting to see how the Blazers start this season. They seem like they’re bursting with potential, but I am cautiously optimistic about this season. I would not be surprised if they sputter out of the gate and finish strong. It will also be interesting to watch how much respect Greg gets from the refs. Greg IS the key to the season as Walt pointed out. Looking forward to Tuesday’s game against a defense oriented Rockets.
How can a coach that is thought of all around the league as a defensive-minded coach not figure out how to teach his team how to play defense? The only guy on this team who’s been around longer than Nate is Travis. Everyone else (core team) should know what he wants and expects by now. Maybe Nate isn’t the guy to lead this team to the next level. And if he’s not, I’m not sure who you bring in to replace him (unless Addleman wants to come back).
As the Blazers and Sonics fan, I can give you a few names who would be good for a team on the brink of a championship push (and some of them are great, for a two-three year window, before they start going south): Larry Brown, Mike Fratello, Doug Collins, Jim O’Brien, and Chris Ford.
Well said. I like Collins.
Dwight-
Well said on all points. I’ll add one thing. I think the chemistry struggle has had more to do with the lack of interest in the early pre-season and injuries keeping key players (GO, LMA, Rudy, etc…) out of what will be the regular rotation.
However, I think the most important chemistry issue for the team is the fact that Andre’s & Brandon’s games are too similar. When on the court, they tend to duplicate each other. Yes, a part of Andre’s game is the post-up, which Brandon doesn’t do a lot of and yes, Brandon is a better outside shooter. But, their main strengths are identical. Get others involved, penetrate and score or dish. In almost any other case, I’d say get Blake on the floor with Brandon, so he can be Brandon. So far though Andre’s been better at feeding the post and we all know that if we are going to go deep in the playoffs, it will be because of the huge leap Oden makes this year.
I think the bigger issue with this team is that they almost have to change their identity with an improved Oden and the addition of Miller and it’s a good thing IMO. They no longer have to be a jump shooting team because Miller knows how to get to the hoop and Oden is showing that he is a capable post up player. This team is now better equiped to get easy baskets. Oden will get to the free throw line A lot IF he gets the ball on the block. Same with Miller. The guy puts so much pressure on the defense that he gets to the foul line, scores or finds the open man. If Portland is still a jumpshooting team now that they have these elements at their disposal I will be worried. If Greg Oden can get just 10 touches a game he’s going to collapse the defense. It’s a no-brainer IMO. This is why I feel that Miller and GO need to start. They are not jump shooters and they can get the team easy baskets. Going back to Blake, Roy, Batum, Aldridge and Joel to me says that Nate is content to play the same style as last year. I guess that’s ok because they won 54 games, but it’s not ok if they want to go deeper in to the playoffs. As for the rotation, I think Nate is the kind of coach who will choose 8-9 players and stick with them regardless if there are guys who deserve time. I don’t see him being indecisive with his players. Obviously this means that a guy like Travis Outlaw may not even see the court. Nate knows that he has to bite the bullet with a couple of these guys, but he’ll do it.
If that’s the case, and I agree that Travis mayo see diminished time this season with all of this depth, the Blazers need to look at trading him. For who or what, I don’t know, but stockpiling another mid-to-low first round pick is not a bad idea; I’m sure somebody would do that. OKC Thunder? Also, some 2-for-1, 3-for-1, 4-for-2 thinning-out trades are in order.
Excellent point. I can’t even recall the number of times I thought/heard the Blazers relied on the jumpshot too much. Why is it that Brandon’s the only one allowed to drive to the hoop? Shouldn’t that be the PG’s responsibility? I would have love to actually see Travis drive to the hoop once in awhile last year and it never happened. Rudy is/was undersized to do it. Bayless does it, but is rarely on the floor with BRoy. Is it such a bad thing to have more than one or two scoring options on the floor at once?
For everyone who is pinning their hopes on Greg Oden…you’re all going to be disappointed. He hasn’t yet learned how to play without fouling. and you can’t keep blaming it on the refs. Oden fouls all the time. It might take him a while longer to learn to plan defense correctly. He’s going to play 20-24 minutes per game because of fouls. That’s it. Whether he starts or not is not very important because it’s not going to change the number of minutes he’s available unless they change the rules to allow 8 or 10 fouls.
He’ll get frustrated sometime during the first 10 games, then start pouting and go into a prolonged funk. It’s going to happen for him when he gets to be 25 or 26 years old, but so far he’s just too mentally immature and mentally fragile. He’s still just a big kid.
seriously, get a life
Franklin,
When did you turn Muslim?
I have a smart friend named William, who he and his family have great lower bowl season tickets (multiple) to the Blazers and Winterhawks. William walks around with this standoffish look, and we tease him for being “sexually frustrated.” Nate looks just a tad better than that, with his demeanor.
Going back about 12 years, I remember watching the Blazers with a lineup of Rod, McKie, Clifford, Buck, and Dudley starting. Problem was, there were three “non-scorers” there, and Eddie Doucette pointed out on a broadcast that teams would try to take advantage of that (Sabonis came off the bench early that season). Well, how much more of SCORERS are Odom and Batum going to step up and be? Yes, adding Andre Miller will help. B-Roy, LaMarcus and Andre will be the scorers. Outlaw and Fernandez helps, but a championship-aspring team should have at least four starters contributing double digits in points. I hope that Oden can at least be a Michael Olovokandi-type of threat with 12-14 ppg. Then, Batum can be the Bruce Bowen defensive specialist type of player.
To bring it back to the point of your original blog, Dwight, I think Portland made the right move, even if it was to Paul’s favor and not mgmt’s. Patty has legit potential, he’s not another Euro scrub (sorry Petteri), and no matter how good a locker presence Ime would be, we don’t need a 4th or 5th small forward adding to the playing time confusion. I would have liked adding Mills with one of their two picks in the early 2nd round, so getting him at 55 was a coup of sorts. Let’s be honest, Patty is better than Goran Dragic, probably on par with Speedy Claxton or Sebastien Telfair w/o having played a summer league game yet, and could turn into a spit-fire bench player like Will Bynum in Detroit or Kyle Lowry in Houston down the road. Isn’t that worth holding the rights to if Bayless doesn’t quite become the PG they hope? Send Patty to the D-league once he heals and let him get his run with Pendergraph or Dante. It would be nice if the Blazers would actually use the D-league as it’s meant to be used. Bayless should have been sent there for a few stretches to work on PG skills (like 5 summer league games is all he’ll need, geesh!) and mgmt missed out on that opportunity. Now he thinks he’s too good for it.
Greg: 15 pts, 12 reb – 28 minutes per.
Roy: 20 pts, 5 reb, 5 assists
Miller: 13 pts, 6 reb, 8 assists
Aldridge: 18 pts, 8 reb, 2 assists
Batum: 7 pts, 4 reb, 2 assists
Book it!!
After 10 games: 5 W – 5 L
After 20 games: 11 W – 9 L
After 40 games: 24 W – 16 L
After 82 games: 54 W – 28 L
Book it!!
Wow the odenade is flowing today… BarrytheMuslim is spot on with his assesment… And the claim that oden is the” key” to the season is by far the the funniest statement I have ever read here.
“it’s still the defense that’s the most troubling”
So ya cut a solid defensive, scoring SF? This is why you cut loose the potential any and all dream to believe may be in Patty cake(for patty’s sake you already have Bayless playing the role everyone imagines Mill’s may some day be) and you keep Ime. You start Batum and put Ime in as his back up. So there’s your strong, solid, defensive, scoring capable SF rotation for years to come. You then look to trade out the two biggest models of inconsistency in Webster and or Outlaw. Everyone keeps preaching defense yet no one wants to keep defensive players on the roster. They want to hang onto all the young, un-proven, potentially someday players they can gather. If Paul Allen is so concerned about payroll he should just leave the 15th slot open. That would make as more sense than Mills over Ime.
I’m with you on that position and those trades L. I understand keeping mills was an ‘in the long run’ decision, but I would have rather seen a decision to keep batum/udoka with their defensive skills (& and leadership for D?) at that position in the interest of our developing our D for the long run.