I talked to three people last night not connected to the Trail Blazer organization who were on hand in Las Vegas for the summer league. After promising anonymity I got some very frank observations. Everyone seemed to see him the same way:

“He’s a pretty good player. He can get to the basket and he can score. But he’s not a point guard. He can bring the ball up, I think. But he doesn’t see other people. He doesn’t seem to know how to create for other people or when to get them the ball. He’s not a playmaker.”

“He’s got a scorer’s mentality. He will score. He needs to get better from the outside. If he can hit a jump shot he’s going to be tough to defend. But I didn’t seen him hit many.”

“He could be a point guard, just not in the traditional sense. He’s not going to set a lot of people up.  He’s a scorer and a tough kid. I’m not sure how well he’ll defend 2s, though. He might be better off with a team that can just let him be what he is — a guy who wants to go to the basket. But he needs to learn how to get the ball to people if he’s stopped.”

People have accused me in the comments of being down on Bayless and that’s not the case. I’m just trying to objectively speak about him as this team’s point guard of the future. I’ve thought since last season he just doesn’t have that point guard mentality and it’s something that’s pretty difficult to instill at this point of a player’s career.

There is no question in my mind a deal will be made for another point guard before the season opens.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Portland Trail Blazers, summer league

Our boy at Blazers Edge, Ben, was all over last night’s summer-league game and his report is chock full of good stuff. I’m not one to put any real stock in what happens down there, but there were a couple of things from Jerryd Bayless I wasn’t too fond of. This from Ben’s post:

On paper, the game seemed like it would be a matchup between the Blazers’ supposed point guard of the future, Bayless, and a player the team was rumored to have interest in on draft night, University of North Carolina product Ty Lawson. The Nuggets’ trapping defense prevented a true head-to-head matchup, as they took the ball out of Bayless’s hands and made the rest of the depleted Blazers beat them offensively — which never happened. Lawson finished with a superb line of 26 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 turnovers, besting Bayless’s 19 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 6 turnovers.

Nevertheless, after the game Bayless seemed to claim that he had succeeded in shutting down Lawson, “When I was on him I think it showed it wasn’t going to happen like that.” Instead, Bayless pointed to his teammates’ mental breakdowns, “We gotta know the scouting reports on people. We were trying to make Ty shoot the ball. But when I got switched off on him [and the shot clock was running down] we would get up on him, you can’t pressure someone that fast. He’s too fast for that.” Although Bayless otherwise did a solid job of containing his frustration, he appeared to be growing weary of the talent gap that exists between himself and some of his teammates.

What happened on the floor is one thing, but to me it’s even worse to alibi or to publicly pin blame on teammates. That’s a little bit lame. Just be a pro, say the right things and move on. There’s another game today. Sometimes you wonder if the kid isn’t a little too cocky for his own good — it could inhibit improvement.

And even though it’s summer league, it’s not too early to ask the question — who looks more like an NBA point guard right now: Bayless or Ty Lawson?

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Portland Trail Blazers, summer league, Ty Lawson