Subscribe Feed (RSS)I sat watching the tail-end of the Portland scrimmage Wednesday morning and couldn’t help but shake my head. The team was divided into three squads — with one sitting out, resting up to take on one of the other groups.
And the thing that got me shaking my head was that at all times, there was someone suited up for the team on the sidelines who should probably be a rotation player for an NBA team. In some cases, it was a guy who should be a heavy-minute rotation player.
There are two things that will make it easy this year to dole out minutes — one of them is bad and the other is impossible. The first is some serious injuries. If the herd is culled a little through injury, as it was last season to a degree, Coach Nate McMillan will be able to work up a pretty consistent rotation.
The other thing that would aid the coaching staff a lot is the NBA deciding that 12-minute quarters aren’t good enough and that 15-minute quarters would be much better.
I’m afraid odds of the latter happening aren’t good.
Folks, this is going to be a pretty impossible job, not only trying to figure out who starts for this team, but who will play and how much. Barring some serious injury, it’s going to be a pretty disappointing for a few players — or a lot of players.
You see, there a couple of ways to do this. You can kind of slice the minutes for everyone — including your best players — and come up with a little more playing time for the bench guys. If the team becomes dominant enough to win games by heavy margins, which could be possible, that method would be easier.
Or, if you decide you don’t want to do it that way, you could just make some real ruthless decisions and decide that two or three guys — people who probably should play some — won’t play at all.
Pick your poison.
And I mean poison, because that’s what the locker-room atmosphere could be if the people sitting the bench decide they can’t take it any more. It’s why McMillan talked even before training camp about how necessary it is for players to put the team first.
Fans always think that’s a no-brainer. They assume because of these players’ massive salaries they’d be content to sit on the bench, not risk injury or fatigue and just collect their money — as long as the team is winning.
But I can tell you after a quarter of a century of covering the NBA, it just doesn’t always work out that way. It’s going to be a real tricky situation to keep people happy. Hey, this is a bunch of players who haven’t had to sit the bench very often in their lives. And it’s a roster full of young players anxious to prove their worth and improve their skills — and of course, collect the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that in many cases is going to have to be responsible for their financial security when their playing days are over.
All over the court there are battles for starting jobs and playing time. The starting jobs will probably be the easy part. It’s the rest of the rotation that is going to get a little bit dicey.
In the end, depth is a great thing — if you have a lot of injuries. It gives you security and keeps a team from dropping off the ledge if a couple of players go down. But I can look back at an awful lot of NBA champions and say, they didn’t have a lot of depth. They didn’t have tussles just to make it into an eight- or nine-man rotation — let alone a 10-man rotation like McMillan has somtimes used in the past.
Most of those teams didn’t have nine or 10 players (or more) who could all start for another NBA team. This Portland team, however, does have that.
I don’t think that kind of depth is a requirement of being a champion. And I think too much depth can undermine a coach and make it difficult to focus a smaller group on team play. Don’t forget — working that many players into all the drills and strategy sessions throughout the season could possibly detract from the development of the key six or seven players who will probably will be the ultimate game-deciders.
You can say that competition for the rotation spots is healthy and keeps players at the top of their game. It usually is, but some players will perform better if they don’t feel threatened by another player breathing down their neck for playing time. There can be a comfort level with knowing that you have won a job and that a certain amount of minutes come with that job. There are players who just can’t relax thinking that the next mistake they make will result in a quick exit from the court.
I’m not trying to be negative here, just merely pointing out that loading a roster up with a lot of players who expect — and should get — significant playing time, is a minefield. At a certain point this roster must be thinned out.
Decisions, as painful and risky as they may be, must be made. Players must be patted on the back and handed a plane ticket – for their own good and for that of the team. Finding the right time to do that — and the right method of doing it — is a difficult job.
Because if you wait too long, you can allow your own players to be devalued because they’ve had to accept a lesser role.
I agree Dwight. On a side note, since you mentioned ‘running’, I am excited the Blazers got Miller. Since it looks like we will be stuck with Nate for a while still, Miller is the next best thing to a new coach. He will be the floor general and he likes to run and take advantage of easy opportunities. Hopefully he will be able to force the issue some and I sure hope Nate does not try to beat that out of him.
The depth this team has is mind boggling. The Blazer’s marketing guys should seriously do a marketing campaign around this fact. Something to point out that while most teams have a starting 5 and a second unit, the Blazers will have two starting units, they just don’t play at the same time.
I agree Dwight…
This is the first season that I am beginning to fall into that camp. I would probably feel better just by having someone like Outlaw traded for a future pick. He seems like the guy that could become a real distraction.
The other one I worry about is Rudy, but I don’t think you can dump him yet. He’s too valuable and only getting better. Also, if Roy goes down for a sustained time period (always possible with his history), Rudy could really help keep the ship afloat.
OUTLAW! OUTLAW! OUTLAW!
How this guy is still on the team just floors me!
Just say it Dwight! You’ve got more balls than the other stiff writers in this town. Just come out and write 5 or 6 paragraphs explain why Outlaw must go…and why he must go now!
Also, Rudy should start at the three. Why not put your best players on the floor at the start of the game? Wait, Nate did do that once…when the Blazers were about to get bounced from the playoffs! Great coaching!
I used to be on the band wagon to get rid of Outlaw, but today I started wondering … Outlaw can play the 3 and has advantages against 2nd tier 4’s. So he can play and does play the 3-4 spot, then we have Webster who can play the 2 and the 3. Jerryd Bayless can play the 1 or 2 (in spurts). Who can play the 4 and the 5?
Rudy can play the 2, wouldn’t reccomend playing him at the 3.
Blake can play the 1, that’s all.
Roy plays the 2, can play the 1 or 3 but is best at 2.
Batum plays the 3, and that’s basically it.
Lamarcus is a 4 but can play 5.
Greg and Joel both play the 5.
To me, the best option for the team is to trade Rudy, Blake, & Pendergraph. I love Rudy but his back up posistion is covered by Webster or Bayless. He would excell much much more if he could gain more minutes either as a starter or coming off the bench behind someone who is not considered a top 5 two guard in the NBA. In this case Nate can still go small with the second unit like he does, and with Juwan Howard on board, he can go normal too.
but then again there are many positives to Trading Outlaw too, because of Dante Cunningham.
Outlaw, Blake and Pryz will certainly see their minutes decrease. I would imagine Blake won’t see the floor much on certain nights, depending on whether the team needs a spot-up shooter.
The good thing is we have a great bunch of TEAM guys and that will get us to the all-star break at which point they will offload whoever doesn’t fit into the new plans.
Things will work themselves out. There is no need to micro manage at this point.
How about we get into the season a little farther (in order to see what we have got as well as what we need) before we fall into the trap of making any kind of hurried or pressured decisions.
Here is a list of the players who we pretty well know about:
1. Brandon Roy
2. Lamarcus Aldridge
3. Joel Prysbilla
4. Steve Blake
Here is a list of players who need major updates in their evaluations:
1. Jerryd Bayless
2. Greg Oden
3. Nic Batum
4. Andre Miller
5. Travis Outlaw
6. Martell Webster
7. Juwan Howard
8. Daunte Cunningham
9. Jeff Pendergraph
10. Rudy Fernandez
11. Etc…
It should be apparent why we should not thin the herd too much now. The time for us to finalize a championship roster will be here soon enough. Maybe even later on this year before the trade deadline?
I didn’t know Jarron Collins’s nick name was Etc…
Thanks for letting me know.
Go Etc! Let’s get this thing going!
I agree with many points in the post. I’ve been saying it all off season, and taking my fair share of flak for it, this will be Nate’s make or break season. The players are on this team. At all positions there are players to have success. Whether or not this year is a success is going to depend on Nate, his ability to finally scheme and his ability to put the right players in position to succeed. As much if not more than any one player! Nate is going to have the toughest job and steepest learning curve of anyone on the team.
I agree with Eric too tho. I don’t think the time to do anything as far as culling the herd is here yet. I think you are going to have to play this season out to truly figure out what players are here to stay and which ones are better off elsewhere. I agree with his list of players. At least to the extent that there are far more of our guys at this point we don’t really know enough yet on. We need more info to know for sure if the are keepers or trade bait. This stacked team competition all on it’s own could really help weed out the winners from the losers.
You guys are whistling in the wind tho thinking Travis is one of the guys who has got to go. He aint going anywhere. He is still growing as a player too. Still coach and KP both know what he is and what he aint; and he aint gone yet is he? Stop fooling yourselves on that one. Unless he starts flipping out and demands a trade or some such thing. As long as Nate’s here. Trav’s here. His versatility and game are undervalued by a lot of fans. He can back up LA and that will be his use and where he is needed for at least one more season.
Speaking of Aldridge. Anyone see the twitter pic of LA’s new guns? Dude is getting serious about putting to bed all that “he’s soft” talk!
While not disputing your points here, Dwight, if you wrote a column from heaven it’d be called, “There’s a Downside.”
This is as psyched as I’ve been at this point in the year since back when the Blazers added Danny Ainge to the Drexler squad.
Maybe they’ll be one of those teams with 1 star and nobody else and we can unload a few of these players, but I’m hoping they keep their attitudes together.
I like this group. It’s like the NBA’s answer to Delta Force.
that’s funny bill
everything has a downside
This is true, could you imagine Dwight writing anything positive?
LOL!!!!!
Only three guys who were not playing last year here are Webster, Miller and Howard, plus the rookies. Miller and Howard are on down side of careers, here to give us a chance for big thing next year or so.
But for long term to me Webster becomes the question. How will he fit?? Outlaw or Batum or…?
Maybe they should let guys take entire games off during the long season. Either they don’t suit up or they’re told “you’re not going in unless there is an injury or garbage time”.
kinda glad my name aint nate!!!!
At least the Blazers will have options Dwight. I would much rather have too much depth, than very little, with limited options.
Sounds like you are picking on KP, who has done a hell of a job bringing in a load of talent.
Why be so negative? You should have postponed your commentary on this subject until later in the season, when many prognosticators see the Blazers making such moves (Trade deadline). If that is your motivation, you are merely stating the obvious.
Can you possibly provide some ‘insider’s’ news please? Or are these early practices boring you and providing nothing quality to write about?
Travis is still a question mark? Are you kidding me? Outlaw’s PERs, from his rookie year to last:
16.48
15.48
12.90
15.26
15.64
15.15
Behold the growth! An All-Star berth is imminent! He’s played more as he’s aged, giving him higher per-game averages. But the breakout year many fans annually predict for him came in his rookie year. He is as good as he will ever be. Duh!
Outlaw, if any, will probably be the odd man out. OTOH, he played so little during his rookie season that his PER is not statistically significant–all he got were garbage minutes, if that.
Trout is what he is–a useful bench scorer, with too many liabilities to be a starter. With the increased depth at forward, expect his minutes to decline.
OTOH, he passed the endurance test this year, after failing to do so in prior years.
yes yes we have too much talent and not enough playing time for all. Someone is bound to get cranky in the happy home
such is life
The reality is we have three players in their 2nd year playing (Oden, Batum, and Rudy). The 2nd year is usually the biggest year of playing growth and until we see how they play this season there is simply no moves to be made. KP is no dummy and he knows patience is his allie
Now you have travism blake, and I believe Pryz eligible to be free after this year. Interesting to see especially if Blake and Travis do remain the whole season…
Eventually Dwight, the big bad ol salary cap will force this team to lose or make some moves, but the relaity is we don’t have to face that until next season
This season it is about big depth….and my guess it will be darwinian in nature
Natural selection plus that stingy cap will calm your overload worries. Until then, enjoy the show cause KP has groomed us a 5 star season
Miller, Blake, Roy, Fernandez, Oden, Pryzbilla, and Aldridge will be rotation players.
Two of the three main SF’s will be rotation players (Batum, Webster, Outlaw – depends on injuries, trades, who fits better).
Barring injury, everyone else will get scraps.
Someone will complain but who cares. All the great Blazer teams in the past had a few people whining and they survived. Remember Robin Jones?
For you youngsters out there, Robin Jones was the backup center on the 1977 championship team who was complaining and was actually angry on the day the team won the NBA title because he didn’t get off the bench to give Walton a breather in the 2nd half of a 109-107 nailbiter against a 76er team that was loaded with all-star caliber players.
yeah i remember that… he didnt even celebrate with the team for quite a while. ball baby tit mouse!!
While the premise appears sound, I think this particular doomsday scenario would be a season or two off. AND the team would have to under-perform in that stretch to get to that particular point. With solid leadership these players can control their inner ego; most will feed off wins. If the plan doesn’t yield results, then this scenario may unfold. It’s down the road, I know I won’t be concerned about it now. Makes for good drama, though.
Prediction: McMillan will use a 10-man rotation and the biggest losers will not be the players, but the fans. Players need time on the floor to find their place, to get in the flow. I don’t know who Peyton Manning’s backup is and I don’t want to know. Count me on the “starters should play at least 35 minutes a game” bandwagon. Go to war with your best and force opponents to do the same or pay the price.
i think this is evidence that we should cash in a few of these quality players, ie outlaw, rudy, blake, martell, bayless for a really good player. I think that we’ll get a lot more out of a near all star playing 35 min a game, than we get from bayless not playing, and blake and martell playing under 25. find the trade pritchard, consolidate the roster
I didn’t really get that line about thinning the roster and handing players a plane ticket. Do you mean release them? You can’t be worried about devaluing your players by not playing them and then talk about releasing them, so you must not mean that. So that leaves trading them, but you didn’t really propose that either. It would have to be a trade of several good players for one great one to thus thin the roster, but what kind of player (or even better, who specifically) should be targeted, and who specifically would be the best Blazer candidates in that trade? Being pretty excited about who we have right now, I’d be in favor of trading, say, Outlaw and Bayless (two guys most likely of losing minutes and being unhappy about it) for a high lottery pick (maybe top-3 protected). That gives us a year to evaluate what we have left and then either use that pick or package it with another player or two for a star.
I’m in absolute agreement with Eric’s post – No need to thin anything out at this point. And while Dwight may be right about the whole ‘poison in the locker room’ scenario, so what?
While I would love nothing more if it happened, the Blazers are still at least 1 year away from winning it all. Yes, they might get to the Western Conference Finals, or dare I say THE Finals, but I think they’re still one more playoff experience year away.
I’m content saying that, and therefore, I think its okay to have a packed roster. I’m considering this to be a season-long version of the NFL Combine for the Blazers. Who can endure and swallow their pride? Who’ll bust at the seams? Who’ll whine about on a blog halfway around the world when they’re on All Star Break? Who’d rather be soaking up minutes for the Grizzlies? Time will tell, and in the end, the Blazers will thin the roster accordingly. This is absolutely the year to do it and they couldnt be in a better spot.
My prediction? This time *next* year we’ll be without Bayless & Outlaw.
Howdy, y’all. Thanks for getting back to posting about the Blazers, Dwight.
In terms of the Blazers depth, it’s fools gold, to a certain extent. They have LOTS of depth at the perimeter positions but still lack a backup PF. It’s a mismatched depth and hopefully KP can do something about it in the near future.
You did a post a few months back about how to divide up the minutes and the consensus was:
-start Miller, Roy, Batum, Aldridge, Oden
-play Rudy, Blake and Prezbo big minutes
-everyone else hustles for scraps/waits for opportunities
To all the people saying ’start Rudy’- his D ain’t good enough. We need Batum out there, hopefully for more than 15 minutes a night. He’s our Bruce Bowen.
This is what’s going to happen…. a lot of players are going to be playing some nights and not others. This is going to create chemistry problems and certain players aren’t going to be able to get in a groove. Nate is going to look very perplexed. Just see how he handled the Sergio/Bayless situation last year. He was changing his mind left and right.
I think this is going to be a problem.
As for Outlaw…it really is amazing how much we can hate someone who has hit just about as many big shots as Roy has the past few years.
I don’t hate Outlaw. You’re right- he hits big shots. And he’s gotten better every year. But he still plays really bad D and turns the ball over a lot.
Call me crazy (and I am) but I would like to see Rudy and Roy split minutes at SG. That way Roy is ready to carry the team on his back come playoff time and Rudy is happy with his minutes. Plus at this point Rudy needs the time to develop where as Roy needs to save his body for when everyone else on the team is peaking. I mean say we did this last year and lost 5 more games because of it. Worse case scenario we would have been bounced out in the first round… oh wait that is what happened. No sense in running down Roy until everyone else is ready to play for the Larry O’Brien.