Blazers 2011-2012 Season

[oregontrack]

blow

it

up

nice home loss to the rockets last night.

lamarcus, crawford, batum, wallace, matthews, camby, felton are, individually, all very talented. they just can't play together, especially in the 4th quarter. blow it up.

[UOducksTK1]

yeah time to totally restructure.

[oregontrack]

what sucks is that rebuilding is just going to waste another couple years of aldridge in his prime. i think portland needs to take DRASTIC action. i'm not saying this is 100% what we should do -- i'm not a general manager, i don't know the kind of deals that could be swung -- but if the right offer is out there, i'm not so sure trading LMA is such a bad idea. yes, he's awesome (kudos on that all star bid), but will he still be awesome after we've rebuilt ourselves and are ready to contend?

just throwing it out there. LMA has a team-friendly contract, and i'm sure we could bring back a nice haul. what we need to do is pull a 2006 again and get multiple lottery picks. this class is LOADED. i'd love to trade assets and be able to land, say, jeremy land and harrison barnes. i also love kendall marshall... he can't shoot a lick, but he's as pure a point guard as i've seen in college in some time. work on his jumper, and he'd be a great leader for this team.

[UOducksTK1]

Losing at home to the Wizards is the last straw IMO...

Btw Batum should have been starting since day 1.

[thomas time]

Yep tonight loss is inexcuseable even without L.A. Blazers Never win in G.S. and playing clippers on the third night in a row looks like three straight losses of those three games and what five in a row total I think, which would give them a losing record. Matthews, Felton, and Jamal most of the time can't make a shot, and also they all get beat to the hoop way too many times.

[oregontrack]

this group is the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. burn it with fire.

[Duck07]

this group is the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. burn it with fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWX_MFNOL_Y
The question is not about how hot to get the fire, the question is how far does the fire stretch?

Ownership: D+ (PA is as much the problem as anyone single person in the organization
Management: F (See above, until PA/Vulcan is gone from the Blazers in every way imaginable beyond signing pay-checks, you just aren't going to get anyone credible)
Coaching: D
Players: B (talent yes, cohesion, not with this motley crew)

So what's the goal? Draft picks, young players? I say trade LMA now while his value is his highest for the best picks/players you can get.

[oregontrack]

there's really two ways to go about this offseason.

a.) ownership commits to a complete rebuild through the draft. we ship everyone out, collect picks, shed big salaries, focus squarely on youth. when i watch the blazers play basketball, this is the route i want to take. they're infuriating to watch. however, i don't see paul allen committing to this.

b.) try again to build around the few core pieces we have. this is the likeliest option, and there are a million different ways we could go. my hastily put together plan:

1. go after eric gordon, assuming he comes back a-okay after having his knee scoped. david stern is probably way too cheap to re-sign him. there will be a bidding war, but if we shed all the salary we have coming off the books, we should be able to match just about any offer. he's 24 year old 20+ ppg scorer. he's not the best 2-guard in the game by a country mile, but he's good, he's young, and he can hit shots. 2-guard seem to be the one position the 2012 draft is not strong in. also, i hate wesley matthews.

2. draft north carolina pg kendall marshall. he's my favorite pg in this draft. he can't shoot a lick -- 44% from the field, 30% from deep -- but he averages about 10 assists per game. he's the walking definition of a team-first, pass-first, makes-every-player-around-him-better-than-he-really-is point guard. with gordon and and batum out on the wing, and lma doing his thing, he'd be a great floor leader. supposed to have a dynamite basketball IQ. our offense would flow like it hasn't in years. and you can always teach a kid to shoot... a potentially devastating pick-n-roll duo with lma. and, best of all, he should be available when we pick. in fact, nbadraft.net has him going #14 to... portland. but i also have a forbidden man-crush on tony wroten. kid may not be a true point, but hot damn, is he a freak of nature.

3. pray gerald wallace opts out. pray crawford opts out. let camby walk.

4. re-sign craig smith! kid is rhino. he needs to play moore.

5. play elliot williams and nolan smith right now. a lot. elliot looks like a baller, and while smith might be hot garbage, we did waste a first round pick on him and it'd be nice to know what we have, if anything.

6. our big man problem is kind of a quandry, as we've let it really deteriorate. it might be as simple as signing a bunch of scrubs to a training camp pile and see what sticks. i wouldn't mind collecting another mid-first round pick and picking up fab mello, tyler zeller, or meyers leonard. between a rookie like that, lma, smith, and chris johnson, we'd at least have a workable rotation.

[Duck07]

agree on KMarshall and I'm pretty sure Duck24 has his forbidden man-crush on him rather than Wroten, lol. Part of what is so infuriating to me is the lack of minutes Chris Johnson has gotten. While he's never going to turn into an all-nba C, I say let the kid start because he doesn't have to worry about scoring beyond put-backs and lobs with the 1s and he can focus on defense. Give him a two-week tryout starting and see what happens. This goes with the EW/NS point too, we gotta play these guys rather than expecting older guards to suddenly get better.

[thomas time]

Good win tonight without Lamarcus, blazers had lost 12 out of their 13 in Golden State. I like the idea of getting Eric Gordon in the offseason to be our starting sg.

[UOducksTK1]

Batum is the man, just saying.

[Duck07]

Batum is the man, just saying.

That's the thing though, is he? Portland fans love Nic and I'm not trying to rag on him, but I don't know whether his biggest problem is Nate or himself. If I'm ranking the importance of positions on an NBA team, here's how I see it.

C
PG
PF
SG
SF

Wings are a dime a dozen in the nba and Nic's best value might be in bringing picks/players back to Portland. It could be that to get Gordon, we have to send Nic over. Of course, a new coach might change things with Nic but I think by and large most Portland fans over-value Nic.

[UOducksTK1]

Batum is the man, just saying.

That's the thing though, is he? Portland fans love Nic and I'm not trying to rag on him, but I don't know whether his biggest problem is Nate or himself. If I'm ranking the importance of positions on an NBA team, here's how I see it.

C
PG
PF
SG
SF

Wings are a dime a dozen in the nba and Nic's best value might be in bringing picks/players back to Portland. It could be that to get Gordon, we have to send Nic over. Of course, a new coach might change things with Nic but I think by and large most Portland fans over-value Nic.

Nicolas is the only player other than maybe Camby who plays defense.

[Duck07]

Defense alone isn't a reason to keep Nic though.

[oregontrack]

camby can play great defense when he has his legs, everyone else on the roster is way too inconsistent for my liking. batum can d up, but it's a lot like his offensive game: it comes and goes.

i like batum and all, but he's ridiculously overvalued by blazer fans. there was a consensus, at one time, that batum was untouchable and we wouldn't include him any deal that could bring back chris paul. that should tell you all you need to know.