Lillard vs Roy...

[The Sebastian Express]

Oh I definitely remember the Adam Morrison threads. I dreaded them. I guess I remember the Gay threads more prominently, the ones before and after the draft, and throughout Roy's first two seasons, is because before the draft I also wanted Gay.

[Clarity]

i dont buy the fact that his size means he cant take over games. I mean look at a guy like CP3, look at Chauncey before all the injuries he took over all the time. Also those guys had no post game when they entered and developed it over time. Also Roy did not really have elite lateral quickness, he had elite change of direction and hesitation moves that got him to his spots and great lift on his jumper once he got there.

Lillard on the other hand is quicker and more explosive than Roy, and he has one of the quickest releases in the league to go along with unlimited range. Can Steph Curry take over games? Kyrie Irving? TOny Parker? All kinds of guys have flaws in their game, there isnt just one way to do things.

Its hard for me to imagine Lillard getting to where Roy was (like you said), so i dont really think im totally disagreeing with you. I just wanted to point out that guys can improve (i know he is "old"), and with Lillard i dont think im gonna doubt the kid

CP3 has elite lateral quickness (more pre meniscus injuries but still has some now), again Kyrie Irving has elite lateral speed & a nightmare crossover. Chauncey is a great comparison for Lillard. Roy had elite change of direction & elite lift, plus again that crossover created everything in his 1/4 iso's. Lillard doesnt have that.. Lillard can get by defenders no doubt, hes no slug but in order to completely take over games you generally need some of those attributes.

but even with Chauncey, he won a title & is plenty capable of going on a shooting rampage in the 4th quarter, i'd take the next Chauncey any day.

[Shem]

http://www.blazersedge.com/2013/2/20/40 ... randon-roy

"Outstanding," he said. "No question about the kid's ability. He's had a very good first half. It reminds me of Brandon (Roy), being a rookie coming in and having that type of impact right away. And the point guard is so important in the NBA. You can see what you're going to get from that kid. They got the point guard they needed."

As for the rest of the Blazers, McMillan understands the master plan.

"Their nucleus is strong, with LaMarcus (Aldridge), Nicolas (Batum), Wesley (Matthews) and Lillard," he said. "They got it right with their draft picks. Mike (Born) and Chad (Buchanan), those guys do an outstanding job. The bench is young and needs to be developed, but the Blazers are in a good situation for the future. Now they have to hit the free-agent market and improve there, and they will."

Under the circumstances, McMillan said, Portland's 25-28 record is impressive.

"To be close to playing .500 ball is a good thing," he said. "They're not far away. When you rebuild, you don't want to hit rock bottom if you can prevent that. They've been able to get through this year so far in a rebuilding mode and not hit rock bottom, and they'll be in better position next year. You're not just preparing for the coming season or the year after that. I'm sure they're looking at the big picture. Everybody's goal is to win it all."

[d-train]

Nate McMillan is a class act.

[whatchaknow]

Nate McMillan is a class act.

Absolutely agree... he deserves another job

[PTPaQ]

I am really impressed that lillard can maintain his ppg avg considering all of the other mouths to feed in the starting lineup.

With that said i take roy over anyone but a select few as of his rookie yr.

[lackeyde3]

i think lillard has had the better rookie year over roy, dame is putting up better numbers, he HAS taken over more games than roys rookie year IMO, hes going to be playing more games and plays one of the most if not THE most important position in the NBA at point. people need to quit thinking of roy the all star, its rook vs rook. i think lillard sweeps the west ROTM and runs away with ROY, and just for 1 year... lillard>roy

[Goldbum]

Its important to remember rookie year doesn't necessarily equal great career. Its OK to say you think Dame is a better rookie than Brandon, it doesn't mean you believe he will be better over all. I would argue that OJ Mayo and Tyreke Evans had better rookie years than either and at younger ages to boot.

[Wizenheimer]

Its important to remember rookie year doesn't necessarily equal great career. Its OK to say you think Dame is a better rookie than Brandon, it doesn't mean you believe he will be better over all. I would argue that OJ Mayo and Tyreke Evans had better rookie years than either and at younger ages to boot.

I don't disagree with your argument, just one of your examples

obviously, Tyreke had the best season as far a production. But he had the benefit of being the #1 option on offense while playing most of his time with Beno Udrich as the stealth PG. In other words, Evans had the luxury of looking for his own offense first

Lillard has quite a bit more responsibility then Evans had, IMO

as to Mayo, he was only a year younger then Lillard, and it's pretty hard to make a case statistically that Mayo had the better season. They are/were really close in most categories, but Lillard's giant advantage in running an offense and lesser advantage in attacking the basket are pretty hard to ignore

now, it's pretty easy to project a rookie into ending up being a much better player then they actually become. Projecting Evans career off of what he did as a rookie would have landed him in the top-tier of NBA players. We now know that a lot of that was mirage. Same for Mayo, although even an optimistic forecast would have been a poor man's Ray Allen, IMO

Lillard could disappoint in the same fashion. What's hopeful about Lillard is that a lot of his weaknesses seem correctable. He should be able to cut way down on his lateral and bounce passes that too often result in turnovers. He should be able to develop a little better shot selection which should elevate his shooting percentages and efficiency. He should be able to improve his success rate on shots at the rim. And at the same time as that last improvement, you'd expect that he would start to get more respect from the officials. If Lillard was getting whistles in the same fashion as other dribble-penetrators like Rose and Westbrook, he'd be averaging over 20 points a game

obviously, there's no guarantee that any of that will come to be, let alone all of it, but we can hope
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another thought: I know it's premature, but I do have some big reservations about how Stotts uses Lillard. Now, there may be some long-term benefit to the offensive structure right now, as well as some long term benefit in forcing Lillard into a ton of pick-and-roll

but it's painfully obvious that opponents use the Blazer pick-and-roll as an opportunity to aggressively double-team Lillard and get the ball out of his hands. Furthermore, Portland runs that high pick-and-roll to one side of the floor or the other which allows the double team to push Lillard to the high sideline. From that position there's almost no hope that Lillard will end up in a good position. As of yet, I haven't seen an adjustment that starts the pick-and-roll in the center of the floor so the ball-handler is headed more in the direction of the basket. That would make it a lot more difficult to trap Lillard and force the ball out of his hands

granted, this could just be me as I find myself yelling at the TV when I see one of the Blazer bigs coming out past the 3 point line to set a screen...and of course dragging their defender right out to where it's easy to double Lillard

this criticism is at least supported a little by the numbers at Synergy:

http://mysynergysports.com/

Overall, Lillard scores 0.90 points/possession. That ranks 200 in the league. And he averages turnovers on 15.5% of possessions

44% of the time, Lillard is the P&R ball-handler. he averages 0.87 points/possession (ranking 28th) while committing turnovers on 16% of the possessions

on the other hand, 15% of the time, Lillard is in isolation. On those possessions, Lillard averages 0.99 points/possession (10th in the NBA) while only committing turnovers 9.8% of the time

it would certainly appear, that at least for Lillard, it would be better to run more isolation and less pick-and-roll. He's the 10th best isolation player in the league which is pretty impressive for a rookie.

[Clarity]

Its important to remember rookie year doesn't necessarily equal great career. Its OK to say you think Dame is a better rookie than Brandon, it doesn't mean you believe he will be better over all. I would argue that OJ Mayo and Tyreke Evans had better rookie years than either and at younger ages to boot.

great point.

[whatchaknow]

Its important to remember rookie year doesn't necessarily equal great career. Its OK to say you think Dame is a better rookie than Brandon, it doesn't mean you believe he will be better over all. I would argue that OJ Mayo and Tyreke Evans had better rookie years than either and at younger ages to boot.

It is important to remember that but thats not really the point of the thread. The point was to see who you were more excited about during their rookie year. I think the fact that Lillard has been counted on to be so dang consistent, it really makes me excited for his future. It really is amazing how few stinker games Lillard has had considering he is a rookie who plays as many minutes as he does

it would certainly appear, that at least for Lillard, it would be better to run more isolation and less pick-and-roll. He's the 10th best isolation player in the league which is pretty impressive for a rookie.

Thats really impressive considering that he doesnt have elite quickness or size ....

[King d]

[ Who would have guessed that Lillard would be so good that he would replace the fat version of Felton
.

I hope you are trolling, either that or you don't follow/pay much attention to the draft and its prospects. Everybody with a little bit of draft knowledge knew Lillard would be a huge upgrade to Felton since day one.

Only a few knew he would be THIS good btw. I was on his bandwagon and even said he will be a future allstar just by watching videos of his monster workouts before the draft

[Brautigan1]

Roy was better than Lillard is.

Lillard could become better than Roy was.

That's my 2c.

[DaVoiceMaster]

[ Who would have guessed that Lillard would be so good that he would replace the fat version of Felton
.

I hope you are trolling, either that or you don't follow/pay much attention to the draft and its prospects. Everybody with a little bit of draft knowledge knew Lillard would be a huge upgrade to Felton since day one.

Only a few knew he would be THIS good btw. I was on his bandwagon and even said he will be a future allstar just by watching videos of his monster workouts before the draft

Helluva workout. Makes me feel even more out-of-shape than I did before watching the video. Yowza!

[Soulyss]

The only major difference (and the one that significantly affects PER and some of the advanced metrics) is that Roy's instinct late in the clock was to barrel to the Rim and try and get free-throws, or take a mid-range step-back. Damien ends up heaving up a lot of late in the clock off-balance threes. I suspect that over the next season or two Damien will take less threes, or at least less BAD threes which will make him much more efficent.

I also suspect at the blazers improve he'll be forced to take less of those shots in the first place.

EDIT: I still think Roy was better, and probably had a higher ceiling, but I think Lillard can be a repeat all-star.