Heated Exchange at Blazer's Practice

[MilBucksBackOnTop06]

Miller has been getting minutes and playing really well as of late

kind of weird this altercation comes now. Miller should definitely be starting though.

Roy prefers playing with a pass-first PG. What the franchise player wants, he gets. The best thing to do would be trade Miller.

Agreed... Roy does not like a PG who dominates the ball. He is more comfortable with a guy like Blake who has no wasted motion, gets the team into it's offense quickly, and is not a guy who requires the ball as much.

[breaker91]

I thought one of the ideas behind getting miller was because the existing PG's couldn't get Oden the ball enough down low or something?

Are the Miller issues to do with Oden being out?

Yes on the first one. Roy is a play making SG but his strength is driving and dishing. Miller's job is to get the ball to Oden in spots were he is unstoppable.

Roy and Miller haven't really been at odds on the court.

The issue has more to do with how Nate has been using him, especially late in games. Miller is an 11 year vet and our second best crunch time player, yet Nate likes to go into ISO situations with Roy and have him kick it out to a shooter. It works well with the likes of Blake and Outlaw, but not so much when those two are replaced by Bayless and Webster.

Things came to a head over the Memphis game. Our offensive execution was pathetic the last 3.5 minutes of that game. Playing a young, defensively weak team, we should have attacked yet we had Roy hold the ball. It wasn't working yet, Miller sat for most of that stretch.

Miller has done some good things for this team in getting them easy buckets and having another guy who can attack the rim. However, he is not being used to max those talents in our coach's system and he has finally had enough of a guy who says he'll play the best player, but then sit him for the sake of his system.

[BubbaTee]

Miller has been getting minutes and playing really well as of late

kind of weird this altercation comes now. Miller should definitely be starting though.

Roy prefers playing with a pass-first PG. What the franchise player wants, he gets. The best thing to do would be trade Miller.

Agreed... Roy does not like a PG who dominates the ball. He is more comfortable with a guy like Blake who has no wasted motion, gets the team into it's offense quickly, and is not a guy who requires the ball as much.

That just seems silly. Even Lebron is better off with a PG who can handle some of the offense rather than standing around like a lump on a log all day.

[BballFanAddict]

To me its all about philosophical differences in playing styles. The best player on the team (Roy) likely wants the team to play in a style befitting superstars like Kobe, Lebron and Wade. He wants the ball in his hands as much as possible, and definitely during the fourth quarter. He has said as much. He believes that any time he is not being aggressive on the O end with the ball that the opposing D is getting a break. His strenghts lend to a walk-the-ball-up-the-court style of half court offense.

Meanwhile, Portland is stacked with young, athletic players who can run like horses. The best PG, while well past his prime, plays best in a pushed tempo style that is not constraining and or micro-managed by the coach. I imagine D'Antoni, Nelson or Gentry would orgasm to have the pieces the Blazers have for an up-tempo team.

Essentially, Portland is playing a style that facilitates their best player, likely at their best player's request, but clearly under utilizes the other talents on the team. Other talented players on the team are left with no choice but to alter their games, sometimes by playing opposite of their strengths, simply to obtain playing time and to appease McMillan and Roy.

One only has to look at the chemistry issues that sprouted up once Oden came in this year as another good option on the O end to see proof of this theory. Roy and Aldridge were 1 and 2 options - take shots away from them and the chemistry went south.

I am no coach, but it would seem to behoove the Portland team to have some type of Offensive scheme that more utilizes their talent as a whole than cater to one man's strengths who is likely to be double or triple teamed, as well as susceptible to off-nights and injuries.

What is the point of going 10 deep if you're not pressuring full court and or running teams out of the gym?

[Teen Girl Squad]

Nice post there, with some very good points. It further reinforces my thoughts that this is primarily a coaching issue. I think Nate is too concerned with running the team under his scheme/philosophy than he is with adjusting it to his personnel. He really needs to be more flexible if his teams are every going to reach an elite level. Look at Jackson and the triangle. 10 titles, with 4 different teams running 4 different flavors of the triangle (and often times not running it that much at all).

[Mamba Venom]

The Blazers had to deal w/ a lot in Nates defense

[Downtown]

Is it time to revisit the Conley for Miller trade? When the Grizzlies played Portland they were in the midst of a four day gap between games and were in Portland for a couple of days. Conley stayed at Greg Oden's place and the two friends hung out together. That could be good chemistry going forward.

[Lionel Messi]

This is all Pritchard's fault for panicking after hedo bailed on him...he didnt want to come back to his fans empty-handed and embarassed so he just signed the next best free agent.

I love miller, but this was never going to work...him and roy both need the ball in their hands to be successful.

I bet the blazers would trade miller for jose calderon in a hearbeat now...

Yeah I think they would take expirings over Calderon if it came to that.

Really? I wasnt trying to be a homer, but Calderon fits perfectly with their system. He knocks down spot-up jumpers extremely consistently, he is money on the pick and roll jumper, he gets the ball to the right players and lets them do their work in their favourite spot on the floor and he can even be aggressive once in a while.
Im not sure I would trade calderon for miller as a raptors fan, and im a HUGE Miller fan.

Calderon's defence actually looked pretty good against orlando too...He's way better than blake that's for sure.

edit: ha...a Portland fan agreed with me later so im not sure what you're rolling your emoticon eyes about...

[Blazerepresent]

THIS IS ABSOLUTE bull!

If you had looked at Portland's roster at beginning of the season, there was no way whatsoever that Portland could not had been a running team.

A starting line up of

Andre Miller
Roy
Webster
Aldridge
Oden

position 2-5 are athletic specimens and gifted in their own way. They could absolutely crush opponents with their size and athleticism on the break, getting easy buckets, tiring out defenses thus helping yourselves by having to defend depleted opponents.

And when i say running tema i dont mean a Suns type offense. I mean when you get a def rebound just give the ball to Andre freaking miller and watch how he makes things easy for everyone. Instead Steve Brakes just pulls up and starts dribbling till clock hits 10 sec mark and then its either brandon roy or a jumpshot by Aldridge, webster or himself. Oden was left out to dry and get his own while he was busting his nuts in the paint fighting for every rebound and not being rewarded enough.

Nate needs to either change his mindset or GO

[JimmyTD3]

How is Oden an athletic specimen when he can't even run righ tnow?

[Blazerepresent]

How is Oden an athletic specimen when he can't even run righ tnow?

Injuries were unfortunate to the blazers. I am criticizing the coach's mindset. My scenario was based on miller starting since start of the season

[DaVoiceMaster]

Anyone remember the playoffs last year when Houston shut down Roy with Artest & Battier. I thought the reason to go after Hedo or Miller this summer was to put another ball handler & creater on the team so other teams couldn't just shut down Roy and win the game/series. Did that all go out the window?

[Blazerepresent]

Anyone remember the playoffs last year when Houston shut down Roy with Artest & Battier. I thought the reason to go after Hedo or Miller this summer was to put another ball handler & creater on the team so other teams couldn't just shut down Roy and win the game/series. Did that all go out the window?

Actually they didnt shut down Roy. He avged 27PPG 50% FG in 6 games. and yes we were looking for another creater and someone who can break off dribble.

[farzi]

They didn't shut Roy down, they shut everyone else down

[JustAwesome]

Amazed it took this long for an argument to erupt. Miller has been unhappy for quite some time now. Time to trade him. Can't think of too many half court teams that require a point guard, though.

[99 Problems]

Perhaps they rushed too quickly into signing Miller after they lost out on Hedo...

[Rendezvous]

Amazed it took this long for an argument to erupt. Miller has been unhappy for quite some time now. Time to trade him. Can't think of too many half court teams that require a point guard, though.

Timberwolves or Warriors might want him

[87BlazerMan]

To me its all about philosophical differences in playing styles. The best player on the team (Roy) likely wants the team to play in a style befitting superstars like Kobe, Lebron and Wade. He wants the ball in his hands as much as possible, and definitely during the fourth quarter. He has said as much. He believes that any time he is not being aggressive on the O end with the ball that the opposing D is getting a break. His strenghts lend to a walk-the-ball-up-the-court style of half court offense.

Meanwhile, Portland is stacked with young, athletic players who can run like horses. The best PG, while well past his prime, plays best in a pushed tempo style that is not constraining and or micro-managed by the coach. I imagine D'Antoni, Nelson or Gentry would orgasm to have the pieces the Blazers have for an up-tempo team.

Essentially, Portland is playing a style that facilitates their best player, likely at their best player's request, but clearly under utilizes the other talents on the team. Other talented players on the team are left with no choice but to alter their games, sometimes by playing opposite of their strengths, simply to obtain playing time and to appease McMillan and Roy.

One only has to look at the chemistry issues that sprouted up once Oden came in this year as another good option on the O end to see proof of this theory. Roy and Aldridge were 1 and 2 options - take shots away from them and the chemistry went south.

I am no coach, but it would seem to behoove the Portland team to have some type of Offensive scheme that more utilizes their talent as a whole than cater to one man's strengths who is likely to be double or triple teamed, as well as susceptible to off-nights and injuries.

What is the point of going 10 deep if you're not pressuring full court and or running teams out of the gym?

Exactly. Its all coaching. The coaching has been piss poor this season (when we were at full strength as well as now).

[87BlazerMan]

Perhaps they rushed too quickly into signing Miller after they lost out on Hedo...

To quickly after losing out on Milsap you mean?

[Lionel Messi]

Amazed it took this long for an argument to erupt. Miller has been unhappy for quite some time now. Time to trade him. Can't think of too many half court teams that require a point guard, though.

He's not a half-court point guard. Just because he isnt fast or athletic doesnt mean he cant run the break.
He knows when to make the passes and his passes are always accurate.

He played PG for Philly at almost an all-star calibere level last year and they were running team. He also played in denver before that.

He can run the break very well, but he is also a good halfcourt PG.