Wizenheimer wrote:DeBlazerRiddem wrote:Plus, look how Stott's has used Lillard offensively for stretches this season. Would you rather see more of Price and Lillard or a bit of Lillard and Goodwin?
We need that secondary handler/creator, we have enough players who can play off ball.
maybe, but I'm thinking it's a pretty difficult balancing act, otherwise Jamal Crawford would have looked a lot better as a Blazer last season
Man, for a period of time, Jamal Crawford did look pretty good as a Blazer last year (not as good as he does on the Clippers, where he is the secondary ball handler, but better than he had the year before on the Hawks).
I think he and Nate came to heads about the role he would play, which Crawford has adamantly maintained he is not a PG throughout his career, and so Crawford went into "me-first" mode looking for his new contract. We all know it was a sort of "perfect storm" situation, with various other factors playing a role.
Also, Felton is a very different PG from Lillard. Felton was not good off the ball, while Lillard playing with a secondary ball handler happens almost every game.
But you must agree, I swear you have made the point yourself, that the modern NBA is evolving to require several different players capable of initiating an offense. Of course it is a balancing act, you have to get the players to buy into their respective roles and a coach who can use them appropriately, but I would imagine a rookie like Goodwin would be much more malleable than a vet like Crawford.
cucad8 wrote:I think Batum is that secondary creator. He's averaging almost 5 assists per game.
I do like what Batum is doing this year, and was taking his contributions into consideration, so maybe what I am really talking about a legitimate bench creator? A tertiary creator? I dunno, you make a good point, but I still think we are a ball handler/creator short. I also would like to see Batum focus on and try to keep his scoring up.
A little bit unrelated, but I have been thinking that there is a good argument to be made that Batum is playing more like a SG this year than a SF. Kind of a pointless distinction, except that it might give us the versatility to play a more traditional SF sometime in the future.