Game 4 Portland vs Sacramento 7:00pm

[mighty_duck]

Not going to win a lot of games shooting 18% from the 3.
Young guys did pretty well.
Scoot had a great game, his drives kept us in it for a while.
Walker and Murray also showed up nicely.

[zzaj]

I couldn't watch tonight. Was there an actual reason that Clingan only had 9 minutes? Was it just Chauncey being Chauncey on the second night of a back to back or something?

Clingan with less than 15 minutes in this game is inexcusable if you ask me. Maybe the Blazers actually are showcasing DA. 34 minutes in a pseudo blowout makes no sense.

[Runner300]

No offensive structure, no ball movement, iso and tough shots on low %.
Also, no natural shooters on the team (correct me if I'm wrong).

[Blaze the Nugz]

Scoot is creating so many opportunities. Unfortunately he has to pass to De'Andre "Stone Hands" Ayton and the Portland "Cant shoot for sh*t" Trail Blazers. Great effort by the bench tonight. Man when Ant has a off shooting night, he looks pretty useless out there. Deni on the other hand, at least makes plays on the other end.

[Walton1one]

Yeah, Clingan’s minutes tonight were weird, kept Ayton in way too long and then with 3min left brings Clingan back in, just totally bizarre decision

Man, the rio city recap after the game is a tough watch, lots of excuse making and boring banter

[zzaj]

Yeah, Clingan’s minutes tonight were weird, kept Ayton in way too long and then with 3min left brings Clingan back in, just totally bizarre decision

Man, the rio city recap after the game is a tough watch, lots of excuse making and boring banter

Well, at least it wasn't an injury...that's what my first thought was. I know Clingan was complaining about his ankle a couple of games ago.

[dckingsfan]

I couldn't watch tonight. Was there an actual reason that Clingan only had 9 minutes? Was it just Chauncey being Chauncey on the second night of a back to back or something?

Clingan with less than 15 minutes in this game is inexcusable if you ask me. Maybe the Blazers actually are showcasing DA. 34 minutes in a pseudo blowout makes no sense.

Yeah, this is when you know your coach has no sense of player development.

The game was over at the end of the 3rd. Clingan should have been playing until he was grasping his shorts. You sit Ayton, Simons and Grant - we aren't in the game, you don't get your stats.

[Wizenheimer]

Absolutely cannot win with such horrendous outside shooting

which has been the go-to excuse for keeping Simons and Grant....which is obviously a flawed argument

Portland needs to find at least some all-star level talent before they spend any time worrying about flaws like 3 point shooting. They'll need that perimeter shooting component to become a contender, but they have to establish an actual core of 2 or 3 talented players first. They don't have a single core player yet. Yeah, there's some hope that Sharpe-Scoot-Clingan might climb up the ladder to core piece, but they are barely on the bottom rung at this point

this has been one of the fundamental management flaws of the Olshey/Cronin era: clinging to deeply flawed role players and mediocre supporting players as if they are long-term keys; and then overpaying them because of that flawed assumption

[Walton1one]

which has been the go-to excuse for keeping Simons and Grant....which is obviously a flawed argument

Yes & no, I agree with what you are saying, but not in the manner in which POR has gone about this.

The reason to to trade Grant is a pretty simple one, he does not fit the timeline and if POR can get a young player ofr draft compensation back for him they should be exploring that.

The issue with Simons\reason to trade him is that he does not fit with the young players, as per Cronin, Scoot & Sharpe are the future backcourt. Where does that leave Simons? A potential 6th man? Is he going to resign to back up players 4-5 years younger than him, after 8 years of already losing here? I don't think he will and unless Joe is an idiot, he surely isn't worth $25-30+ million to be a glorified 6th man, ala "Ricky Davis" reincarnated. Then there is the fit with Scoot, the fact that the team uses Simons like he is a #1 option, which he clearly is not. He is an off the bench 6th man scorer and those types of players have a ceiling to what they are worth and Simons is being paid above that right now already.

So, yes those guys are the best shooters on the team right now, but that is more of an indictment on Cronin. What the hell has been doing with the rest of the roster? I would think a GM can walk & chew bubble gum at the same time. Instead Joe has filled this roster with an over-abundunce of the same type of player: long, athletic players who cannot shoot and then he DOUBLED down on that by doing the same damm thing with their 2-way roster spots. They cannot be this short-sighted, can they?

You know maybe, instead of keeping SIX non-shooting wing players (Camara, Banton, Walker, Murray, Rupert, Thybulle), FIVE of those 24 and younger and then another THREE non-shooting wing players (two of them 25+, like WTH?) on their 2-way contracts, they might have wanted to invest ONE or TWO of those spots on a player whose BEST skill was shooting. That is ENTIRELY on Joe, just piss poor roster management. The fact that POR does not have at least ONE young shooter on the team is entirely on him.

Heck, we could have used ONE of our 2nd round picks to go after a college shooter in LY draft, but instead, they decided to sell those picks for cash and then utilize their 2-way spots on redundant players (McGowens) or guys (Moore\Minaya) who are clearly not NBA caliber players.

So yeah, the shooting sucks, yeah Grant\Ant are the best shooters, but the fact there are not any other players who can shoot reliably from outside on this roster is clearly on Joe and his scouting staff.