Game 39: Portland vs Minnesota 5:00pm SNW

[Norm2953]

Bazemore is a guy who is looking to put up numbers for a new deal since he’s a UFA. Turner is a guy who isn’t playing for Atlanta but neither guy matters

[DaVoiceMaster]

I'm ready to be done with Bazemore. I would start Hoard instead.

I'm also kind of done with this season.

[d-train]

Sometimes a team has to take a stepback in order to take 2 steps forward. I don't know if that is what is going on, but I hope so.

[zzaj]

Choosing to focus on the positive in what is an egregious loss all around...

Hoard actually looks like he can play to me. He has had a couple of nice little stints when he sees time. I've been advocating for his PT--I'll continue to do so.

[red_power]

This team is on 2-7 run over the last stretch, with victories came against crippled washington team and a lucky 4 quarter bailout against injury riddled raptors.

Needless to say, even for the biggest optimists it's a time to admit that this season is flushed down a toilet.

[BlazersBroncos]

Its time to play the young guys. Tolliver, Mario and Baze should be shut out the rotation. Cut Kent if needed. Reduce Melo to 24mpg at most.

Hoard and Little need at least 20mpg. Moses should get 12-15mpg. Simons should get 30mpg.

Its time to see what they have to better assess the draft possibilities. The season is shot. I advocated for this a few games ago when it became clear that we are just not good. And its not just injuries. We need more talent. We need to cash the expirings even if it means we play with Skal and Moses as out only centers until Nurkic is back.

Its time to accept the season is over and give the fans a reason to tune in. Its unwatchable right now. The kids give the season meaning. Right now its just meaningless to watch these games.

[Epicurus]

I suspect that a platoon of paid basketball guys have a decent idea what players have. I doubt if they are often surprised..." gee, he's so much better in a real game than he has shown in practice or preseason. Silly us."

I guess being so damned old and having followed sports for so long, I have seen enough turnarounds in the second half of seasons in all sports I follow (i.e, NOT soccer). Thus I think throwing in the towel is yet premature.

Unwatchable? I saw even in last night's awful game, many beautiful possessions of a level of basketball available only in the NBA. I guess my meaning is the appreciation of talents I didn't have even as a young man, and appreciation for the strategies employed by professional coaches (sometime requiring a second viewing and checking with sites which offer more detailed numbers related to the game). I save my Chicken Little moments for our national politics and climate change.

[PDXKnight]

Gotta just lose more games. I want a pick!

[BlazersBroncos]

Unwatchable?

I guess its all relative. I am out of market so my watching experiences are solitary. Even when we are doing well I limit myself so I can have a social life. Usually 1-2 per week. This season it has been sadly easy to skip those few watch sessions altogether. Go out to a brewery with the boys, get a cocktail with the GF or watch this team play some pretty messy, uninspired basketball with a glass of scotch alone? Its a pretty easy choice this season.

And yes, I drink too much.

[Wizenheimer]

It hurts to even say it. But Evan Turner is a SIGNIFICANTLY better player than Kent Bazemore. I like how they have Bazemore out here with the rooks. He's that much of a scrub.

Turner is a bad shooter, but he's good close to the basket. Bazemore is a much worse shooter, and his shooting percentage around the basket has cratered. Turner made lots of dumb plays, but he's a basketball-Einstein next to Bazemore.

but this is what it's come too in Olshey's 2019 Blazer roster. Only Bazemore and Hezonja can even look like they have a hint of running the 2nd unit offense, but they are such crappy players, it wouldn't help much if they could run an offense. A backup PG needs to have an assist/turnover ratio of at least 2.0, and it's better if it's closer to 3.0 than 2.0. Those two have combined for a 1.0 ratio. Worse is that Bazemore has an assist rate of 6.9% vs a turnover rate of 14.6%; Hezonja's rates are 7.3% vs 13.5%. Piling on Simons has rates of 8.8% vs 9.5%. By comparison, Turner last season had a 2.48 assist/turnover ratio, and while his assist-rate/turnover-rate mark wasn't great, at least it wasn't upside down like Bazemore, Hezonja, and Simons

this team is Olshey's vision. He finally got to feature the players he wanted to feature in CJ, Zach, and Simons. And he built the bench and support he wanted to make sure those players were featured. To get there, he sacrificed rebounding, perimeter defense, and passing. But of course when talking about the current team, he didn't mention those things because he was busy talking about floor spacing and ball movement and how that was going to make for a better team. None of that worked like he said it was going to. Obviously, Portland has injuries, but in the last 9 games, their only two wins have come against two teams with even more players injured than Portland, including the team's best players. Every team deals with injuries and most teams deal with them better than Portland has this year

[Epicurus]

I think the inability of getting Gasol to the floor hurt more than we think. Although his talent was reduced by age, he was still a good defensive rebounder. It still is the major problem (as it was last night), too many second possessions from the lack of usual defensive rebounding. With SKal down, Gasol's absence becomes even more problematic. I can't believe the front office was so wrong about his getting on the floor. It is also troubling that in this huge world the fo can't find a passsable defensive rebounder who will not turnover ever ball he gets (thus not meaning Moses Brown).

[BlazersBroncos]

Gasol was signed quite late in free agency. I don't think we really expected him to be a difference maker outside a 3rd center who can mentor the kids.

A guy Neil did sign to help this team as a rotation piece, signed as soon as he could actually, was Anthony Freaking Tolliver.

[d-train]

Whiteside, Collins, Hood, Bazemore, and Simons are the players that were supposed to fill out our regular rotation in addition to Lillard and CJ. Until Nurkic returned, then these 5 would support our big 3. Skal, Hezonja, Tolliver, Gasol, and Trent were supposed to be the deep bench. Possibly, 1 or 2 of the deep bench could situationally get a bigger role. Skal has been a very good surprise and Hezonja has been ok when healthy.

Melo is a great surprise addition who pushes back everyone except Collins in our 5 player rotation that supports the big 3. Collins, Melo, and Whiteside should make us a better team than we ended with last year.

Why are we losing? We are losing because we lost our big man that can supplement Lillard by making plays in the high post. We have also been deficient in inside scoring and rebounding.

What are the personnel losses causing our deficiency? The seeds of our rebounding deficiency began last year after the OKC series against Nuggets. Losing Aminu and the injury to Collins make the rebounding even worse. Kanter is the guy we lost who gave us inside scoring and high post playmaking. Harkless and Turner were also a pretty good inside scorers, but not near as good as Melo.

Edit: The fix is Nurkic. We also need Collins and having Melo is also going to be big.

[JasonStern]

And yes, I drink too much.

We're fans of a team that lost by 24 to the Knicks. It's understandable.