This year Lillard could join an elite club

[Effigy]

Honestly, I think Lillard is exposed this year and his value drops dramatically. I hope I am wrong of course. I would have tried to trade him to LA or Philly for their pick plus...

Replace independence with Lillard and Bingo. We always wanted a PGOFT, but why go with that? We can get a Lotto pick, that can be anything...maybe even another PGOFT, you know we always wanted one of those.

That assumes that Lillard actually is the pgotf. I remember we didn't draft Chris Paul because Sebastian Telfair was our pgotf. (Obviously Lillard is better than Telfair) I hope he winds up being the stud everyone seems to think he is, but I personally don't think that will happen. I think without the rest of the team, his already bad field goal shooting is going to get worse. He will have points, but I don't know that he will be efficient.

[GreenRiddler]

Honestly, I think Lillard is exposed this year and his value drops dramatically. I hope I am wrong of course. I would have tried to trade him to LA or Philly for their pick plus...

Replace independence with Lillard and Bingo. We always wanted a PGOFT, but why go with that? We can get a Lotto pick, that can be anything...maybe even another PGOFT, you know we always wanted one of those.

That assumes that Lillard actually is the pgotf. I remember we didn't draft Chris Paul because Sebastian Telfair was our pgotf. (Obviously Lillard is better than Telfair) I hope he winds up being the stud everyone seems to think he is, but I personally don't think that will happen. I think without the rest of the team, his already bad field goal shooting is going to get worse. He will have points, but I don't know that he will be efficient.

Lillard isn't the pgotf? I guess so because it is the present and he is a 21, 6 and 4 PG. Bad fg% ? 43% is pretty good for 7 threes a game.

[GreenRiddler]

Dame struggled some this past season with the trapping defenses with his shot but guys like
Matthews thrived from the open looks he got. The problem Portland will have this season is
that we don't (apparently) have any shooting threat from our wings leaving the other teams
to trap Dame at will and zone their big under the basket.

Portland seems to be counting on Meyers and CJ to replace their lost FA's. That's a tall task
for they got their open looks from Aldridge as a scoring threat.

I think you are focusing on his rookie year a bit too much. He is pretty good at handling the Trap currently, and having bigs who unlike LMA will roll to the rim will make the trap even easier to handle. The Thunder who are like the 2nd or 3rd best trapping team behind the Clips and Grizz, did that to Dame on their home floor and he had 11 asts and only 1 turnover, not to mention 40 points.

Frankly I am surprised how much people think Lillard's numbers where influenced by his teammates. It is not like finding guys that spot up from the 3 point line is that hard an asset to find.

He probably will shoot a worse FG% and take more shots because he won't be on as competitive a team therefore he will be playing more 'meaningless' games, but some people here are acting like his numbers were a facade.

[Masterfully]

Frankly I am surprised how much people think Lillard's numbers where influenced by his teammates. It is not like finding guys that spot up from the 3 point line is that hard an asset to find.

He probably will shoot a worse FG% and take more shots because he won't be on as competitive a team therefore he will be playing more 'meaningless' games, but some people here are acting like his numbers were a facade.

And people are sure his teammates influenced his stats in a positive way... From my seat it looked like the vast majority of the time Lillard brought the ball up and (after dealing with traps and double teams) dumped it to LMA and then moved out to create space. He often became the outlet if the play broke down, which is obviously a low percentage option. The only time I consistantly saw the offense centered around him was in end of game situations, which again is typically low percentage.

In my mind, if the offense is built around Lillard his efficency could stay the same, or maybe even improve. Maybe that's just my rose-colored glasses.