Dinosaurs @ Pioneers, 7:00 PM, NBCSNW/NBATV.

[RipCity71252]

Dame (36) / CJ (12)
CJ (24) / Morrow (12) / Turner (10)
Harkless (30) / Turner (18)
Aminu (28) / Swanigan (20)
Nurkic (32) / Collins (16)

Davis feels like the odd man out, especially when you consider his contract situation. But I'd understand if Terry gave Ed his usual 17-20 minutes a game if the rookies don't prove to be as useful as they've looked far.

[Wizenheimer]

Dame (36) / CJ (12)
CJ (24) / Morrow (12) / Turner (10)
Harkless (30) / Turner (18)
Aminu (28) / Swanigan (20)
Nurkic (32) / Collins (16)

Davis feels like the odd man out, especially when you consider his contract situation. But I'd understand if Terry gave Ed his usual 17-20 minutes a game if the rookies don't prove to be as useful as they've looked far.

first off...I'll throw up 82 times if Turner plays 28 minutes a game

and Ed Davis is going to get a lot more minutes then you gave him....likely more then either Swanigan or Collins (unless he's traded)

[RipCity71252]

Dame (36) / CJ (12)
CJ (24) / Morrow (12) / Turner (10)
Harkless (30) / Turner (18)
Aminu (28) / Swanigan (20)
Nurkic (32) / Collins (16)

Davis feels like the odd man out, especially when you consider his contract situation. But I'd understand if Terry gave Ed his usual 17-20 minutes a game if the rookies don't prove to be as useful as they've looked far.

first off...I'll throw up 82 times if Turner plays 28 minutes a game

and Ed Davis is going to get a lot more minutes then you gave him....likely more then either Swanigan or Collins (unless he's traded)

Zero?...yeah I agree. Kidding aside, Turner is playing whether we like it or not.

And tbh, as long as Terry simplifies his role to post-ups, ft line pnr's and the occasional corner 3, he shouldn't hurt us as much as he did last year, but we'll see. To put it out there, Garrett Temple would be a guy I'd look at next summer with a partial MLE deal if he opts out and look to trade Turner. I'm not giving up our 18' 1st to do it though.

[Dame Lizard]

Turner has been absolutely horrendous the first two games.

Good work Olshey, you win the bidding war against yourself. I'm pretty happy with how you've gone overall as GM, but that Turner contract is horrible. I think it's worse than Meyers', both with and without hindsight.

[Wizenheimer]

Turner has been absolutely horrendous the first two games.

Good work Olshey, you win the bidding war against yourself. I'm pretty happy with how you've gone overall as GM, but that Turner contract is horrible. I think it's worse than Meyers', both with and without hindsight.

I'm not nearly as happy with Olshey as you are but I'd agree that Turner contract is the worst decision he's made (except for maybe the free agents he offered but was turned down like Hibbert, Monroe, and Chandler Parsons). I also agree he was bidding against himself for Turner even though some here don't won't accept that

I remember how those three contacts last summer, Crabbe-Turner-Leonard, were widely justified by Olshey supporters as Portland either not letting assets go (Crabbe-Meyers) or adding an asset (Turner)

well, Crabbe was the best of those three assets and his asset value was such that he cost Portland nearly 40 million for one season of below average production and left a 2.8M surcharge against Portland's cap for the next 7 seasons. Yikes!

as far as Turner being "horrendous" these first 2 games, from what I've seen he's the same as he was last season. That being he's a rather awkward ball-handler with poor court vision who can't shoot and eats up a lot of shot-clock on his possessions, essentially keeping the ball away from better options

I can't believe that some media people are saying he should start....

[Norm2953]

We'll never know how much of NO's spending spree was mandated by PA but I think he did well
to dump Crabbe without giving up a pick. Things could be worse if we had signed Chandler
Parsons unless we allowed Meyers to walk and not signed ET.

I do think moving forward, the team will do what's necessary to get under the tax line and
face a October 15 deadline on their upcoming free agents. I'd likely extend Nurkic unless
he's dead set on a max deal.

[Wizenheimer]

We'll never know how much of NO's spending spree was mandated by PA but I think he did well
to dump Crabbe without giving up a pick.

well, if you assume it was Paul Allen "mandating" the stupid signings, then why would it be Paul Allen mandating that trade?

that's one of a couple of problems with the 'devil-made-me-do-it' excuse for Olshey. One is that it's true, we'll never know how much of it was Paul Allen. But what I saw here is that those people defending Olshey by saying it could have been PA's call, were only willing to give PA blame for the bad decisions. But if PA exercises that much control, then by the same logic, you have to give PA credit for the good decisions. But he's not the GM is he?

besides that, it was Olshey that offered Meyers what was rumored to be a 15M a year deal in the 2014-15 summer; and it was Olshey who actually said that "Meyers could be an all-star if Meyers just believed in himself half as much as Olshey did"...those were Olshey's words about 6 weeks before he gave him that big contract. In other words, it sure seemed that Olshey was determined to re-sign Meyers so the notion he was only doing what PA wanted doesn't seem to have much merit

[Norm2953]

PA had to sign off on NO's moves and I still suspect was determined to keep Crabbe. We'll never
know for sure but NO did do well to move Crabbe and we can hope he'll find a way to move
some of the front court surplus to get well under the tax line.

My favorites to be moved prior to the trade dealine are Ed Davis and Aminu. This would be
a solid team if they had a SF ro play in the Stotts system.

[Labinot41]

Aminu is our best defender. We need him

Sent from my SM-N910F using RealGM mobile app

[Blazinaway]

PA had to sign off on NO's moves and I still suspect was determined to keep Crabbe. We'll never
know for sure but NO did do well to move Crabbe and we can hope he'll find a way to move
some of the front court surplus to get well under the tax line.

My favorites to be moved prior to the trade dealine are Ed Davis and Aminu. This would be
a solid team if they had a SF ro play in the Stotts system.

what the heck is wrong with Hark? Had a very nice game yesterday, gives good effort and is solid on D. IMO fits very well with our big 3 of Nurk/CJ/Dame. I think he can avg 12 and 5 and if he can shoot 35-38% from 3 he's a great fit IMO

[bigdavid]

Am I wrong or did second most hated Turner have 8 assists in 22 minutes last night. Why is that not very good??? Not too shabby
for so called 2nd rate point guard.

[deanwoof]

Obviously last night was an anomaly as Meyers lemons got 10 rebounds.

[Wizenheimer]

Am I wrong or did second most hated Turner have 8 assists in 22 minutes last night. Why is that not very good??? Not too shabby for so called 2nd rate point guard.

Mason Plumlee had 26 assists over a 3 game stretch in 2016. That's averaging 8.7. And that was in the playoffs, not some meaningless pre-season game. Also, over those 3 games, he totaled 6 turnovers; Turner had 5 in that game last night. So, over a 3 game stretch, Plumlee had an assist/turnover ratio of 4.3; Turner's ratio was 1.6. Finally, I'd be pretty certain that Plumlee's average possession time on those assists was a lot less then Turner's

all that said, Plumlee should never have been consistently responsible for running the offense. He's nothing like a PG. I don't think Turner is much of a PG either, but he does have the handles to act like one. Trouble is his court vision appears to be weak and he's both a ball-stopper and a ball-pounder. He eats up a lot of shot clock on his possessions and that's not really a good attribute in a backup PG

I think a backup PG should be able to run an offense with fairly high efficiency...as in assists vs turnovers, which is one primary way to gauge playmaking efficiency. Turner's career mark is 1.91. That's not bad for a SF but it's pretty poor for a SG, For instance, Steve Blake, as a Blazer for about 4.6 seasons, had an assist/turnover ratio of 3.3. That's a PG. In Nic Batum's last 3 seasons as a Blazer, after Stotts had changed his role, had an assist/turnover ratio of 2.1, and last season it was up to 2.4. And unlike Turner, Batum is a quick-touch facilitator...he doesn't stop the ball like Turner does

hopefully, Turner will do better this season then he did last season. A big thing is that he doesn't impede Lillard's game like I thought he did last season, but again, if Turner has the ball in his hands a lot, that's likely to happen. There are enough possessions for Dame and CJ to take turns with usage, even though their occasional-hero-ball doesn't make for good offense very often. Still, Dame and CJ seemed to have developed good synergy. I don't think you can add Turner to those two and keep a good synergy on offense

[Norm2953]

PA had to sign off on NO's moves and I still suspect was determined to keep Crabbe. We'll never
know for sure but NO did do well to move Crabbe and we can hope he'll find a way to move
some of the front court surplus to get well under the tax line.

My favorites to be moved prior to the trade dealine are Ed Davis and Aminu. This would be
a solid team if they had a SF ro play in the Stotts system.

what the heck is wrong with Hark? Had a very nice game yesterday, gives good effort and is solid on D. IMO fits very well with our big 3 of Nurk/CJ/Dame. I think he can avg 12 and 5 and if he can shoot 35-38% from 3 he's a great fit IMO

Harkless simply does not have the game to play the Batum role for this team. Nic could be horribly inconsistent
and dissapeared a lot when he was in Portland but he has the game to match up with opponent 1-4 and is a bigger
threat to score than Harkless and is a much better ball handler. Nothing wrong with Mo who does his best and is
a hustler.

[zzaj]

IMHO, the need for a next "Batum" is a bit overblown...

When Stotts was using Nurkic in the highpost area last season, the team was doing fine and Nurkic was picking up a lot of assists off of high/low and player movement without the ball. Since adding Nurkic and now having a couple of players in Swanigan (who can shoot) and Collins (who seems to know how to take advantage of movement without the ball) the need for a tertiary ballhandler isn't as important.

The value of Nic as a ballhandler, besides just heads up play, was mostly when the ball was swung and he could take advantage of weakside defenses. He was also reasonable at directing secondary fastbreaks...although there were plenty of balls soaring out of balls with Nic at the controls, too. That is the real difference between Turner and Nic in the Stotts system. Turner is more of a pound the ball and have others cut around him type.

[Blazinaway]

PA had to sign off on NO's moves and I still suspect was determined to keep Crabbe. We'll never
know for sure but NO did do well to move Crabbe and we can hope he'll find a way to move
some of the front court surplus to get well under the tax line.

My favorites to be moved prior to the trade dealine are Ed Davis and Aminu. This would be
a solid team if they had a SF ro play in the Stotts system.

what the heck is wrong with Hark? Had a very nice game yesterday, gives good effort and is solid on D. IMO fits very well with our big 3 of Nurk/CJ/Dame. I think he can avg 12 and 5 and if he can shoot 35-38% from 3 he's a great fit IMO

Harkless simply does not have the game to play the Batum role for this team. Nic could be horribly inconsistent
and dissapeared a lot when he was in Portland but he has the game to match up with opponent 1-4 and is a bigger
threat to score than Harkless and is a much better ball handler. Nothing wrong with Mo who does his best and is
a hustler.

given the current talent on the team and the addition of Nurk and 2 young guys who seem able and willing passers I believe the need of a "Batum role" is significantly reduced. Nic's last 3 seasons has seen him shoot below 35% from 3 and avg about 41% overall. Hark shot 3's at 35% last yr with a 50% overall FG%. Be interesting to see if Hark can retain these shooting levels and improve his consistency. Yeah Nic's is a good passer and defenderbut the other areas of his game was not that great and we now have a C that can pass well and two young guys with promise. I am content with the SF position, backup PG/SG with slid D and shooting is a bigger concern for me as I don't think Turner fits well here.

[Dame Lizard]

what the heck is wrong with Hark? Had a very nice game yesterday, gives good effort and is solid on D. IMO fits very well with our big 3 of Nurk/CJ/Dame. I think he can avg 12 and 5 and if he can shoot 35-38% from 3 he's a great fit IMO

Harkless simply does not have the game to play the Batum role for this team. Nic could be horribly inconsistent
and dissapeared a lot when he was in Portland but he has the game to match up with opponent 1-4 and is a bigger
threat to score than Harkless and is a much better ball handler. Nothing wrong with Mo who does his best and is
a hustler.

given the current talent on the team and the addition of Nurk and 2 young guys who seem able and willing passers I believe the need of a "Batum role" is significantly reduced. Nic's last 3 seasons has seen him shoot below 35% from 3 and avg about 41% overall. Hark shot 3's at 35% last yr with a 50% overall FG%. Be interesting to see if Hark can retain these shooting levels and improve his consistency. Yeah Nic's is a good passer and defenderbut the other areas of his game was not that great and we now have a C that can pass well and two young guys with promise. I am content with the SF position, backup PG/SG with slid D and shooting is a bigger concern for me as I don't think Turner fits well here.

Agreed. I think the need for a Batum is also overstated. Sure, I'd rather have him back for $26M/year than Turner's $17.5M/year, but I don't see why we need a passing SF with CJ, Dame and Nurk. Don't get me wrong, it'd be a nice bonus to have t get Dame a bit more off the ball, but we've got bigger concerns.

[Dame Lizard]

Obviously last night was an anomaly as Meyers lemons got 10 rebounds.

He averaged 36 rebounds per 36 last night.