Game 60: Portland vs Indiana 5:00pm SNW/TNT

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Trent has a limited well defined role. He is a finisher and defender. On offense, Trent primarily is a shotmaker. Trent is expected to simply shoot when he gets the ball, not a whole lot of decision making. Simons is a playmaker, or he is being groomed to be a playmaker. While Trent's role is simple and well defined, Simons's role is not simple and well defined.

Trent is doing well because he is putting out the effort on defense and he is making shots. He is doing everything that he is expected to do. Simons's role isn't to simply wait for someone running the offense to pass him the ball. The numbers don't show it but I bet Simons is a better shooter than Trent is. We have 5 years of numbers on Lillard and CJ. The numbers suggest CJ is the better shooter, but I dispute that. I think Lillard is a better shooter but his shot selection and quality of shots isn't as good. Sometimes it's not a matter of decision making. Sometimes Lillard's role in the offense dictates his shot quality isn't going to be as good as other players.

Yeah, in a league that seems to single-mindedly focus on efficiency these days, people seem to have forgotten that you need to create shots in the first place. Good on-ball scorers are almost always going to be less efficient than good off-ball scorers, but the later is dependent on someone else to set them up. Of course you try and run your offense to set them up and take advantage of holes in the defense to get these guys good looks, but often that fails and you need someone to create as good of a shot as possible given the circumstances, and a bad shot is still better than no shot. Those who can rise to the occasion when a "bad shot" is called for are the true star level players, but their efficiency will suffer for it.

[Wizenheimer]

I wouldn't mind seeing Simons play somewhere else at this point.

Nah... I'd like to give him another year. He's really young. But he certainly wasn't ready for the role he was shoehorned into.

not only is he young, he has 2 years left on his rookie scale deal and Portland need all the cheap contracts they can use.

the worst thing to happen to Simons was Olshey over-hyping the hell out of the kid last summer. It was irresponsible management to do that, and the mismanagement was compounded when Olshey left Stotts no alternatives than Simons at backup PG. And the 2nd worst thing to happen to Simons was Trent actually showing he's not only an NBA player, but may actually have the potential to be Wesley Matthews 2.0. There were no expectations piled on Trent....they were all on Simons

Olshey left a lot of the season riding on the performances of Simons and Zach. Nothing was really behind either player, and that's a big reason why Portland might be lottery bound. It was a huge bet on unknowns

I've seen Simons flash glimpses of his upside. Unfortunately, he's also flashed plenty of downside. The list of young Blazers who show potential that is never reached is long: Telfaire, Outlaw, Martell Webster, Rudy, McRoberts, Sergio, Bayless. My hunch is that Simons will join that list. But he will get a lot of time to prove me wrong because Olshey is his biggest cheerleader and he doesn't give up on "his guys" quickly

[Wizenheimer]

Spoiler:

Trent has a limited well defined role. He is a finisher and defender. On offense, Trent primarily is a shotmaker. Trent is expected to simply shoot when he gets the ball, not a whole lot of decision making. Simons is a playmaker, or he is being groomed to be a playmaker. While Trent's role is simple and well defined, Simons's role is not simple and well defined.

Trent is doing well because he is putting out the effort on defense and he is making shots. He is doing everything that he is expected to do. Simons's role isn't to simply wait for someone running the offense to pass him the ball. The numbers don't show it but I bet Simons is a better shooter than Trent is. We have 5 years of numbers on Lillard and CJ. The numbers suggest CJ is the better shooter, but I dispute that. I think Lillard is a better shooter but his shot selection and quality of shots isn't as good. Sometimes it's not a matter of decision making. Sometimes Lillard's role in the offense dictates his shot quality isn't going to be as good as other players

.

Yeah, in a league that seems to single-mindedly focus on efficiency these days, people seem to have forgotten that you need to create shots in the first place. Good on-ball scorers are almost always going to be less efficient than good off-ball scorers, but the later is dependent on someone else to set them up. Of course you try and run your offense to set them up and take advantage of holes in the defense to get these guys good looks, but often that fails and you need someone to create as good of a shot as possible given the circumstances, and a bad shot is still better than no shot. Those who can rise to the occasion when a "bad shot" is called for are the true star level players, but their efficiency will suffer for it.

that's mostly true and Simons does have that going for him. In isolation, Simons scores 1.04 points/possession; that ranks in the 82nd percentile. That's pretty good for a 20 year old player, and I think a big reason for that is his body control close to the rim. He has an assortment of shots in the paint and he gets excellent elevation on his shots. Dame is in the 88th percentile at 1.08 ppp; Hood was incredible in the 99th percentile scoring 1.42 ppp... . Sad to think he will likely never be the same

One of Portland's biggest problems is that CJ and Melo do iso so much and they only score 0.86 and 0.84 ppp respectively; they rank in the 50th and 44th percentile. There is your 'bad shot" example and it's killing a lot of Blazer possessions. Considering the Blazers average 1.24 points/shot, they want to minimize those PPP's under 1.00, not maximize them and that's what happens in Portland's iso-heavy offense. I'll say again: I think people significantly over-value players who create their own offense. Or at least they don't value the discretion to say "these guys shouldn't be doing it as much because they simply aren't good at it"...like CJ and Melo

another area where Simons is OK is as a PnR ball-handler. Dame of course is a master at that scoring 1.13 ppp which ranks in the 96th percentile. CJ scores 0.92 ppp while Simons scores 0.91. That ranks both of them around the 68th percentile. Nothing great but at least above average. And considering CJ is in his 7th season and the PnR is nuanced offense, that Simons is practically equal to CJ says something. It may say more about CJ than Simons though

by the way, both Whiteside this year, and Nurkic last year, score 1.13 ppp as PnR roll-men. That only ranks in the 60th percentile and I found that kind of surprising

where Simons sucks is plays like spot-up when he only scores 0.86 ppp (28th percentile). Trent 1.24 ppp (92nd percentile); Hood 1.22 ppp (90th percentile); CJ 1.20 (87th percentile): Dame 1.18 ppp (85th perccentile). Simons is poor at catch-and-shoot as well

and that points to an issue: as long as Dame and CJ are around, Portland will need more players good at spot-up and catch and shoot (Trent). Guys who are bad at that kind of offense are going to be more square peg in a round hole offense. Unless Simons can vastly improve his PG skills and run the offense much better, or miraculously become a better spot-up shooter, he's just going to be a somewhat 1 dimensional player. And all of this doesn't account for the 'fact' that he's the worst defender on the team