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Time: 7:300pm
Place: San Francisco
TV: Root, Root+, NBATV


GLB of the game Linda Evans

As a Warriors fan living in Portland, just gotta say - I miss GPII on the Warriors! Looking forward to catching him on the Blazers.

The majority of our active roster getting blown out by golden states 3rd stringers should be a wake up call to this front office.

Looking like a 30 win team right now and not on purpose. Our defense looks the same and our offense is way worse.

Will the Blazers play the main players or just the young'ns?

This team forgot how to score in the off-season, It feels like every other quarter they forget how to put the ball in the basket.

I wonder whether Dame was deliberately rested so as to provide a bit of an excuse / dampen alarm bells as to our preseason record.

I.e. we probably would have lost by 20+ to GSW with Dame playing, but at least we can provide some false sense of security that Dame didn't play.....

Either way, despite preseason being not particularly important, things aren't looking great.

I have a feeling if this is how the team looks through the first 15-20 games of the season Billups will be fired.

monopoman wrote:I have a feeling if this is how the team looks through the first 15-20 games of the season Billups will be fired.

I was wondering this myself, but he still has 4 more years counting this one. Nothing about Jody Allen suggests she'd be willing to pay out that contract.

I think we'll pull the plug on the year around January and tank the rest of the season again. Billups can lead the tank and get replaced in the off season.

Case2012 wrote:

monopoman wrote:I have a feeling if this is how the team looks through the first 15-20 games of the season Billups will be fired.

I was wondering this myself, but he still has 4 more years counting this one. Nothing about Jody Allen suggests she'd be willing to pay out that contract.

I think we'll pull the plug on the year around January and tank the rest of the season again. Billups can lead the tank and get replaced in the off season.

If Dame makes a big fuss about thinking Billups is not the right man for the job, that might get some of the Blazers management to do something more drastic. Sure, Jody likely wants to save money but if Dame is really annoyed with Billups something could happen.

I think this team has a vision and a direction and the one guy who does not fit said vision is guess who? Ugh it's sad because Billups has 2 ways he can play this and both directions will end up costing him his job. Cater to Dame and make everyone else play hard nosed defense or just run the show that Dame is most comfortable with which goes against everything Billups believes in. Bummer

m0ng0 wrote:I think this team has a vision and a direction and the one guy who does not fit said vision is guess who? Ugh it's sad because Billups has 2 ways he can play this and both directions will end up costing him his job. Cater to Dame and make everyone else play hard nosed defense or just run the show that Dame is most comfortable with which goes against everything Billups believes in. Bummer

The defense first vision doesn’t work if no one can score. The offense last night was an abomination. No flow, guys low on 1v1 talent taking 15 dribbles into a traffic jam in the paint, no coherent off ball movement.

Dame has actually looked competent on offense. Ant has been dreadful. Hart looks like a 8th man. Nurk is still missing bunnies. Grant is horrifying when trying to create for himself, as everyone knew he is best when simply being a role player - cutting and hitting 3’s.

I watched OKC last night and they had better ball movement in a quarter than we showed in all PA games combined so far.

The version of Nurk we are seeing is ine of the worst starting centers in this league. Can we somehow get Precious Achiuwa to be our starter? Some version of Josh Hart for Achiuwa would do wonders for this team.

This preseason is making me miss the Dame/CJ combo. Ant has looked absolutely lost playing next to Dame in the starting line up. I know it's only preseason, but I've been saying all summer that Ant should be coming off the bench as our super 6th man. Ant is way too deferential to Dame and way too passive when they are on the floor together. Hopefully, that will resolve itself with more time playing together, but so far, Ant has not looked anything like the uber confident player he was last season after Dame went down.

Hart also seems lost on offense, without a clear role. I'm not sure what kind of offense Chauncey is trying to run, but so far it looks seriously BAD. We got KILLED last night by a team that was without their top SIX players. Sure, we sat Dame, but they sat all five of their starters (Curry, Klay, Wiggins, Draymond and Looney) and their 6th man (Poole).

Again, it's only preseason, but so far, our starting SF is averaging 3.8 ppg and our starting PF is averaging 2.8 rpg. I expected this to be our best pair of starting forwards since Aldridge/Batum. Now, I'm beginning to wonder.

Something seriously sobering when watching GSW is that this team isnt just a championship contender, but they have a whole squad of youngsters waiting in the wings that by any objective account are better than what we have.

They are so much better now and project to be better than us in the future too. What a franchise. Outside the KD nonsense, I love the way GS was built, even if I find some of their top guys annoying. From a franchise building perspective, they do it right. Development, a system that puts people in a position to succeed, and just always finding bargain guys that rebound their careers as role players. Really a masterclass of running a franchise.

BlazersBroncos wrote:Something seriously sobering when watching GSW is that this team isnt just a championship contender, but they have a whole squad of youngsters waiting in the wings that by any objective account are better than what we have.

They are so much better now and project to be better than us in the future too. What a franchise. Outside the KD nonsense, I love the way GS was built, even if I find some of their top guys annoying. From a franchise building perspective, they do it right. Development, a system that puts people in a position to succeed, and just always finding bargain guys that rebound their careers as role players. Really a masterclass of running a franchise.

Plus, Steve Kerr is a hell of a coach. His teams are always great on both ends of the court, and he seems to keep all the players hungry. Their bench has always been a revolving door of low cost vets and hungry young players, yet they always play hard and make the most of the opportunities they get.

Yeah I've been trying not to let my pessimism at this off-season show too much, one of those if you don't have anything nice to say moments, but this team looks just as bad as I feared.

The biggest thing offensively is that this team needs more good proven 3 point shooters (who are not guards) to space the floor and get better ball movement. But mostly Stotts was an offensive mastermind type of coach (we got spoiled into thinking it was all just our backcourt) while Billups is a hustle and motivate coach. And that skillset should come from an assistant coach. Billups can talk to our players more directly but again that is a role the assistant coach should play while the head coach is focused on higher level strategy.


Our defense is crap where it needs to be strong. We still can't defend the perimeter with our back court. Our center fouls too much and has no depth. Hopefully GP3 helps with the first one but center is the most important position defensively and with how mercurial Nurkic is we are going to have some really off nights with no backup or redundancy built in - not to mention our season would be shot if he got one of his annual injuries.. Need more depth there but instead we waste roster spots with too many guards and forwards. This issue at least is not on Billups, this is poor roster construction going up to Cronin's door.


But in almost every important way we are locked into this roster and trajectory for a while so get used to it. Maybe the lottery gods will shine on us and we will move up from pick around #10-14 but I wouldn't count on it. If everything goes right we can make the play in, lose in the first round and give away a mid teens pick to Chicago. Hooray.

Back to my self imposed silence. At least Sharpe looks like he can move around the basketball court in a elite way, hard to see him completely busting.

It's embarrassing to be a fan right now. There's just not much to like outside of Dame.

Billups doesn't know what he's doing on either end of the floor and I can see him being bad for the locker room. How are players supposed to respect a guy that's holding them accountable while no one holds him accountable? (He's also an accused rapist... But I guess that's not relevant anymore...)

Cronin seems like a nice guy but he overpaid all of our own free agents, didn't get much for Powell, Roco, and CJ, and seems like more of Olshey with an unwillingness to commit to veterans and going after stars. From my perspective there are things that just seem obvious to do. Go after bigger defensive players, free up our picks and use them as needed for a legit second star, and trade our young players for veterans. There was zero reason to give Dame that extension one year into his new deal coming off an injury. More Olshey like behavior.

Jody Allen and the Vulcans are tone deaf, don't care about the fan base and are content with mediocrity as long as it's profitable. Every successful team in the league is deep into the luxury, but every move we make is to stay under the tax. It's hard to root for an organization that doesn't care about their fans or winning. Will Jody fire billups if we start out the season 3-12? Probably not. Cheap doesn't win.

As for the players, I'm glad we at least have high character people on the team. Sharpe looks like a future star, even more so than Ant. As much as I hate the idea of blowing it up, building around Ant, Sharpe and either Scoot or Wembyama is getting more appealing by the week.

I just want Jody to sell the team so I can feel good about being a fan again. It's too bad no one can dig up dirt on just to force her into selling.

Case2012 wrote:It's embarrassing to be a fan right now. There's just not much to like outside of Dame.

Billups doesn't know what he's doing on either end of the floor and I can see him being bad for the locker room. How are players supposed to respect a guy that's holding them accountable while no one holds him accountable? (He's also an accused rapist... But I guess that's but relevant anymore...)

Cronin seems like a nice guy but he overpaid all of our own free agents, didn't get much for Powell, Roco, and CJ, and seems like more of Olshey with an unwillingness to commit to veterans and going after stars. From my perspective there are things that just seem obvious to do. Go after bigger defensive players, free up our picks and use them as needed for a legit second star, and trade our young players for veterans. There was already zero reason to give Dame that extension one year into his new deal coming off an injury. More Olshey like behavior.

Jody Allen and the Vulcans are tone deaf, don't care about the fan base and are content with mediocrity as long as it's profitable. Every successful team in the league is deep into the luxury, but every move we make is to stay under the tax. It's hard to root for an organization that doesn't care about their fans or winning.

As for the players, I'm glad we at least have high character people on the team.

I just want Jody to sell the team so I can get good about being a fan again. It's too bad no one can dig up dirt on just to force her into selling.

This is nitpicking, but getting Josh Hart and Jerami Grant for CJ wasnt a bad trade. We let the horrible LAC move cloud our vision re the CJ trade at times. Thats a great haul.

The issue is that getting Hart and Grant would only matter if this team already had a, say, Pascal level 2nd option on the team. As it stands, we are going nowhere by adding role players. Even upper tier role players. Margin moves wont move our needle. We lack top tier talent and right now I dont see any avenue to adding said talent.

I think Cronin did a good job working with what he was given (Outside the LAC trade). I give positive ratings to the CJ deal, the Sharpe pick, the GP2 signing and dont think any FA resigning was that outlandish. End of the day a long series of bad moves and sleepwalking by the NO regime put us in a position to lack the second fiddle to Dame and right now there isnt anyone foseeable on the market that fits that #2 role and even if there was, the IDIOTIC protections NO put on that CHI owed pick ties our hands behind our backs.

The expectations I have for this season are to just enjoy watching the youngsters play. I think the offense is going to be really poor and wouldnt be surprised if even the addition of GP2 doesnt improve the backcourt defense enough to make the team defense as a whole more than middling.

I have a really bad feeling about Ant. I think he may be a huge letdown this year. We know he wasnt going to be a plus defender or a true PG, but if he cant continue to score at a similar level, or better, as his breakout 30 games we are going to be in a really tough spot.

Realistically, we are relying on a guy in Ant to be our 2nd best player when on a team like GSW he would be the 6th man (IE the Poole role). That really puts into perspective where we stand as a team talent wise.

Sure CJ for Hart and Grant is a good trade but the combined return for Powell, Roco, CJ, and Nance was terrible. All for flexibility that we immediately wasted by overpaying nurkic and Simons before seeing what the market was willing to pay them. He's not a good gm. I factor how much he was involved in the previous regimes decisions into my opinions of his performance as well. He's slightly more defense oriented Olshey 2.0 with a friendly disposition. I have no confidence in his ability to build a winning team. But like I said, he seems like a real nice guy.

My point wasn't to completely rehash everything from last year's deadline, but to illustrate how hard it is to find something worth rooting for right now. It's Dame and to an extent Sharpe who probably won't be getting many minutes in the regular season unless we commit to tanking. I like Grant, but we need 2 more of him. Completely agree about the role player comments too. These guys are good but they aren't stars and they're probably going to get paid like stars next year if we want to keep them. It's frustrating. We should've freed up our picks (or at least gotten a few at the deadline last year) to push the chips in for a needle mover or completely committed to rebuilding. It's been one foot in and one foot out for a decade.

Welcome to reality, this is what you wanted. Now we have it! We could have had a nice young core in place already and had a couple more picks in the pipeline for a few years, but instead we have this...floundering, middling, treadmill of a mess.