SEASON OPENER: Blazers vs Warriors 7:00pm

[Brandon-Clyde]

Consolation GLB pics

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

[Braggins]

It feels like the natural move a reasonable owner would have made is to fire Chauncey last year after he had clearly lost the team already.

This game reminded me of the Hornets last season where it looked like the coach had already lost the team when the season had just started.

[BlazersBroncos]

with 6 minutes left in the game, those 3 had taken 42 of Portland's 81 shots....and the Blazers were down by 25....leadership

This is the WORST CASE SCENARIO for this team being watchable. And it wont change anytime soon.

89.68M owed between the 3 of them this year, equal to 65% of our cap, over 50% of the teams shots taken (Before true garbage time) and a 25 point deficit.

[BlazersBroncos]

Another puke worthy stat -

Grant 18 shots, 2 FT
Ayton 12 shots, 0 FT
Simons 12 shots, 3 FT

VS

Avdija 10 shots, 8 FT
Camara 8 shots, 4 FT

[zzaj]

IMHO, we shouldn't get this twisted...

Is Chauncey a poor coach? 100%. But every account, and that includes players themselves, is that Billups hasn't "lost the team". Players like and respect him and are playing hard for him...but there's only so much you can do without talent.

My hope is that this year, since he's a lame duck, he is a little more of a hard a$$ on the players. You could kinda sense in his post-game presser last night that he was pissed. He even said, something along the lines of "...I don't think that any of our players played well".

My other hope is that the Blazers prioritize taking off the kid gloves and find a coach with some X&O acumen. Pushing the tempo is fine, and it makes sense for this youngest team in the league...but that can't be your solve for winning games.

[Braggins]

also Scoot 18 shots, 9ft

Scoot ~ Sharpe ~ Camara ~ Avdija ~ Clingan
^^ That group is obviously still going to be bad, but they are all young, hungry, and can play/develop together while they tank for Flagg or whoever.

[Norm2953]

At least much of Portland wasn't able to watch last night's game

On the Direct TV front, the team seems to be finalizing the details but as long as the team is
unwatchable, I'll watch the Yankees/Dodgers play in the WS and football.

[PDXKnight]

Only jody allen could take a top 10
all time winning percentage team in the NBA and drop it to middle of the road

[PDXKnight]

also Scoot 18 shots, 9ft

Scoot ~ Sharpe ~ Camara ~ Avdija ~ Clingan
^^ That group is obviously still going to be bad, but they are all young, hungry, and can play/develop together while they tank for Flagg or whoever.

The problem is with the cap change it's a lot more of a challenge moving 30 million dollars here and there. And I can't envision chauncy moving vets to the bench unless the season is pretty clearly over

Not saying nothing will get done but it's bound to take some time

[BigPuma]

Scoot right now with highest points (8) and lowest +/- on the team (-8)..

Quoting myself here.. the statement remained true at end of the game with 22 points and a minus 30 +\-.

I think the issue here is coaching. Player got talent, but you can't just tell him to go on court and do what you do best. You have to have a system.
Chauncey said in an interview he wants the players to play to their best (i.e Camara all court D).. but that just isn't enough IMO.
He needs to be more active on the sidelines, and actually in-game micro-manage for a little while.

Scoot is the exact opposite of Podziemski, who was 0-5 for 0 points but a team best +34. I understand scoot is young and could improve, but something about his game just doesn't pass the eye test for me and I'm not optimistic he will contribute to winning basketball in the future.

[BlazersBroncos]

Scoot right now with highest points (8) and lowest +/- on the team (-8)..

Quoting myself here.. the statement remained true at end of the game with 22 points and a minus 30 +\-.

I think the issue here is coaching. Player got talent, but you can't just tell him to go on court and do what you do best. You have to have a system.
Chauncey said in an interview he wants the players to play to their best (i.e Camara all court D).. but that just isn't enough IMO.
He needs to be more active on the sidelines, and actually in-game micro-manage for a little while.

Scoot is the exact opposite of Podziemski, who was 0-5 for 0 points but a team best +34. I understand scoot is young and could improve, but something about his game just doesn't pass the eye test for me and I'm not optimistic he will contribute to winning basketball in the future.

I am in this camp but still hold out some hope. To see what he is, he needs to be handed the keys. If Scoot is this bad by the end of the year we need to cut bait like DAL did with DSJ. You cant give a guy this bad a 3rd year of 30mpg.

We have bigger issues (The dreaded 'trio') but last night Scoot was far from good. He put up decent raw numbers on big usage and lots of shots. He didnt have great control of the team for a guy touted as a tried and true floor general PG. As BigPuma said, the eye test is just lacking.

[zzaj]

Quoting myself here.. the statement remained true at end of the game with 22 points and a minus 30 +\-.

I think the issue here is coaching. Player got talent, but you can't just tell him to go on court and do what you do best. You have to have a system.
Chauncey said in an interview he wants the players to play to their best (i.e Camara all court D).. but that just isn't enough IMO.
He needs to be more active on the sidelines, and actually in-game micro-manage for a little while.

Scoot is the exact opposite of Podziemski, who was 0-5 for 0 points but a team best +34. I understand scoot is young and could improve, but something about his game just doesn't pass the eye test for me and I'm not optimistic he will contribute to winning basketball in the future.

I am in this camp but still hold out some hope. To see what he is, he needs to be handed the keys. If Scoot is this bad by the end of the year we need to cut bait like DAL did with DSJ. You cant give a guy this bad a 3rd year of 30mpg.

We have bigger issues (The dreaded 'trio') but last night Scoot was far from good. He put up decent raw numbers on big usage and lots of shots. He didnt have great control of the team for a guy touted as a tried and true floor general PG. As BigPuma said, the eye test is just lacking.

I'm also in this camp. While I still think Scoot could end up a fine player in the NBA, this isn't what the Blazers need. The Blazers need a building block player that elevates players around him...and I just don't see that.

My worry is that the Blazers will pass on a better prospect a la Dylan Harper or some such, because of commitment to Scoot.

[Walton1one]

Are you watching the same game? I don't think Scoot was "good", but he wasn't "bad" either.

Plus\minus is a garbage stat IMO, I hold ZERO weight in it, it means nothing.

I thought Scoot came in a little too hot, and he got himself into some trouble by driving into traffic, getting stripped of the ball a few times, he was 0-5 from 3pt, but the ENTIRE TEAM shot 23.5% (8/34), just completely atrocious, and buckle up because it will likely be that way for most of the season because Cronin did NOTHING to address this teams poor shooting, which was the WORST LY in 3pt FG% (2nd worst in 2pt FG%).

Simons was 2-7, Grant 2-8. If you want to blame players for this loss, there they are. Simons had 5 TO, one of them particularly bad where he got stripped at the top of the key and GS took it back for an uncontested layup b\c he didn't bother to get back and try and play defense, he was awful.

Scoot got to the line NINE times, converting 8 FT, tops on this team, which is good (Avdija was 7/8, also good). He had a 2:1 A\TO ratio (4-2) and probably should have had more assists but we have too many players who CANNOT SHOOT.

Also, you really need to look at FT attempts before you start bashing him about his 18 shot attempts, as 5\6? of those misses were in fact CONVERTED into points from the FT line, that makes a difference.

Scoot is not the problem with this team. He is a 20yr old kid trying to play PG on a team with no defined offense, no shooters to support his drives and no big men (outside of Clingan who played only 13min, really?) who can set a decent screen to help him.

Cronin, Billups both of these guys for differing reasons (team composition, coaching) are as much\more to blame, as "veterans" like Ant\Grant\Ayton for being bad at THEIR jobs and then expecting the players to clean up the mess they have created.

[DusterBuster]

It feels like the natural move a reasonable owner would have made is to fire Chauncey last year after he had clearly lost the team already.

This game reminded me of the Hornets last season where it looked like the coach had already lost the team when the season had just started.

Yep. If Chauncey makes it to 2025 as Portland coach, I'll be stunned. There's no juice there, no buy-in by the team, no cohesion, no effort - just all mess and laziness.

I know it's just one game in, but for a supposed "development" year the GM openly said this is, it's time to go full in on development. I'm so tired of this half-assed attempt they've been doing for years now.

Step one, fire Chauncey and get a coach in there in here who actually WANTS to develop players - Chauncey has shown quite literally zero interest from Day 1 on being a developmental coach, which is fine and his prerogative. Why the team and him didn't split this summer is beyond me. Hopefully it's not the team just being cheap because they want Chauncey to step down so they don't have to pay him for nothing like they do if they fire him... He's only got one season left, just can him and let an assistant have the job for the year.

Step two, go young. Seems dumb to say with a team this young, but they still have too many vets. At this point, I genuinely don't care what the Blazers get back for Grant, Simons, DA, Thybulle, or Williams. Just get them off the team for whatever you can get back as long as it's not a worse contract than you're sending out. You can only get 1 highly protected FRP?... Bummer... pull the trigger. Only a couple of seconds and some cash? Damn... pull the tigger. Get any player with more than 5 years experience off this team stat. Finally strip this how down to it's f-ing studs.

This team should be running out this lineup (when healthy)...

Scoot/Banton
Sharpe/Rupert
Camara/Murray
Deni/Walker
Clingan/Reath

You're not going to win an more games than the current roster... for sure... and you are at least going to give young guys time to play vs continuing to stunt their development with bad coaching and vets who are just cashing a check all season and taking their minutes.

Until I see the Blazers / Cronin being proactive on one of these two steps, I'm pretty checkout on this season outside of catching some twitter clips.

[mighty_duck]

Scoot didn't lose this game for us (though he certainly didn't win it for us either!).
Our transition defense was horrible. After the first quarter, GS made minced meat of our set defense as well. We also shot 39%/23% , which won't win us any games. And almost every long miss seemed to launch an easy transition score for GS.

Scoot drove to the basket a lot, but again showed little craft or subtlety. He drives strong and fast, but often, that alone does not give him enough separation to get an easy look. It worked better against the GS scrubs in garbage time. He had much improved body control compared to the beginning of last season.
These are skills that can be learned, and I'm disappointed seeing how little he improved over the summer. It is the key to him having a successful career.
He was not risking much when passing, which lead to fewer turnovers but also fewer assists.

[Wizenheimer]

It feels like the natural move a reasonable owner would have made is to fire Chauncey last year after he had clearly lost the team already.

This game reminded me of the Hornets last season where it looked like the coach had already lost the team when the season had just started.

Yep. If Chauncey makes it to 2025 as Portland coach, I'll be stunned. There's no juice there, no buy-in by the team, no cohesion, no effort - just all mess and laziness.

I know it's just one game in, but for a supposed "development" year the GM openly said this is, it's time to go full in on development. I'm so tired of this half-assed attempt they've been doing for years now.

Step one, fire Chauncey and get a coach in there in here who actually WANTS to develop players - Chauncey has shown quite literally zero interest from Day 1 on being a developmental coach, which is fine and his prerogative. Why the team and him didn't split this summer is beyond me. Hopefully it's not the team just being cheap because they want Chauncey to step down so they don't have to pay him for nothing like they do if they fire him... He's only got one season left, just can him and let an assistant have the job for the year.

Step two, go young. Seems dumb to say with a team this young, but they still have too many vets. At this point, I genuinely don't care what the Blazers get back for Grant, Simons, DA, Thybulle, or Williams. Just get them off the team for whatever you can get back as long as it's not a worse contract than you're sending out. You can only get 1 highly protected FRP?... Bummer... pull the trigger. Only a couple of seconds and some cash? Damn... pull the tigger. Get any player with more than 5 years experience off this team stat. Finally strip this how down to it's f-ing studs.

This team should be running out this lineup (when healthy)...

Scoot/Banton
Sharpe/Rupert
Camara/Murray
Deni/Walker
Clingan/Reath

You're not going to win an more games than the current roster... for sure... and you are at least going to give young guys time to play vs continuing to stunt their development with bad coaching and vets who are just cashing a check all season and taking their minutes.

Until I see the Blazers / Cronin being proactive on one of these two steps, I'm pretty checkout on this season outside of catching some twitter clips.

good post

after a decade of Olshey, I really wanted to like Joe Cronin. But in many real ways, Cronin is starting to look like Olshey 2.0. Primarily because he's a mimic of Olshey's total commitment to straddle every fence in sight without ever picking a lane. Why the hell are Simons-Grant-Ayton stll on the team? Why are Thybulle and Timelord on the team at all?

* Olshey had a blind, stubborn, unjustifiable man-love for undersized, no-defense CJ that completely bollixed any logical progression of roster building. Cronin seems to have the same irrational affinity for Simons (IIRC it was Quick who said it was Cronin who convinced Olshey to draft Simons). Simons has become CJ 2.0 except he's not as good

* Olshey hard-capped the Blazers by signing Derrick Jones; Cronin hard-capped the Blazers by signing Gary Payton

* Olshey trade two first round picks for Robert Covington; Cronin paid two first round picks plus two second round picks for Avdija. Now personally, I think Avdija will be quite a bit better than RoCo, but that was a real steep price, especially considering that both of those firsts could end up being lottery picks

I'll say it again: Portland is a dumpster fire on just about every level: ownership-management-coaching-roster construction-talent. There are a lot more dark clouds than silver linings

[PDXKnight]

This game reminded me of the Hornets last season where it looked like the coach had already lost the team when the season had just started.

Yep. If Chauncey makes it to 2025 as Portland coach, I'll be stunned. There's no juice there, no buy-in by the team, no cohesion, no effort - just all mess and laziness.

I know it's just one game in, but for a supposed "development" year the GM openly said this is, it's time to go full in on development. I'm so tired of this half-assed attempt they've been doing for years now.

Step one, fire Chauncey and get a coach in there in here who actually WANTS to develop players - Chauncey has shown quite literally zero interest from Day 1 on being a developmental coach, which is fine and his prerogative. Why the team and him didn't split this summer is beyond me. Hopefully it's not the team just being cheap because they want Chauncey to step down so they don't have to pay him for nothing like they do if they fire him... He's only got one season left, just can him and let an assistant have the job for the year.

Step two, go young. Seems dumb to say with a team this young, but they still have too many vets. At this point, I genuinely don't care what the Blazers get back for Grant, Simons, DA, Thybulle, or Williams. Just get them off the team for whatever you can get back as long as it's not a worse contract than you're sending out. You can only get 1 highly protected FRP?... Bummer... pull the trigger. Only a couple of seconds and some cash? Damn... pull the tigger. Get any player with more than 5 years experience off this team stat. Finally strip this how down to it's f-ing studs.

This team should be running out this lineup (when healthy)...

Scoot/Banton
Sharpe/Rupert
Camara/Murray
Deni/Walker
Clingan/Reath

You're not going to win an more games than the current roster... for sure... and you are at least going to give young guys time to play vs continuing to stunt their development with bad coaching and vets who are just cashing a check all season and taking their minutes.

Until I see the Blazers / Cronin being proactive on one of these two steps, I'm pretty checkout on this season outside of catching some twitter clips.

good post

after a decade of Olshey, I really wanted to like Joe Cronin. But in many real ways, Cronin is starting to look like Olshey 2.0. Primarily because he's a mimic of Olshey's total commitment to straddle every fence in sight without ever picking a lane. Why the hell are Simons-Grant-Ayton stll on the team? Why are Thybulle and Timelord on the team at all?

* Olshey had a blind, stubborn, unjustifiable man-love for undersized, no-defense CJ that completely bollixed any logical progression of roster building. Cronin seems to have the same irrational affinity for Simons (IIRC it was Quick who said it was Cronin who convinced Olshey to draft Simons). Simons has become CJ 2.0 except he's not as good

* Olshey hard-capped the Blazers by signing Derrick Jones; Cronin hard-capped the Blazers by signing Gary Payton

* Olshey trade two first round picks for Robert Covington; Cronin paid two first round picks plus two second round picks for Avdija. Now personally, I think Avdija will be quite a bit better than RoCo, but that was a real steep price, especially considering that both of those firsts could end up being lottery picks

I'll say it again: Portland is a dumpster fire on just about every level: ownership-management-coaching-roster construction-talent. There are a lot more dark clouds than silver linings

Even though I personally didn't get the logic of avdija with camara already here he's definitely, as you said, quite a bit superior to cov. I'm glad we traded the second best pick and maintained whichever 2029 pick is the best. It would've been a disaster dealing a potential top pick for deni. I do think the deni trade at least could be framed as comparable to a hit if not even a home run on our picks given his contract age and usefulness as a player. But he feels more like an addition to a title squad than a final piece and given our current trajectory was sort of a questionable add. Nonetheless nba circles seem to think we got a good deal for him leading me to believe he can be flipped for a similar return

Agreed on the vets, time to move on hopefully a return but man they've gotta go

[AcFunk]

Just a reminder this team is just one game in. (VS GS).
Did you feel the same way after Utah preaseason game?
Changes and steps should and would happen.. it is not a question of 'IF'.. only 'When'.

[DusterBuster]

This game reminded me of the Hornets last season where it looked like the coach had already lost the team when the season had just started.

Yep. If Chauncey makes it to 2025 as Portland coach, I'll be stunned. There's no juice there, no buy-in by the team, no cohesion, no effort - just all mess and laziness.

I know it's just one game in, but for a supposed "development" year the GM openly said this is, it's time to go full in on development. I'm so tired of this half-assed attempt they've been doing for years now.

Step one, fire Chauncey and get a coach in there in here who actually WANTS to develop players - Chauncey has shown quite literally zero interest from Day 1 on being a developmental coach, which is fine and his prerogative. Why the team and him didn't split this summer is beyond me. Hopefully it's not the team just being cheap because they want Chauncey to step down so they don't have to pay him for nothing like they do if they fire him... He's only got one season left, just can him and let an assistant have the job for the year.

Step two, go young. Seems dumb to say with a team this young, but they still have too many vets. At this point, I genuinely don't care what the Blazers get back for Grant, Simons, DA, Thybulle, or Williams. Just get them off the team for whatever you can get back as long as it's not a worse contract than you're sending out. You can only get 1 highly protected FRP?... Bummer... pull the trigger. Only a couple of seconds and some cash? Damn... pull the tigger. Get any player with more than 5 years experience off this team stat. Finally strip this how down to it's f-ing studs.

This team should be running out this lineup (when healthy)...

Scoot/Banton
Sharpe/Rupert
Camara/Murray
Deni/Walker
Clingan/Reath

You're not going to win an more games than the current roster... for sure... and you are at least going to give young guys time to play vs continuing to stunt their development with bad coaching and vets who are just cashing a check all season and taking their minutes.

Until I see the Blazers / Cronin being proactive on one of these two steps, I'm pretty checkout on this season outside of catching some twitter clips.

good post

after a decade of Olshey, I really wanted to like Joe Cronin. But in many real ways, Cronin is starting to look like Olshey 2.0. Primarily because he's a mimic of Olshey's total commitment to straddle every fence in sight without ever picking a lane. Why the hell are Simons-Grant-Ayton stll on the team? Why are Thybulle and Timelord on the team at all?

* Olshey had a blind, stubborn, unjustifiable man-love for undersized, no-defense CJ that completely bollixed any logical progression of roster building. Cronin seems to have the same irrational affinity for Simons (IIRC it was Quick who said it was Cronin who convinced Olshey to draft Simons). Simons has become CJ 2.0 except he's not as good

* Olshey hard-capped the Blazers by signing Derrick Jones; Cronin hard-capped the Blazers by signing Gary Payton

* Olshey trade two first round picks for Robert Covington; Cronin paid two first round picks plus two second round picks for Avdija. Now personally, I think Avdija will be quite a bit better than RoCo, but that was a real steep price, especially considering that both of those firsts could end up being lottery picks

I'll say it again: Portland is a dumpster fire on just about every level: ownership-management-coaching-roster construction-talent. There are a lot more dark clouds than silver linings

I don't quite think the comparisons here listed are as 1:1 as you see them, but to your overall point, I totally agree.

I'm not convinced Cronin has the man-crush on Simons that Olshey did for CJ. I think Cronin values Simons certainly, he moreso thinks he has a good value contract and probably at this point expects higher return that he's probably worth. I don't think he thinks Simons is the 2nd best SG in the league like Olshey did for CJ. I also suspect there's a bit of bet hedging here by Cronin on Scoot's development (or lack there of)... but from my POV, Cronin already put his chips in on on Scoot for better or worse. Simons also hasn't shown he's really able to play alongside other guards real well... he's not as versatile as CJ was and he's not as consistent as Dame was.

As for the hardcapping example, all GM's make bad signings from time to time, so you can make that comp about literally any GM. The Blazers also had a supermax player a the time with Dame, easy to get hardcapped in that situation.

I wasn't a fan of the price payed for Deni either, but he does seem like he's going to be a good long-term fit, so I'll ride with it. Personally, I would have rather kept the picks and taken Dalton Knecht at 13, but Deni is still very young, locked into a very affordable contract and unlike RoCo, wasn't in the prime of his career. The RoCo deal was indefensible because at that time, the Blazers should have been going all in on a major talent and instead kept settling for these B+ level veteran starters at every stop of the way. Deni may still end up being just a B+ level starter, but he's not a 30yo veteran like Olshey kept targetting, he still has room to improve.

But this is admittedly all splitting hairs, the bottom line that the Blazers are a dumpsterfire is spot on. If you're going to say you're a developmental team or in a developmental year... spend it... ohhhhh.... I donno... developing! The current makeup of the coaching staff and roster makes development completely impossible.

[DusterBuster]

Just a reminder this team is just one game in. (VS GS).
Did you feel the same way after Utah preaseason game?
Changes and steps should and would happen.. it is not a question of 'IF'.. only 'When'.

The Utah game is more what the Blazer fans should expect, not from the outcome, but from the minutes played. Guys like Scoot, Clingan, Rupert and Murray should all be in the 25+ mpg range... guys like Simons, Grant, Ayton, Thybulle, Williams should be just off the team.