DusterBuster wrote:three3d wrote:DusterBuster wrote:
One hope here in Portland I have is this great January by Scoot will convince Cronin to make that change with Simons. It's really really really time to rip this bandaid off and I hope the Blazers FO agrees with me.
I would love the Blazers to just pick the lane of youth and just post an O-fer with wins the rest of the way of the year, but even if they did that, that still probably leads them to the 6th or 7th seed at best. It wouldn't even shock me to see Portland do a 180 and make a star player move and resign Billups to a 4 year extension. Genuinely all options seem to be on the table for Cronin right now. He could trade Grant and Simons for a bag of chips or trade Ayton and a half-decade of firsts for Zion and I wouldn't be surprised either way.
It’s been rough in here today after last nights loss, all the activity is on the trade thread lol. I’m hopeful for a Simons trade but think we’ve got bigger problems. Mosley is a great coach but I think we are severely lacking qualified assistant coaches. Specifically an offensive minded coach on the staff to mold an offense around Paolo and Franz. I don’t know if a player trade will work until the offense has a blueprint to follow or vision. I’m feeling like that’s really hurting us because there’s just no way players forget how to play basketball or shoot the ball.
From a non-statistic related "vibes" check, your guys team has something very wrong. That's not a team that's happy or connected.
I would agree that Simons isn't the answer that's going to fix it. Simons is a really good player, but he's not a culture setter... that said, winning helps everything. If he can help peal off a few wins, that can help the vibes of the team alone. Which for the right price, might be worth the deal, then obviously fix the bigger problems.
The reality is, there is no "one move" that's going to fix the Magic from what I've seen of them, but that alone is not a reason to sit on your hands. Teams need to keep moving forward on all fronts, even through rough patches.
It’s been a brutal season of injuries on top of a rough schedule that had us playing more games than most other teams early on. Honestly these guys need the all-Star break like a month ago.
They are asked/expected to play defense at such a high level just to make up for the lack of offensive production. Some times a really good offense can be a great defense, but we don’t have that offensive ability so there’s no room for mistakes. When Paolo went down 5 games into the season something unexpected happened. Franz put the team on his back and really played great freed from Paolo’s ball domination. Sure it’s nothing major now, but could that become something later down the road we shall see.
