Skybox wrote:I don't see him as often as you guys but I listen to his podcast sometimes...he seems articulate, hungry, intelligent/analytical...he can obviously shoot. Seemed like in today's NBA, assuming he has a handle and is a threat to get to the rim, he could possibly adapt. I would never trade AG just to upgrade our SG position, but if our FO was convinced CJ had the makings of a breakout role at lead guard, I'd love it.
CJ is very articulate and an extremely likable interview. He seems to be a quality individual, much like Dame. If that is a part of the criteria a franchise uses to value players, he'd score at the top in that scale. And I'm assuming a lot of teams would value that quality, but it wouldn't be valued higher than talent or fit, IMO
Ripcity4life wrote:Wiz i am not going to argue against your stats cause i am sure they are on point. However i will argue maybe if he was the dominate guard meaning offense ran through him the above statement COULD be more true.
sure...that's why I said skybox's notions of what CJ's scoring and assist levels could be possible (although I still think there's no way CJ averages over 8 assists in any circumstance)
in April, as the season was almost over, a blogger at Blazers Edge posted some Synergy numbers for CJ this last season. One was him as part of the list for the 20 most frequent shooters in the NBA:
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the most revealing part of that is that CJ led that list in time-of-possession/touch, seconds/touch, and dribbles/touch; and in most cases, he was more than doubling everybody else.
if that didn't change, then as a lead guard, he'd be one of the most ball dominant players in the NBA and maybe the most ball-dominant. I'm thinking that would not be a good thing for an offense; and we saw plenty of times this last season how Portland's offensive motion stalled when CJ had the ball and was doing his shake-n-bake routine. Teammates tended to stand around, likely because they didn't know where he was going but were inclined to think they wouldn't be getting the ball themselves. CJ was too selfish last season
and another Synergy stat that was posted was CJ's efficiency/production numbers for types of shots:
I think those present a good indication of just where CJ ranked in the NBA in terms of efficiency for his
one-on-one-create-his-own-offense. Essentially, he was below the 80th percentile. 20% of NBA players were better in isolation and off pick-n-roll; and CJ was horrible operating off screens...all the way down to the 46th percentile
and the first set of stats buttress those numbers because while CJ was #1 by a large gap in time of possession, and dribbles/touch, he was only 14th in points/touch
on the other hand, look at his spot-up number of 1.4 points/possession, that was in the 98th percentile. He should be getting a lot more of those shots and a lot less isolation and p-n-r. He should be catching-and-shooting more and catching-and-dribbling less. He's being used wrong, IMO
in one way, I compare CJ to Martell Webster. Martell had one of the best shooting strokes ever. It was beautiful and the only other Blazer who was comparable in shooting motion was Kiki Vandeweigh. Blazer fans overrated Martell's talent simply because they were impressed by that shooting style. But in terms of results, Martell was only a little above average as a shooter. He was just a career 38% shooter from three and less then 42% on FG's; his shooting motion was a lot better than his shooting results. That's like CJ in that when CJ is doing his crossover dribbles and herky-jerk-fake-out dribbling, he's a top-5 player in terms of dribbling style. It wows you watching it, and that colors the perception of his abilities. But the results don't come close to matching the style. And I think CJ has become overrated as an iso player much the same way Webster became overrated as a shooter. Kind of a style over substance conflict, and in this case, substance = results
but like I said, maybe CJ would react and perform differently in a different system for a different team. It would be a substantial risk to take because CJ has a substantial salary. But as more and more of these super-contracts are signed, the level of CJ's salary drops in relation to top players, so the salary concern will fade a bit