Game! Blazers vs Suns, 5PM PT, NBATV

[d-train]

Don't expect anything fancy or GLB from me. That's too much work.

Supposedly, coverage is by NBATV. I'll be looking for it but who knows. I'll be watching if I can find a stream.

[d-train]

Collins looks like he is ready to step his game up. His confidence on offense looks better.

Mario doesn't look like a shooter. Maybe he will be good at hitting open 3's but I don't think we want him shooting off the dribble. It looks like Mario's role is going to be similar to Turner's. Mario probably won't be designated point forward, but he will have the green light to push the ball.

[monopoman]

If the Suns are going to shoot like this with regularity they will be one of the better teams in the West. Feels like they are hitting 3 pointers as often as the Warriors do in a typical game.

[d-train]

Blazers are playing Lillard a lot without the ball. I wonder if that is something we might see more of this year.

[monopoman]

Blazers are playing Lillard a lot without the ball. I wonder if that is something we might see more of this year.

Well Curry off ball is why he is so dangerous he finds himself wide open for 3's just running all over the court.

[d-train]

Mario nailed that one off the dribble.

[d-train]

I know it doesn't count but it seems like this should be more competitive. Blazers are sloppy on offense and especially defense.

[monopoman]

Well I'm glad this game doesn't count Suns in basically can't miss mode looking like they have the best offense ever devised.

[monopoman]

Simons is such an incredible shooter I expect huge things from him.

[Norm2953]

Suns tonight looked really solid for they played without Booker, Ayton and Rubio for their front court
group of Bridges, Johnsons (2), Oubre, Saric all could start for Portland. For Portland unless Hood
steps up, might not have any front court player who is a legit scoring threat and the team is
struggling as expected defensively without Aminu, Harkless and Turner.

It's going to take some for this group to jell. Likely we'll see a lot of 3 guards with Whiteside and Collins
and hopefully will get something out of Gasol for its likely Whiteside and Collins will be in a lot of foul
trouble with the loss of so many perimeter defenders from last seasons playoff team.

[Wizenheimer]

playing Lillard more off the ball is stupid as far as I'm concerned. That's because he's never been good at catch-&-shoot plays. That's not his strength. Last season, he was in the 56th percentile, meaning 44% of the NBA was better at it. Meanwhile, he was in the 85-90% percentiles on plays with the ball in his hands like the PnR and isolation. His FG% in catch-n-shoot was only 38%. If Portland wants to do some load management for Lillard, rest him by giving him games off. Don't try and rest him while he's on the floor, and for sure, don't take your best player, by far, and reduce his effectiveness and efficiency by giving him more opportunities he's never been good in at and reducing the opportunities he's been elite in

***********************************************************

it's the preseason and the games mean little, but after 3 games what's clear is that Portland's defense sucks so far. Too much confusion, too slow of rotations, ineffective switches, and poor effort. Better effort would improve the other areas, but early indications support the notion, stated by many, that losing Aminu & Harkless has chopped-out what has been the core of the defense for 4 years. Even losing Turner has had an impact, at least on defense.

[d-train]

Expanding our offense is part of working to be a better team. It makes the job of defending the Blazers much easier if all offense starts with Lillard. Running everything through Lillard is fine while it's working, but we need options when it isn't working.

The argument that Lillard can't do it is nonsense. Lillard possesses all the prerequisite skills in abundance. Curry doesn't stop creating problems for opponents defense when he doesn't have the ball. In fact, Curry's willingness to work effectively without the ball has been a significant key to Warriors success. Playing without the ball doesn't limit a player to being only a catch-n-shoot threat unless that is a limit to the player's skills. I don't see Curry standing around and being merely a floor spacer when he doesn't have the ball.

I don't see the Blazers going away from using Lillard as our lead guard and first option as often as we can make it work. I see Blazers attempting to build upon our primary options by improving our secondary options. Our best secondary option when Lillard doesn't have the ball should be Lillard positioning himself to score. Lillard should not be resting himself and the defense when he doesn't have the ball.

As for replacing Aminu, Harkless, and Turner, I think we have done it. We also replaced Kanter, Leonard, and Layman. I'm not sure we replaced Seth Curry, but we didn't have full bird rights or cap room to resign him.

[Norm2953]

We'll see if we will have replaced Aminu, Harkless and Turner soon enough. Between Bazemore and Hood,
we'll get some offensive production and perhaps in a couple of weeks, Hezonja will develop a mid-range
game with his new team mates. The problem will be defense for we're missing our 3 best perimeter
defenders from last season and if Simons plays in a lot of 3 guard lineups, we will see Zach and Hassan
in foul trouble in every game this season.

Things will look up for Portland for we have a real chance to shape the roster when Nurk is close to his
return and those expiring contracts come off our books.

[Wizenheimer]

Things will look up for Portland for we have a real chance to shape the roster when Nurk is close to his
return and those expiring contracts come off our books.

I think people are either overrating the expiring contracts or underrating the value of those contracts to Portland

if, as many in the NBA are apparently anticipating, the NBA has as much as a 15% retraction in revenue because of the China mess, their year's 109M salary cap could drop all the way down to 93M; and next season's tax line could be 112M. Portland has almost 92M in guaranteed and dead salary next season. That's only for 7 players; that does not include Whiteside, Bazemore, Hood, Skal, or Hezonja. If the Blazers 'reward' Hood for giving them a discount this season, they'd be bumping him up to about 10M in salary next season. That would leave the Blazers only 10M below the tax line and they'd only have 8 players

in other words, say the Blazers trade Whiteside & their 1st for Otto Porter and he opts into his final season. That would put Portland 18M over the tax line and they'd still have to add 5 more players. Not only that, the next season, when Dame and CJ's new deals kick in, the Blazers would be paying repeater tax if they were over the line

[monopoman]

I think part of the problem defensively is just trying to figure out where it's going to come from and this team learning to play together. This is the biggest shakeup to the starting 5 in quite a while, potentially 3 players in the typical starting lineup that were not Blazers last year.

In previous years we had a lot of continuation in that starting lineup once with the only change being the addition of Nurkic in recent years. Luckily this is an 82 game season though and with the tough schedule in the first 20 or so games that will give them time to figure it out. If this team is around .500 after those first 20 games we are in fine position moving forward.

I will also say that without Nurkic this team will struggle more defensively he is one of our best if not best defenders and is a complete game changer inside. Now Suns were bludgeoning us with 3 pointers but part of that comes from a lack of interior defense where guys are more worried about an inside play without a beast like Nurkic protecting.

[d-train]

Things will look up for Portland for we have a real chance to shape the roster when Nurk is close to his
return and those expiring contracts come off our books.

Nothing wrong with how things look right now.

Blazers plan A is to resign Whiteside, Bazemore, and probably Mario as well. Plan B might be a sign-and-trade, which Blazers can do because Blazers will be below the tax threshold in 20-21. The last thing Blazers would want is to let those contracts expire and not resign or trade the players. The reason Blazers can't just let the deals expire is because the most cap room we can make is between $15-16M. We would have no chance to replace Whiteside, Bazemore, and Mario for $15M. Cap room is just a bad option. We can go over the cap to resign our players, and have the $9.9M MLE and $3.9M BAE to improve our team. We can get the same players in free agency without cap room using our exceptions. It's a no-brainer.

[d-train]

in other words, say the Blazers trade Whiteside & their 1st for Otto Porter and he opts into his final season. That would put Portland 18M over the tax line and they'd still have to add 5 more players. Not only that, the next season, when Dame and CJ's new deals kick in, the Blazers would be paying repeater tax if they were over the line

I would rather say the Blazers resign Whiteside and keep their 1st round pick. It's a lot better option.

I think planning on the NBA losing 15% of revenue is basing your planning on a dumb premise. If the moon crashes into the sun and the NBA's revenues drop by 15%, its a tough problem for everyone.

[Norm2953]

It's likely Portland has no set plan for nobody knows how all the pieces fit for its going to take Stotts
some time to craft his playing rotation after losing so many players from last season. Its possible by
January, guys like Little could get some time for the team could use some atheleticism up front. Right
now, there is nobody who can make that corner 3 which has been a constant problem since Batum
left unless Hood steps up.

I'm less concerned about the NBA/China mess. The league knows the China market is just too lucrative
to let get away and will if they have to swallow their pride to keep their deal. Trump has far too many
problems to be concerned with what the NBA does with China. Those expiring contracts will allow them'
to do what they have to in shaping their roster for they know with Dame/Cj's deals, they will need to
balance their roster with younger, cheaper guys on rookie deals.

One does wonder if the Pelicans roster model, forced upon them by AD will be the way to go for teams
in the future for they can refuse to overpay Ingram with all those draft picks. They have no reason to
overpay anyone and have their superstar (Zion) under control for at least 5 seasons.

[Roy The Natural]

playing Lillard more off the ball is stupid as far as I'm concerned. That's because he's never been good at catch-&-shoot plays. That's not his strength. Last season, he was in the 56th percentile, meaning 44% of the NBA was better at it. Meanwhile, he was in the 85-90% percentiles on plays with the ball in his hands like the PnR and isolation. His FG% in catch-n-shoot was only 38%. If Portland wants to do some load management for Lillard, rest him by giving him games off. Don't try and rest him while he's on the floor, and for sure, don't take your best player, by far, and reduce his effectiveness and efficiency by giving him more opportunities he's never been good in at and reducing the opportunities he's been elite in

***********************************************************

it's the preseason and the games mean little, but after 3 games what's clear is that Portland's defense sucks so far. Too much confusion, too slow of rotations, ineffective switches, and poor effort. Better effort would improve the other areas, but early indications support the notion, stated by many, that losing Aminu & Harkless has chopped-out what has been the core of the defense for 4 years. Even losing Turner has had an impact, at least on defense.

It's pretty clear that there is some acclimation going on. It hasn't been pretty to this point though. This big worry was always not having anyone with decent size to play the 3. Both the offense and defense were out of whack, but I think we have to give it until at least mid November for everything to stabilize. The veterans have literally played 2 preseason games to this point.

I'm liking the more varied offensive looks. Lillard is awesome with the ball in his hands in the regular season, but he's not transcendent enough to maintain the scoring in the playoffs when defenses focus on him. More offensive variation is necessary for this team to improve in the playoffs.

Blazers have no size at the 3 at all. They have to pray that Little or Hoard can get some minutes this year just to play some D. Relying on basically Rodney Hood to D-up on the elite wings of the worled could be a disaster. Currently, the issues seems to mainly be Whiteside who looks utterly lost on the court, and the other new additions who look only slightly better on that end.

[Roy The Natural]

Things will look up for Portland for we have a real chance to shape the roster when Nurk is close to his
return and those expiring contracts come off our books.

I think people are either overrating the expiring contracts or underrating the value of those contracts to Portland

if, as many in the NBA are apparently anticipating, the NBA has as much as a 15% retraction in revenue because of the China mess, their year's 109M salary cap could drop all the way down to 93M; and next season's tax line could be 112M. Portland has almost 92M in guaranteed and dead salary next season. That's only for 7 players; that does not include Whiteside, Bazemore, Hood, Skal, or Hezonja. If the Blazers 'reward' Hood for giving them a discount this season, they'd be bumping him up to about 10M in salary next season. That would leave the Blazers only 10M below the tax line and they'd only have 8 players

in other words, say the Blazers trade Whiteside & their 1st for Otto Porter and he opts into his final season. That would put Portland 18M over the tax line and they'd still have to add 5 more players. Not only that, the next season, when Dame and CJ's new deals kick in, the Blazers would be paying repeater tax if they were over the line

There's zero chance that the cap falls without smoothing.