All-Premature Reactions Thread

[blazeyo]

Better than kyrie

[DemonLizard]

Anyone who says Dame is a "terrible" defender hasn't watched at all this season, dude is hustling around screens..Multiple blocked Jumpers and playing good help defense. Watch him play before you start saying negative things.

[MarcusBrody]

ESPN big headline today: "Pressure Gauge: How will Cavaliers Handle First Loss as Champs"

Spoiler ESPN, they will handle it fine.

[Onus]

All three of Barnes's 30+ point games occurred while Dirk was out with injury. Barnes became the primary scorer, and also played power forward. It'll be interesting to see if he's able to maintain this level of play at small forward when Dirk is back in the lineup.

Barnes has had a good two-week run, but this could just be a hot streak. Back in January, Chandler Parsons had a very similar hot streak for the Mavs that lasted an entire month. Averaged 20+ ppg, shot 50% from the field, etc.

Barnes has always made more of an impact as a 4 than as a 3. Once he gets pushed back to the 3 his impact will once again vanish. It happened all the time in GSW.

[Winsome Gerbil]

I hope people just understand that this is not going to last. He may well have improved, but the roster is similar, the coach is the same...and in the first 8 games a guy who shot .419 last year, and .428 for his career, is suddenly shooting .506?

[Nolan]

It's still early. But he's looked pretty damn solid so far and he's silencing a lot of critics right now.

[Scalabrine]

He was my darkhorse MVP candidate and he still is. This guy is just an amazing player.

Maybe this is the year, but Moses Malone was the last MVP to not have his team be a top 3 seed...in 1978-79...

Everyone saying Harden or Lillard will be MVP don't really know how the award works. It's not truly the Most VALUABLE Player to a teams success, its more like the best player on one of the best teams. Unless you think the Blazers will be a top 3 team, or that the MVP voting system will change this year, then Lillard is very unlikely to win MVP.

[lamscott]

Just watched him last night against my Lakers. His footwork is very improved and that shot looked pure.

[Nolan]

His offensive game is one of the best in the league. He can score in so many different ways and he's been far more efficient so far this year which is a major plus.

His defense has also looked much better so far, he's actually putting in an effort on that end. But we'll see if that continues as the season wears on.

[taufblazers33]

Better overall player than Curry.

[RatherUnique]

I always said he just needed an opportunity. Its sad how many people slept on this kid, especially his former "fans" in golden state

He was getting wide open shots in Golden State man. Went 5-32 in the last games of the finals on wide open shots man.

Nobody slept on this guy.

[mszymko]

Good for him! Love seeing that he's playing so well

[matt6715]

Watch on YouTube

He's been showing a super diverse skillset. His ability to get to the rim and draw free throws has been surprising (8-9 FT last night against the Lakers) and honestly every game he seems to be growing his offensive repertoire. Those two step through moves in the highlights plus the fade away from the elbow are big time moves. I've been tremendously surprised by him

[Dan Z]

Its too bad that Portland doesn't have a better center and forwards. What they have isn't bad, but Lillard and CJ, plus another good player, would bump them up to another tier.

[lilswift01]

Better overall player than Curry.

You snapped.

[RatherUnique]

Averaging 33/6/5 on 50/40/90 shooting 8 games in. He's vastly improved at the rim and at drawing fouls. Guy keeps getting better. Proved all the people who said he'd peak early due to his age completely wrong.

We don't know if he's gotten better after 8 games

He's shooting 73% at the rim. That's LeBron level.

50% from midrange, Jordan level.

Those 2 marks are coming down & his points, TS & eFG will suffer.

He's also increased his free throw rate by nearly 60% that's likely coming down also.

[yosemiteben]

Moral of the story - preseason is meaningless.

[Wizenheimer]

of course, his numbers are going to come down. That happens every years for a lot of players, including top-20 players. When the season is young, legs are stronger and little nagging injuries haven't piled up yet. Opponent scouting adjusts to hot players and for 1st options like Lillard defenses adjust rather quickly

but Lillard has always done what he's done offensively against the opponent's best interior defender and against defensive schemes focused on Lillard and designed to double & trap him and take the ball out of his hands. That's been made an easier task because Portland didn't have another perimeter player capable of finding his own shot with a good success rate. But now, with the emergence of CJ, opposing defenses don't have the luxury of only having to worry about Lillard's initiation on the perimeter

Lillard always seems to come into each season with one facet of his offensive game improved. This season, that improvement has been in attacking the paint and the rim. The main improvement has been one of judgement. Last season, he was far too focused on fishing for whistles; he drove into contact and that ended up with him forcing and missing a lot of shots. This season, while he doesn't go out of his way to avoid contact, his goal on drives seems to be finding the space to put up a good shot. He's also improved in terminating his penetrating dribble-drives and taking an open 10-15' shot

one thing that would help Dame...a lot...is if the Blazer coaches could design more catch & shoot opportunities for him from three-point range. His assisted FG rate on three's is .391. That's incredibly low. For comparison, Stephen Curry is at .667; Westbrook is at .467; Kevin Durant at .977; and CJ McCollum is at .714. The reason CJ is as high as he is is that Dame is much better at finding CJ in catch & shoot position than the other way around. This year, like last year, the best teammate Dame has at finding him behind the arc is Mason Plumlee. That's not enough

as far as Dame's defense, it's certainly not great; maybe below average. But there is a huge mitigating factor here. Anybody who has watched Portland play has probably noticed their defensive scheme on the PnR. Terry Stotts, the Blazer coach, has implemented a very passive version of the ICE defense. Probably the most passive in the league. Portland's bigs give no help at all to the guards at the point of attack on picks and screens; the bigs are always hedging away from the pick in favor of the paint. Chris Paul is obviously a better defender than Dame. But the Clippers consistently give Paul much more help on picks and screen then Portland does Dame. This makes Paul look like a better defender and Dame look like a worse one. Several Blazer fans, including myself have noted and commented on this defensive scheme and the comments aren't positive. Stotts is playing the percentages that mid-range shots are less efficient than three's or shots in the paint. The results are pretty mixed, at best

[Warriorfan]

Barnes was the #1 HS recruit in the country the physical talent and intelligence was there it just didn't translate to stardom on the court just flashes. He is still young and developing.

His kryptonite is ball handling but is playing at an efficient all star level on a losing team.

[Hindenburg]

He might be good enough this year to make the all Star team without crying