I'm guessing the other one was Tyrese Haliburton. Numbers are slightly different today, but I think it's about right.
Anyone can play well in 4 games. Heck, Harrison Fucking Barnes just won Western Conference Player of the Week.
Now is the time to be realistic. Before we traded Dame we had an excuse to engage in hopium. No more.
but even then you usually see some <team x> exceptionalism takes, right? in there somewhere? because it’s sports? with portland, oddly enough, most of the takes are like ‘hey guys, COUNTERPOINT: player x is bad. we are bad. and ill go you one more—the ‘team custodian’ (!) is bad.’ it’s some real ‘let me explain capitalism to you’ energy. can we just celebrate that scoot had a nice game? 17 points, go blazers. go basketball.
Scoot's game was celebrated a lot in the game thread. People certainly noticed that and commented on it. I know I did. But in the 3 games prior to that, Scoot was 10-29 on FG's (34.5%)), 2-11 on three's (18.2%), and scored 26 points on 29 shots. He averaged 6.7 assists in those 3 games, but also averaged 4.3 turnovers. People are going to notice that as well, and comment. The "bust" chatter was premature and I think Scoot is climbing out of the he's-a-bust cellar. But clearly the pre-draft hype about him overshot the mark, by a lot. He's been a disappointing 3rd pick; a backup PG in his 2nd season with shooting and turnover issues. Those can be corrected obviously, but I think a lot of us want to see that those corrections last longer than a game or two
I see a lot more doomerism in the fanbase than wild optimism. a ‘lot” more. if people want to celebrate a one-off good scoot peformance, I’m cool with it. no one is conflating a 17 pt game for ‘HE HIM’ or a realization of the garden variety hype cycle that top 3 picks get. are you seeing that? Are you seeing wild optimism? That sounds nice, actually. No?
"wild optimism" about what? Scoot? There was plenty of wild optimism about him before he started playing NBA games. Then reality barged thru the door "wild optimism" about the team? They traded away the franchise player and started a full rebuild....without seemingly committing to a full rebuild. Right now they seems locked in that nearly hopeless limbo of late-lottery-maybe-playin-if-lucky. Not bad enough to land high draft picks and not good enough to reach the playoffs without getting swept in the 1st round. The worst type of purgatory for an NBA team they have 3 high draft picks that are all young players. But Scoot is one. Sharpe is in his 3rd season without having established he can consistently do anything well except occasionally flash some major upside before falling way back down the optimism scale. And Clingan lasted 17 games, only averaging 18.5 minutes, before falling prey to Portland's big man curse there is reason for some optimism, none of it wild. But I think there are legitimate reasons for pessimism at the same time