Pretty simple, vote for the winner of this matchup. Winner advances to play the winner of the 1/8 series. Portland Trail Blazers - lukewarmplay C: Yao Ming / Spencer Hawes / Aaron Gray PF: Rasheed Wallace / Jason Thompson SF: Hedo Turkoglu / Danilo Gallinari SG: Delonte West / Wilson Chandler / Daequan Cook PG: Mike Conley / D.J. Augustin Los Angeles Clippers - J_Ray C: Jermaine O'Neal / Jarron Collins / Hamed Haddadi PF: Chris Wilcox / Reggie Evans SF: LeBron James / Martell Webster SG: Mike Miller / Shawne Williams PG: Eric Gordon / Stephon Marbury / Sergio Rodriguez
Pretty funny that the team that traded away the right to pick LBJ faces the team that traded for him. LBJ is damn good, but even he can't carry corpses and the Clippers have too many of them. Portland doesn't win, but the Clippers lose
Backup big men of Sausage Lips II, Nutgrabber Evans, and some huge Persian makes me scratch my head. You're gonna need solid backup big men when O'Neal can only play 30 MPG or less or is hurt, and that's not gonna cut it. Throw Stephon in there, and YIKES, whacky bench. Eric Gordon is a SG playing the point. Portland's bench is sooo young, that I'm not sure they can do anything in the playoffs (except the next Tim Duncan, he'll dominate). No one on that bench has any playoff experience. I'd like to hear each team's cases before I vote.
Lebron will have to average a tripple double for this team to win. both teams have below average backcourts.. not liking anyone to do much for either team in terms of running an offense. Rasheed would HAVE to guard Lebron cause Hedo would be abused over and over. Jermaine O'Neal from 3 years ago handles Yao rather effectively. JO now... not so much. tough call here. I think the Clippers can win because they have guys on the bench who can do something for them and with Lebron running point-forward, Gordon at PG will work on offense.. who knows what he can do on D. at least LBJ has a guy in Gordon and Miller who can drive and create their own shot too.
I think another problem is with JO you're gonna need someone to limit his minutes and the frontcourt backups just won't cut it. Jarron Collins and that Persian guy are worthless and Reggie Evans has no veritable basketball skills.
agreed, if this is a 7 game series, he can play more minutes, if this is an entire year, yeah lower the expectations. I like Evans as a banger off the bench who can board and hustle. Not an all star, but dependable bench guy.
Yup, Evans just plays REALLY hard, nonstop, but that's about it. You don't want the ball anywhere near him on offense, then it's an adventure.
won't be a problem with Marbury on the floor with him he should average 12 rpg though gathering all of Marbury's ill advised shots
Portland's bench looks much better if you switch Cook to 2nd string SG, and Chandler to 2nd string SF. Portland's so youthy.
exactly, they're all 'potential' players who haven't had a chance to show their weaknesses and thus the team is getting votes based the 'promise' these guys show when in reality, maybe 1-2 will be serviceable and the rest will be exposed as disappointments. The Clippers bench isn't that much better, but at least no one would blame starbury for taking all the shots and Evans and Collins would at least work hard on the boards. Webster has shown some improvement too so that's a step ahead of anyone on the Blazers bench.
That's how it is set up- check out the sig. So, the bench: I feel like Cook and Chandler have already shown they can provide offense, and Hawes has shown he can be decent, and the rest of the guys are unproven right now, but by the end of the season we would know which of them pan out. It's a probability thing, and I feel like there'd be multiple standouts, but even if only one panned out, teams tend to have a much shorter rotation in the playoffs, anyway.
C: Jermaine O'Neal / Jarron Collins / Hamed Haddadi PF: Chris Wilcox / Reggie Evans SF: LeBron James / Shawne Williams SG: Mike Miller / Martell Webster PG: Stephon Marbury / Eric Gordon / Sergio Rodriguez How the hell is he suppose to guard LeBron? He has no one that can match-up well against him or experienced enough to guard him. LeBron led the Cavs over the Pistons, and there's no way his team is better than the Pistons. Then when his guards help off, Gordon and Mike Miller both can knock down jumpers, or even Martell Webster off the bench and Shawne Williams off the bench. Realistically there is only about 8 minutes a game that Marbury has to run the offense since LeBron does need a rest every once in awhile. My backcourt is also bigger and should dominate his with their height advantages. Yao also has trouble guarding quicker guys, so he'd have trouble try to match-up against JO or Wilcox, then having to help off on LeBron or Marbury drives, he might have foul trouble issues or fatigue late in games unless he just gives up on D. Then the longer this series goes on, it will show more and more like it did when Utah-Houston went 7 last year. He also relying on a bunch of 1st and 2nd year players on his bench. We have all seen how inconsistent they are when playoffs rolls around, only young guy that my bench will rely on is Martell Webster and he's proven in the regular season, that's way more than any of his players. Jarron Collins and Reggie Evans off the bench isn't that bad IMO, they're both hustle guys that bust their balls to help their team win. When you have players like that, it makes everyone around them try that much harder. All good teams have these kind of bigs off their bench, Maxiell in Detroit, Spurs always have one, Jargon does it in Utah, Varejao in Cleveland, etc. lol I love this line, but "This isn't my team's first rodeo". When playoffs come around, experience means a lot more. When have Cook and Chandler, or even Hawes shown they can provide anything consistently? With everyone else being rookies, the bench lacks experience and that's a downfall. How many young teams like Portland, OKC, or Knicks do you see make the playoffs, let alone go far? Youngster are all hit and miss at a young age and hoping they pan out in 1 season is a little too much.
Blazers have a nice starting frontcourt but outside of that its a pretty crappy team. Backcourt sucks, bench is all guys who've never been in an NBA rotation. While their starting 3-5 is quite good I think the Clippers have some decent bigs to throw at them defensively with JO/Wilcox/Evans/Collins. The Blazers on the other hand have Hedo/Galinari/Chandler to defend Bron. Eric Gordon is extremely awkward at PG but if Bron/Miller handle a lot of the ball handling duties that is a pretty explosive group scoring the ball.
Take in the LeBron factor? He makes everyone around him better, Marbury isn't as washed up as everyone is making him out to be. He didn't play last year because Isaiah didn't want him, and we all know how good of a coach Isaiah ended up being. LeBron needs a scoring PG, and Marbury is just that IMO. Marbury has also never had a playmaker like LeBron, which should make him a bit more efficient. LeBron put up 39/14ast/13reb, 30/6 ast/9 reb, & 29/10ast/7reb on Hedo this past year. Mike Miller also handled the ball quite a bit these last 2 years for the Grizzlies, and is also a pretty good passer from the SG spot. So not having a playmaking PG doesn't bother me knowing I have 2 other players capable of doing more than enough.
yeah but Marbury may actually have crossed over from a little crazy to certifiable.. that's GOTTA count against him.
How is my starting unit young in the detrimental sense that you mean? Here are some game logs to answer one of your questions: Wilson Chandler: chandler Deaequean Cook: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/4299/gamelog;_ylt=AmSzuZ9xEthA0dDoD6D3EHqkvLYF Spencer Hawes: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/4288/gamelog;_ylt=AmSzuZ9xEthA0dDoD6D3EHqkvLYF How do these guys do when given minutes? They're obviously not stars, but they're not expected to be. If I've got an 8-man rotation in the playoffs, do I even need one more player off the bench to be productive? If youngsters are hit or miss why would you expect all of them to miss?