Posted in another thread but deserves its own run. http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/i...nsider_its_time_to_shed_hopes_get_a_look.html And more importantly Boom goes the dynamite!
I agree with Quick and I am angry that no one in management has the balls to make sure the team is able to evaluate these two in the remaining games.
This is a point where it seems Paul Allen himself needs to step in; surely he must be able to see what is happening and realize the longterm destructive effects.
All signs pointed toward a rebuild at the trade deadline, but they are half-assing it and not sure which direction to go to... Management and the actual team have different agendas.
It's obvious to me that the problem is Coach K. I honestly don't fault him because he wants to win, show what he can do, etc, but he's hurting the team by starting his best players. We need to see the young guys and wins really don't matter right now.
You can always count on Quick for poetic speculation--not hard technical analysis--using innuendo, body language, how friendly the player is to Quick, how the league perceives us--anything but analysis using basketball knowledge, of which the worst beat writer in the league has none. Quick is, to paraphrase the above, the cancer bellowing his personal little childish fears into our ears. Everyone knows that McMillan has been clueless on how to use every point guard he has ever had. Everyone knows that Felton plays fat and always has. When they evaluate him before obtaining him, they factor it in. That's part of the deal. Our management knew it before trading for him, before them Denver management did, before that New York, before that Charlotte when they made him the 5th pick overall...to cry now and pretend no one knew he'd be fat is just asinine. That seems to be the only verifiable charge in the article against Felton. Quick is the only source for Felton saying a word or two against the awful coach, which of course would have been the truth even had it been said. Quick refuses to source or even give the hypothetical quote, in his usual cowardly style. Just read the excerpt above. Quick's praise for Smith and Flynn, and criticism of Felton, are all concerns of a touchy-feely woman. Just read it again. What kind of a rotten-to-the-core paper makes that dick their beat writer, and for the cherry on top of their pansy sweetcake, tops it off with a hater moralist Prohibitionist like Canzano.
Well, whether quick is a gossip monger or not; I still do not see how felton can be here after this season and I think it would be beneficial to the team to evaluate Flynn and Smith.
Flynn and Thabeet won't be here for summer league. Flynn could be a good player, but we won't know because he hasn't even sniffed the court since he got here.
It's sad this team isn't going full speed into the rebuilding mode they so desperately need. The Blazers barely beat David Lee and a bunch of D leaguers at home. They need to stop fooling themselves
He actually did play a short stint and looked decent picking up 2 assists. I think we will see more from him before the season is over.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think I've seen enough of Nolan Smith to know that he is not now, nor ever will be, a quality PG in the NBA.
Although already posted, this is the best Quick quote (maybe the only one) that was 100% spot on: Instead, we will get more Felton, of whom I've seen enough. Why this franchise feels indebted to keep playing this guy, I have no idea. There is nothing left to see from Felton, whose attitude and play has been the single biggest torpedo to this sinking season. The franchise owes him nothing, not after he committed the most unprofessional of acts -- coming to training camp overweight and out of shape, then blaming his poor play on the coach. All the while, he was a whispering cancer in the ears of Gerald Wallace, Marcus Camby and even to a degree Smith. He is owed nothing except for an escort to a comfy seat on the bench.
More so than Felton, I have no idea what the love affair with Crawchuck is all about. He was horrible last night, so why not try Nolan or Flynn with Felton? It couldn't have been any worse?
It's a shame he didn't play this way a few weeks prior to the deadline. I'm sure we could have gotten someone to cough up a pick for him.
LMFAO. Yeah.... summer league. How many guys have flamed out of the league after tearing up summer league. And how many of us thought that Batum was at least 5 years away from contributing anything after his first summer league? It's a time to work on and improve one's game. But it's hardly a time to really evaluate players.
