2019 Offseason Storylines 1: Mario Hezonja

[BonesJones]

He played on such a bad team they won 17 games. Jake was on a 53 win team. Of course his metric numbers are going to be better. The fact Jake could not stay on the court because he was abused on defense and as a whole his individual numbers are worse basically across the board is all the matters. Lets see what Mario's numbers are next year when he is not surrounded by the worst roster in the NBA.

You're shifting the goalposts. You literally said "Hezonja is better in just about every stat then Jake last year, yet you continue to have rose color glasses about him".

So I showed you how that was incorrect and now it's "He's played on bad teams so those numbers aren't applicable"...

You wanna talk about sticking to a biased angle...

"Lets see what Mario's numbers are next year when he is not surrounded by the worst roster in the NBA"... That's what I heard about Stauskas as well. Had these same types of arguments. Stauskas was no better than he was before. I'm not going to say he posted this because it doesn't matter, just think it's funny that this was being said about Stauskas.

1. He’s played for the Kings, the 76ers, and was a throw in for Brooklyn. He’s never really been in an ideal situation. He spent one season in Sacramento without a defined role. In philly his playing time was up and down. Then he was a throw in in the Okafor trade and was buried on the depth chart because Brooklyn already had guys like Harris, Crabbe, and Lavert ahead of him.

2. His numbers are actually encouraging. The more he plays the better he shoots. Last year when he got 20+ minutes he shot over 45% from outside. The year before 38%. Now he’ll most likely not see 20+m in Portland but I think it’s more about confidence than anything.

3. He’s actually bigger than I thought. 6’6 1/2 in shoes.

4. He might be more than just a shooter. Better athlete than I thought. Terry will give him the freedom to find out. Looking at his college tape, he can handle the ball a bit, and showed some potential in pick and roll situations, which could be why Portland preferred him over Pat.

Sound familiar?

 

[BonesJones]

You can't get a stat comparison with Jake and Mario that's on equal ground....Mario was on tanking teams with rotating coaches and systems as a rookie and sophomore in the nba….Jake had one coach the whole time and one system with opportunities....start of last season Jake was great....last three games he played for us he was terrible......Mario rocked the Knicks for the last few games of the season....one guy ended the year hot...one ended it cold. Jake needed a new team in my view. He very well may have wanted to leave Portland and get a fresh start. I like Jake's game...don't know Mario's well other than some clips and articles. He played well against us I remember

Layman consistently got benched for no reason when he was outplaying players who maintained their role in the rotation. Hezonja got to consistently play for 4 whole seasons. I don't see how Layman has gotten the same opportunity as Hezonja.

Jake only needed a fresh start because Stotts didn't like him and refused to give him the role he deserved. Layman's a confidence player. All he needed was a coach to show consistent confidence in him (remember the first half of his season? he was great!). Then the 2nd half his role got yanked around and his production fell off.

 

[riverman]

Layman consistently got benched for no reason

There's a reason...just not one you are aware of...I hoped he'd enter the playoffs hot...he didn't.

 

[BonesJones]

There's a reason...just not one you are aware of...I hoped he'd enter the playoffs hot...he didn't.

Sure.

 

[Hobbesarable]

I doubt anyone's ever consistently watched Hezonja defend. I think those couple of plays against LeBron is skewing people's opinions a bit. Meanwhile, Layman seems like a worse defender than he actually is because he was always substituted in for two really good defending forwards in Harkless and Aminu. Layman was subconsciously held to that standard.

Mario as a point forward is silly to me. A career 1 to 1 AST:TOV ratio when he wasn't even tasked with playmaking duties... Somehow 3 games has people thinking of him as a point forward when two of those games were essentially against G-League rosters...

This I agree with.

I think we are likely to see Bazemore as the point forward when looking at veteran forwards: Hood, Bazemore, and Hezonja.

 

[riverman]

Layman consistently got benched for no reason when he was outplaying players who maintained their role in the rotation. Hezonja got to consistently play for 4 whole seasons. I don't see how Layman has gotten the same opportunity as Hezonja.

Jake only needed a fresh start because Stotts didn't like him and refused to give him the role he deserved. Layman's a confidence player. All he needed was a coach to show consistent confidence in him (remember the first half of his season? he was great!). Then the 2nd half his role got yanked around and his production fell off.

Jake played his best with Evan Turner feeding him....without ET...he didn't get those alley oops and his shot stopped falling...whatever the reason...I wish him well and he'll be another Pat Connaughton before you know it in my book

 

[twobullz]

You're shifting the goalposts. You literally said "Hezonja is better in just about every stat then Jake last year, yet you continue to have rose color glasses about him".

So I showed you how that was incorrect and now it's "He's played on bad teams so those numbers aren't applicable"...

You wanna talk about sticking to a biased angle...

"Lets see what Mario's numbers are next year when he is not surrounded by the worst roster in the NBA"... That's what I heard about Stauskas as well. Had these same types of arguments. Stauskas was no better than he was before. I'm not going to say he posted this because it doesn't matter, just think it's funny that this was being said about Stauskas.

Sound familiar?

Sounds like your arguments for Jake. When he gets more playing time he will ...... He had more playing time last year and played him self off the floor. Even the last game of the year when he was playing with the rookies he was the worst blazer on the floor. Outplayed by Trent, Skal, Meyers and Simons.

Last year Jake Mario

Points 7.6 8.8

Assists .7 1.5

Rebounds 3.1 4.1

FT % 70.4 76.3

Steals .4 1.0

FG% 50.9 41.2

3 pt % 32.6 27.6

So yeah Mario had better stats across the board besides shooting %, where Jake had career year.

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

Jake played his best with Evan Turner feeding him....without ET...he didn't get those alley oops and his shot stopped falling...whatever the reason...I wish him well and he'll be another Pat Connaughton before you know it in my book

Honestly Layman had some great games last year, but as the year went on it seemed like he got on scouting reports and people took away the things that got him going, which meant he had a hard time getting going.

I dont think he was going to contribute to many wins this year for the Blazers, and I dont think Mario will either. Im actually more interested in if Bazemore can look like he did a few years ago, or if Hood can take his game up another level, or back to the start of his career (he was effective for the Jazz).

 

[riverman]

I'm going into this season thinking chemistry is going to take at least the first half of it to sort out. It's not like the last 3 seasons with the same basic core.

 

[Scalma]

Layman’s TS% is skewed because a bunch of his “shots” were really just alley oops.

 

[BonesJones]

Jake played his best with Evan Turner feeding him....without ET...he didn't get those alley oops and his shot stopped falling...whatever the reason...I wish him well and he'll be another Pat Connaughton before you know it in my book

Jake pl layed great with Nurkic. Jakes good at moving off the ball. Looked good moving off ball with Simons in the final game. Obviously you need someone thats able to deliver a pass.

Pat Connaughton was great last year

 

[BonesJones]

Layman’s TS% is skewed because a bunch of his “shots” were really just alley oops.

Shots he got because of how well he ran the floor and moved off the ball.

Thats a 10% difference too.

Also is a product of him not forcing shots he should shoot, which is a problem with Hezonja.

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

One thing I want us as Blazer fans to remember is Dame is a good passer but not a great one and CJ is really not a passer at all when he plays with Dame, we tend to think guys will come here and get a ton of wide open shots and that hasnt really been the case, the offense still more often than not boils down to CJ and Dame being incredible.

 

[BonesJones]

Sounds like your arguments for Jake. When he gets more playing time he will ...... He had more playing time last year and played him self off the floor. Even the last game of the year when he was playing with the rookies he was the worst blazer on the floor. Outplayed by Trent, Skal, Meyers and Simons.

Last year Jake Mario

Points 7.6 8.8

Assists .7 1.5

Rebounds 3.1 4.1

FT % 70.4 76.3

Steals .4 1.0

FG% 50.9 41.2

3 pt % 32.6 27.6

So yeah Mario had better stats across the board besides shooting %, where Jake had career year.

Mario had more volume, due to his opportunity and because he had the ball in his hands more because he didnt have great players around him. That volume doesnt equate to productive and winning basketball. You can call it Andrew Wiggins syndrome.

Thats also why advanced metrics (which arent skewed due to playing on a good or bad team like you stated) is a better gauge for player production than volume stats, because theyre able to reflect how a players contributions actually affected the team and can be used to compare players because it takes care of differentiating variables that could otherwise skew volume-based stats.

Also, I dont need to make that argument for Jake because Jake was actually better. But of course you saw that but couldnt see any parallels with your argument.

 

[BonesJones]

One thing I want us as Blazer fans to remember is Dame is a good passer but not a great one and CJ is really not a passer at all when he plays with Dame, we tend to think guys will come here and get a ton of wide open shots and that hasnt really been the case, the offense still more often than not boils down to CJ and Dame being incredible.

We essentially got Harkless without the defense, and fans are excited... haha.

 

[Scalma]

Layman’s percentages last season. We’ll ignore the previous two seasons since he barely played

Catch and shoot inside the arc: 30% (36% frequency)

Catch and shoot outside the arc: 29% (35% frequency)

Pull ups inside the arc: 41% (15.8% frequency)

Pull ups outside the arc: 45% (7% frequency)

And that was on a team with Dame/CJ, you know, proper spacing. We’ll see how Hezonja does in a similar environment.

 

[twobullz]

We essentially got Harkless without the defense, and fans are excited... haha.

Well Harkless is better then Jake, so you are saying Mario is Harkless without the defense, which is still better then Jake who has no defense. So it is a upgrade for the Blazers, since he replaced Jake.

 

[BonesJones]

Well Harkless is better then Jake, so you are saying Mario is Harkless without the defense, which is still better then Jake who has no defense. So it is a upgrade for the Blazers, since he replaced Jake.

Harkless without the defense most definitely isnt...

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

We essentially got Harkless without the defense, and fans are excited... haha.

I think best case scenario is that the new additions make Dame and CJ’s job easier. Which is valuable. Its going to be a fascinating year.

 

[James lamphear]

It really doesn't matter Jake great hustle and some pretty good game he kind of left the rotation in the 2nd half of the season and out in the playoffs. But Aminu started get his minutes shorten in the playoffs too. Now we shouldn't be dogging Hezonja before he even play for us. So I will root for him being successful for us.

 

[wizenheimer]

so, what I'm seeing...there's a debate about who is better, Layman or Hezonja...and it's a question that has arguments on both sides

thing is, Jake wasn't very good. He had a streak of good games but then he was scouted and teams started taking away his back cuts and stopped leaving him wide open on perimeter shots and the star-Jake regressed to the scrub-Jake again. Back to his norms. And Hezonja may or may not be a little better

I really have to wonder why people are advocating so hard for Hezonja. Have they seen more then a very few games of his? Are they operating from homer-faith? Is it because if he's not pretty good the Blazers have a hole in the roster, and that won't do?

I'm reserving judgement but I sure as hell am not going to take Olshey's word he's "prodigiously" talented. He said the same kind of stuff about TRob. And he assured us all how well Stauskas was going to fit. Maybe Hezonja will become Portland's Boris Diaw. Or maybe he'll be a poor man's Josh McRoberts. But at least we might agree that a lot of optimism about Hezonja isn't based on much other than hope

 

[BBert]

If you listened to Olshey rave and spin, you'd believe Nas is so good he's going to contribute on a contender his rookie year. Reality is Little couldn't contribute on a G-league team his rookie year.

I don't have anything against how Olshey does his job or his decision making. Nobody bats 100 percent. But I am to the point that I can't fucking stand watching him speak or listening to his schpeel.

 

[mook]

I mean, maybe, but Layman is just as likely due for improvement.

The track record of shooters leaving the Blazers and lighting it up on other teams from 3 is not good.

I just ran the numbers:


Layman may buck the trend, but I doubt it.

I was surprised to see even Connaughton fell off some, even with all the space Giannis creates. I wonder if it's just a confidence thing. If you watch Dame make these crazy-ass three point shots, ho-hum wide open threes may not seem like such a big deal?

(Gerald Henderson's didn't change at all, so I left him out. But he was out of the league a year after leaving us. Probably regrets not re-signing here, given how well he did on the Blazers.)

Bringing it back on-topic, in looking at what we can expect out of out of Hezonja, it's useful to look to see if there's a 3 pointer Blazers Bump for other players. I ran it for these guys:


(Hood is interesting, but you have to remember it's a small sample size. He only played 27 regular season games for us.)

Anyway, it's pretty clear that if you are a betting man you'd do well to gamble that Mario improves and Jake declines, at least for the first season. Especially when you factor in Layman is going to the Twolves, playing off Andrew Wiggins instead of Dame/CJ.

 

[mook]

We essentially got Harkless without the defense, and fans are excited... haha.

I've watched Harkless play 250 games, and I gotta say I've never seen him put up highlights like Hezonja did in his final 3 games in NYC.

I think there's also clearly a difference in their passing ability. Harkless's career high in assists is 4. Hezonia's is 11. Given that Hark is in his 7th season and Hezonia is in his 4th, I think that's pretty significant.

It'll be really interesting to bump this thread in 6 months and see if opinions have changed.

 

[TBpup]

Just curious how Hood at 36% to 35% is a change of -2%. Same with Curry going from 43% to 45% being a positive 3%. That new math my taxes are paying for.....a bit fuzzy.

 

[Pinwheel1]

This debate is good one and will most certainly be bumped at some point. Jake and Hark had their moments at different things. But what I see from Mario, in those limited highlights, is a better all around player than either. A higher BBIQ. He looks to be more versatile.

Granted I tend to fall in love with players who can do a little of everything because they tend to compliment their teammates more. No matter which ones are on the floor. Not sure if he is really 240 but if he is close to that he gives us so many more options. I am not sure Mario is great at anything but regardless of his stats, the eye ball test tells me that for a forward he is a decent passer, dribbler, 3 point shooter, mid range shooter off the dribble, can attack the basket, can rebound, and has a good vertical lift and aerial agility for his size.

Again I am not sure he will be be great at any of those skills but the combination of all those things makes me think he will help this team more than Hark and Jake (Whom I both liked)

The one important thing I think we lose was Hark's ability to guard athletic SGs (when he was healthy enough to stay on the floor) But with Baze and Hood I think we are fine there. It will be interesting to see what Mario weights in at. Maybe we should be comparing him to Aminu instead.

 

[illmatic99]

Just curious how Hood at 36% to 35% is a change of -2%. Same with Curry going from 43% to 45% being a positive 3%. That new math my taxes are paying for.....a bit fuzzy.

Excel rounding numbers cuz he had it not showing decimals probably.

 

[SIeepwalker]

Just curious how Hood at 36% to 35% is a change of -2%. Same with Curry going from 43% to 45% being a positive 3%. That new math my taxes are paying for.....a bit fuzzy.

because they round up the numbers.
Seth shot 42.5% in Dallas which is rounded to 43, and 45% in Portland.
That's a difference of 2.5% which is rounded to 3

Hood went from 36.2% (36) to 34.5% (35) for a difference of 1.7% (2)

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

Just curious how Hood at 36% to 35% is a change of -2%. Same with Curry going from 43% to 45% being a positive 3%. That new math my taxes are paying for.....a bit fuzzy.

My guess it was like a 43.1 and a 45.8 and so he rounded.

 

[SIeepwalker]

My guess it was like a 43.1 and a 45.8 and so he rounded.

By the time you guessed I had time to look up the actual numbers for both players rook !

(Also 45.8 would be rounded to 46 so it's not even a good exemple)