2021 Blazers Training Camp

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Fairly-Hard said:
Western Conference
Gobert?
Ayton?
Wiseman?
Zubac?
Jokic?
Towns?
Thompson?
Porzingas

Eastern Conference
Lopez
Drummond
Embiid
Valanciunas
Vucevic
Adebayo
Capela

There is no shortage of quality centers in the league and they all have decent length next to them.

Pretty much every team in the league will go big against the Blazers because they can. And SHOULD.

Is this damning? Probably not The Blazers do have Nurk and Zeller unless they both get injured as has been the case most of the time. The problem i see is that the Blazers are not prepared for injuries and just a few completely shut this season down. Just like Stotts had to deal with for years, Billups will be at the mercy of the injury bug. How long are people around here gonna give Neil a pass for not filling that last spot with another quality backup Center? The Blazers need length and it's painfully obvious.
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so who are the backups for all those guys?
 
Hoopguru said:
Coach said the 14th man wont play unless someone twist their ankle.
Who will be the 14th man?
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that’s gonna be a good competition. First name Billups mentioned yesterday was DSJ, but he also said Chriss and Pat looked good. My money is on Chriss just because you can never have enough bigs.
 
Not a fan of Stotts, but there is something to keeping it simple, which is what I think he tried to do. Turnovers really hurt, and I think we will have more this year. Hopefully by the playoffs they will have tapered down and we will have an offense that works better in the playoffs than some of our past teams did.
 
UKRAINEFAN said:
Not a fan of Stotts, but there is something to keeping it simple, which is what I think he tried to do. Turnovers really hurt, and I think we will have more this year. Hopefully by the playoffs they will have tapered down and we will have an offense that works better in the playoffs than some of our past teams did.
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Hoping we get an immediate improvement like the Warriors got when they moved from Marc Jackson to Steve Kerr. Not to the best record in the league, but a clear HCA team. The Blazers have been a 3rd seed in 2019 and 2018 and now have a superior 5th starter/6th man so it doesn't seem ludicrous.

Now if we don't get an immediate improvement... yes I hope the team continues to work on the variety of offense and defensive options Billups talks about. It seems like that could be a huge benefit in the playoffs.
 
This is a new one from Nance. Says Billups is emphasizing defense and knows "how to get the most out of us." Billups has been having them watch tape of previous practices and pointing out mistakes. Nance has been guarding 3,4 and 5 in practice.
 
illmatic99 said:
didn't help.

Every western team has at least 1 LONG defensive wing who they can stick on opposing perimeter scorers. Roco is a great help defender but is fairly average on the ball.

Utah-- O'Neale/Ingles (was surprisingly a good defender)
Phoenix-- Bridges/Crowder
Denver -- Gordon/Green
Clippers -- George/Batum/Kawhi
Dallas -- Finney Smith/Ntilikina
POR -- ?? Roco ??
Lakers --Ariza/Bazemore
Memphis -- Brooks
GSW -- Klay/Wiggins/Porter/Iggy
Spurs -- Johnson/ Aminu

Our best hope as is for Nas to assume this role because only Roco ain't gonna cut it.
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I am not going to go through the whole list but the very first one is not a good example. The Jazz were a pretty good team, but did they really have long wing defenders?

Royce is 6'4" with a 6'9" wingspan. Joes is Ingles is 6.7.5 with a 6'10 wing
Both played SF-PF at times for the Jazz and not that long. But were both good defenders

Norman Powell has a 6'11" wingspan, Snell has a 7'0" wing, Nas has a 7'1" wing, Nance with a 7'1" wing, Roco has a 7'2" wing.
In comparison that is not bad. Maybe Brown can also help by the time the playoffs come along.
 
Pinwheel1 said:
I am not going to go through the whole list but the very first one is not a good example. The Jazz were a pretty good team, but did they really have long wing defenders?

Royce is 6'4" with a 6'9" wingspan. Joes is Ingles is 6.7.5 with a 6'10 wing
Both played SF-PF at times for the Jazz and not that long. But were both good defenders

Norman Powell has a 6'11" wingspan, Snell has a 7'0" wing, Nas has a 7'1" wing, Nance with a 7'1" wing, Roco has a 7'2" wing.
In comparison that is not bad. Maybe Brown can also help by the time the playoffs come along.
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O'Neale was probably the best perimeter defender in our division last year. Lu Dort is maybe the only other guy who has a shot at that title.
 
Pinwheel1 said:
Exactly. And he is not that "long". So although length helps a lot on the perimeter, it is not the deciding factor.
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sure, but we have no one close to his being able to play his caliber of defense (regardless of length/size).
 
illmatic99 said:
sure, but we have no one close to his being able to play his caliber of defense (regardless of length/size).
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That we know of. Royce kind of came out of nowhere a couple of years ago. (another undrafted Jazz player) Time for the new Blazer staff to develop some wing defenders. Nas, RoCo, Norm, Nance all have the potential to do so. It's not like Royce is some athletic freak with his 25" vertical leap.
 
illmatic99 said:
sure, but we have no one close to his being able to play his caliber of defense (regardless of length/size).
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To me it's not that we have no one because if Norm or RoCo or both took big leaps forward they could do special things defensively. It's just that over their careers Dame and CJ have been big negatives on that end of the floor. So unless Chauncey gets ridiculous gains out of everyone we're still going to be an undersized and under skilled defense. When CJ or Dame are out and Nance is in then we only have one liability and much better size... so that's a good thing.

The fun thing is that we have no idea right now. Maybe Chauncey does make a huge, huge difference on our defense making CJ and Dame plus defenders, with Norm (out of position), RoCo, Nurk and Nance playing all nba level D. Then we'd be a top level defense. We just get to wait and see.

I do think that Nance will get around 30 minutes a game giving us what amounts to 6 starters, which will be nice.
 
blazerkor said:
To me it's not that we have no one because if Norm or RoCo or both took big leaps forward they could do special things defensively. It's just that over their careers Dame and CJ have been big negatives on that end of the floor. So unless Chauncey gets ridiculous gains out of everyone we're still going to be an undersized and under skilled defense. When CJ or Dame are out and Nance is in then we only have one liability and much better size... so that's a good thing.

The fun thing is that we have no idea right now. Maybe Chauncey does make a huge, huge difference on our defense making CJ and Dame plus defenders, with Norm (out of position), RoCo, Nurk and Nance playing all nba level D. Then we'd be a top level defense. We just get to wait and see.

I do think that Nance will get around 30 minutes a game giving us what amounts to 6 starters, which will be nice.
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As of right now, I am leaning towards the following:

I would start RoCo, Nance, Nurk, Dame, and CJ.

I would bring in Norm for CJ and keep him in to play with Simons in the backcourt to start the 2nd and 4th. (as opposed to playing CJ and Ant together)
I would bring in Nas early for Nance (slide Roco over) so Larry can be back to start the 2nd quarter along with Zeller, Ant, Norm, and either Nas or Snell.

Those are my 9 for now until someone gets hurt.
 
illmatic99 said:
It's still a competitive disadvantage to have a SF who is 6'3. We saw as much in our series a few months back. While most teams don't have scorers at SF, they use their SFs to swing to defend scoring guards with their length and athleticism.

It's why I have been harping on Simmons.

We have no one who can even have a chance at checking guys like: Luka/Klay/Mitchell/George/Booker/Kawhi/Ingram/etc

I'm sure Chauncey can hide Powell in the regular season with playing rotations and matching up different lineups, but it's a problem in the playoffs when your best players all have to play more and together. If CJ isn't traded by the deadline for a wing, I'm guessing we move Powell for one. We better...
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You just name a bunch of players that no one stop at any height in the league.
 
Scalma said:
Nance has and will lock at least half that list of yours down. Defense isn’t just about size.
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I would love to see the link that shows that 6’7” Nance has “locked down” at least half of that list. Bro, that’s just flat out NOT correct. That is blind allegiance to the pinwheel clouding your common sense. Flat out not correct.
 
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illmatic99 said:
didn't help.

Every western team has at least 1 LONG defensive wing who they can stick on opposing perimeter scorers. Roco is a great help defender but is fairly average on the ball.

Utah-- O'Neale/Ingles (was surprisingly a good defender)
Phoenix-- Bridges/Crowder
Denver -- Gordon/Green
Clippers -- George/Batum/Kawhi
Dallas -- Finney Smith/Ntilikina
POR -- ?? Roco ??
Lakers --Ariza/Bazemore
Memphis -- Brooks
GSW -- Klay/Wiggins/Porter/Iggy
Spurs -- Johnson/ Aminu

Our best hope as is is for Nas to assume this role because only Roco ain't gonna cut it.
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You can throw in there Nance too.
 
THE HCP said:
That would be an AMAZING Finals to watch bro!
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I prefer to have one team in the finals that I can at least partially root for. Both those two teams with their multiple obnoxious arrogant players (and fan base) are about as bad as it gets. Hopefully one of them will lose in the conference finals so at least there will be one team I could pull for.
 
WesleyMatthews said:
Hoping we get an immediate improvement like the Warriors got when they moved from Marc Jackson to Steve Kerr. Not to the best record in the league, but a clear HCA team. The Blazers have been a 3rd seed in 2019 and 2018 and now have a superior 5th starter/6th man so it doesn't seem ludicrous.

Now if we don't get an immediate improvement... yes I hope the team continues to work on the variety of offense and defensive options Billups talks about. It seems like that could be a huge benefit in the playoffs.
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Honest question, so you think/hope we are a “CLEAR HCA TEAM”?
 
illmatic99 said:
you expect him to guard perimeter scorers like Luka and Mitchell? what?
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No, but since the complaint started off about lack of height on the team, I brought up Nance.

But Mitchell also has to defend someone. He's 6'1", so he's pretty much stuck defending Damian, CJ or Norman.

It goes both ways.
 
blazedanugz said:
And Powell if we’re gonna count bazemore..
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Baze is two inches taller with the same wingspan and a wider base... when you're getting down under 6'4" those things matter. Do some in here have selective amnesia of the Nuggets forwards pulling up over Norm at will and hitting jumper after jumper in the mid to close range?
 
blazerkor said:
Baze is two inches taller with the same wingspan and a wider base... when you're getting down under 6'4" those things matter. Do some in here have selective amnesia of the Nuggets forwards pulling up over Norm at will and hitting jumper after jumper in the mid to close range?
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and some people have selective amnesia on just how much a teams collective defensive scheme plays a huge role?
 
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