Just a few random thoughts I didn't get to make last night because I had other work to do:
-- Grant's a legit star. He can consistently make tough shots against good defense even in tough situations. He's benefited from not playing with Dame in that he's had the opportunity to show he can be a leader on a team if maybe not the leader on a contending team. Even when Ant comes back, Grant is the best player this team has.
-- For all the hype and promise, Scoot is often comically bad. He just doesn't seem to have the natural feel for the game of the player I saw in the G-League. He's like a football player hooping in intramurals. That's not to say he won't be great eventually, but, right now, he's got a lot further to go than I ever would have imagined. Even for a rookie, he looks well behind the curve. For a guy with two years of pro experience, this makes me wonder just how good of development guys get in the G-League.
-- Our discussions about our "window" aren't worth a lot right now. By far our best players are our older guys.
-- I'm inclined to keep Brogdon the whole season unless some team gives the Blazers a sweetheart deal at or before the trade deadline. Watching him play and seeing how much he gets out of limited athleticism is a better teacher for Shaedon, Ant and Scoot and even Rupert and Camara than anything they would have learned playing with Dame or hearing it from Chauncey. The Blazers would get more out of having him here a couple of more months mentoring the young guys on the current roster than trading him for a mid-round first-round pick used on another young guy to just try to figure it out on his own.
-- If the refs can't get it right on a replay where Turner clearly pulled on Shaedon's jersey to the point they overturn the correct call, then there's no point in having replay at all. That might have been the worst call in a Blazers game all-time, considering they had replay and changed what was the right call to the wrong one when there was indisputable evidence Sharpe was fouled.
-- This team's going to be very, very interesting once Ant returns. He covers the one area where it struggles -- shooting. Seeing what the Blazers have done without him, without Timelord, with Scoot and Murray essentially non-factors, to get up 26 on the Bucks and beat the Pacers on the road on the second game of a back-to-back is a testament to the way this team was constructed. It doesn't have a player like Lillard, but it has a lot of solid players and can win games -- or at least let's say be competitive -- in more ways than they Blazers have been able to do in years. It won't be a playoff team or even a play-in team, but it's going to make some opposing teams' fans throw their remotes during the home stretch for the playoffs, too.
