Game Thread 2023-24 Game #25 - BLAZERS VS WARRIORS - DECEMBER 17, 2023 - SUNDAY - 6:00 PM PST - ROOT

[Tince]

I don’t think he’s going to be seeing that kind of money again. But by the time the guards are ready to compete, he won’t be here.

I think this is the most likely scenario... which is why I'm totally unbothered with how much money he's making now.

 

[BankTeller]

I think this is the most likely scenario... which is why I'm totally unbothered with how much money he's making now.

Same. The money has to go somewhere, and he at least hasn’t been a malcontent. That’s when I would panic. Best thing to do is just hold onto him unless we can get something for him, and draft a guy this year who can beat him out in the rotation asap.

DA might not be the answer, but neither is Reath.

 

[Natebishop3]

I'm honestly trying to understand what you're getting at.

I'm confident you don't want Ant at PG.
I can't tell if you want Brogdon at PG or not.

Where am I even discussing that topic?

Chris: Brogdon Sucks

Me: He doesn't suck. The Blazers are asking him to play out of position (and he's not even putting up bad numbers anyway)

You: brings up me being frustrated with ball stopping iso ball.

 

[PCmor7]

If we have to surround Sharpe with a bunch of G-League guys for him to be aggressive, that's a problem because we're never going to contend with Sharpe and a bunch of G-League guys.

Dame didn't wait for the approval of LMA, Batum, and Matthews.
Roy didn't wait for the approval of Z-Bo and Miles

If he's going to be an all-star for this club, Sharpe needs to be willing to assert himself with other good players on the floor.

Talking about stuff I'm not really talking about now.

 

[OneSport3]

That was the good. Him going at least 5 no-pass possessions late in the 2nd quarter led to a big deficit and his teammates were left standing around not doing anything and getting completely out of rhythm. Those 5 possessions led to 2 missed shots, 2 turnovers and a charge. It was brutal. 1-on-5 while COMPLETELY ignoring his entire team. And you could visibly see the defensive effort go down as 4 of 5 players on the Blazers were being asked to stand around on offense and then have to just play defense on the other end.

Ant can be brilliant offensive talent, but the Blazers defense has visibly suffered since he came back and Shaedon has basically disappeared because he ends up standing in the corner on possession after possession.

That’s false. Shaedon and Ant played great together at GSW, vs Dallas, at LAC. They competed and had chances to win those games. They both struggled vs Utah playing the box and 1. It wasn’t until the last game vs Dallas when Grant returned that Shaedon has disappeared.

 

[Tince]

Where am I even discussing that topic?

Chris: Brogdon Sucks

Me: He doesn't suck. The Blazers are asking him to play out of position (and he's not even putting up bad numbers anyway)

You: brings up me being frustrated with ball stopping iso ball.

Me bringing up you being frustrated with Brogdon not being put at PG and with how he plays when he is put at PG. You don't see how that's slightly confusing?

 

[B-Roy]

GSW goes up by 22 points with 10:14 left in the 3rd quarter. Ant proceeds to score or assist on 15 points to cut the lead to single digits.

GSW goes up by 11 points with 4:30 left in the 4th quarter. Ant proceeds to score 10 points to cut the lead to 1 point, giving us a chance to win the game.

Ant has 7 assists in this game. Second to Curry and CP3 with 8 each.

But this dude is awful, let’s trade or bench him.

A good way to check your bias is to ask yourself, if it was Dame that did this, would you still be upset? Dame has done this hundreds of times, and often the same way: dominating the ball and controlling every possession.

People have already have a preconception in their mind that he’s just an isolation scorer, not a high level playmaker, and before this season, I would have agreed with that.

By all statistical metrics, he is already better than Dame was at this age, but obviously lack of team success hurts him. Put this Ant next to LaMarcus Aldridge, Nic Batum and Wes Matthews and that last point probably goes out the door.

 

[Natebishop3]

Me bringing up you being frustrated with Brogdon not being put at PG and with how he plays when he is put at PG. You don't see how that's slightly confusing?

I'm not frustrated with him being played at all. I don't think he should be on the team.

Can you please have the same conversation that we're having?

Chris said he sucks. I'm saying he doesn't. End of conversation.

 

[Natebishop3]

A good way to check your bias is to ask yourself, if it was Dame that did this, would you still be upset? Dame has done this hundreds of times, and often the same way: dominating the ball and controlling every possession.

People have already have a preconception in their mind that he’s just an isolation scorer, not a high level playmaker, and before this season, I would have agreed with that.

By all statistical metrics, he is already better than Dame was at this age, but obviously lack of team success hurts him. Put this Ant next to LaMarcus Aldridge, Nic Batum and Wes Matthews and that last point probably goes out the door.

I didn't enjoy Dame freezing out the offense either, and while at times he could solo carry this team, I think he also held us back in a lot of ways. But Dame was a significantly better point guard in terms of moving the ball around. Simons plays more like CJ when he tunnels.

 

[B-Roy]

It's not up to us whether Ant gets traded. He's an exciting scorer on a decent contract. That front office phone might ring, and if there's draft picks on the other line, then Cronin can't say no. 1 good Blazer has to go to make room for more rookies. It's not like Jody Allen is going to pay luxury tax for this Blazers farm system team.

Pretty confident if Ant was available for picks he would have been gone in the offseason. After what he’s shown this season, I think he’s off the table for anything other than a massive overpay. FO already valued him more than other teams before this.

 

[wizenheimer]

Hindsight is nice but he averaged 18/10 on a team with other high usage guards. Expecting him to slightly outplay that is not as ridiculous as you are intimating. He is underperforming by every standard. And that's unexpected.

he averaged 18/10 with CP3 feeding him the ball in lots of perfect scoring positions. Portland doesn't have a CP3; or even a Devin Booker. Ayton was assisted on nearly 80% of his FG's last year. His 18 points were system points and Phoenix has a much better system than Portland. Ayton averaged 3.5 FTA/36 in Phoenix. He's averaging 1.4 in Portland. That's him simply not getting the ball with the advantageous floor positions he had in Phoenix

 

[B-Roy]

I didn't enjoy Dame freezing out the offense either, and while at times he could solo carry this team, I think he also held us back in a lot of ways. But Dame was a significantly better point guard in terms of moving the ball around. Simons plays more like CJ when he tunnels.

I get how you could come to that conclusion based on his past seasons, but the stats just don't bear that out so far. It's a pretty small sample size, but the plays he's making this year would just not have happened in the past.

Also you can't compare Ant's decision making to Dame's now. You need to compare how they were as players at the same age. Dame was absolutely making the same kinds of mistakes Ant does @ age 24. He was protected from criticism because he was/is the golden child. That designation seems to have passed on to Shaedon.



Personally, I'll take an age 24 player putting up these averages and seeing double teams on every possession. I don't get the fuss about trading him. He'll still be squarely in his prime well into Shaedon (and Scoot's) second contract.

 

[OneSport3]

I get how you could come to that conclusion based on his past seasons, but the stats just don't bear that out so far. It's a pretty small sample size, but the plays he's making this year would just not have happened in the past.

Also you can't compare Ant's decision making to Dame's now. You need to compare how they were as players at the same age. Dame was absolutely making the same kinds of mistakes Ant does @ age 24. He was protected from criticism because he was/is the golden child. That designation seems to have passed on to Shaedon.

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Personally, I'll take an age 24 player putting up these averages and seeing double teams on every possession. I don't get the fuss about trading him. He'll still be squarely in his prime well into Shaedon (and Scoot's) second contract.

And he’s already getting the Dame treatment from opposing defenses before Dame even got the Dame treatment.

 

[CJ_is_Gone]

Clearly Schmitz wanted him. People acting like we stumbled into Toumani.

If Schmitz wanted him, he had 2 shots to draft him.
There was a report shortly after the trade that said Blazers saw Toumani at either Portsmith or the combine, & they weren't impressed at that time.

 

[CJ_is_Gone]

I was sitting right across from the Warriors bench (Blazers season ticket holder person handed me upgraded tickets as I was heading towards the escalator to go sit with my fellow not rich people - nice suprise!) and Brogdon clearly looked at Ayton before the missed Curry free throw and signaled timeout - so I was shocked when we didn't call it.

Ayton is a low IQ player

 

[B-Roy]

If Schmitz wanted him, he had 2 shots to draft him.
There was a report shortly after the trade that said Blazers saw Toumani at either Portsmith or the combine, & they weren't impressed at that time.

People don't understand that Phoenix HAD to add another player for salary matching purposes. And the only players they could throw in were either Toumani or one of the minimum veterans they just signed. Kudos to Joe/Schmitz for playing hard ball (if they even had to) in order to get Toumani (who has at least some semblance of upside) and not Keita Bates-Diop or some shit, but my guess is it probably wasn't a stickler for either side.

 

[CJ_is_Gone]

One other observation about tonight: Without going through and watching the entire game tape, it seemed to me our problems defending the screen and roll were with the rotation of our other three defenders.

I thought Ayton did a great job showing and staying with guys like Steph. He's willing to do it and he has the combination of agility and length to be good at it. Maybe the idea was for the switch to be made and the defensive chasers were slow to do that, but it looked to me like it was the responsibility of other guys to slide over and they were consistently late in doing so.

Probably didn't help that the Warriors other guys had great shooting nights beyond the arc. In the other games I've watched them this year -- admittedly a small sample size -- they weren't this hot, not like GSW teams of the past.

I don't know if it was part of the game plan or not, but Ayton switching every time absolutely killed the defense.

He did adequate on the initial switch, but soon as the ball handler passed the ball - Ayton was slow to recover to the paint.

There were at least 2-3 possessions that broke down where the players didn't know where to be. I think a lot of that stemmed from Ayton

 

[CJ_is_Gone]

GSW goes up by 22 points with 10:14 left in the 3rd quarter. Ant proceeds to score or assist on 15 points to cut the lead to single digits.

GSW goes up by 11 points with 4:30 left in the 4th quarter. Ant proceeds to score 10 points to cut the lead to 1 point, giving us a chance to win the game.

Ant has 7 assists in this game. Second to Curry and CP3 with 8 each.

But this dude is awful, let’s trade or bench him.

Wasn't it Brogdon/Grant that was initiating the offense when GSW rebuilt their lead to 11?

 

[Whyachi]

If Schmitz wanted him, he had 2 shots to draft him.
There was a report shortly after the trade that said Blazers saw Toumani at either Portsmith or the combine, & they weren't impressed at that time.

If a Blazer plays good, we're immediately told to give credit to management and coaching staff. I miss the good ol' days when we could skip that stuff , and simply complement the Blazer who had the good game.

 

[RR7]

We're supposed to forgive him for fucking us the other three quarters?

He had a bad first half and a great 2nd half. Cry more.

 

[OneSport3]

For the people that say our defense has struggled since Ant has returned, it has. But looking at the opponents, it was expected.

We played Dallas twice, which is the 5th rated offense in the league. Luka absolutely torched us the last game (which is just Luka being Luka and not something exclusive to us).

We played the Clippers. They have finally started to figure it out after the Harden trade. They are the hottest team in the league right now and are the 2nd rated offense in the last 15 games.

We played GSW twice. The first time we held them to 6 points below their season average. Tonight they scored 2 points above their season average.

We played Utah. This was an absolute clunker in all facets of the game. Which happens with young, bad teams.

 

[OneSport3]

Luka is Luka.

The 2nd and 3rd players are being touted as having breakout, All-NBA type seasons.

And then there’s Anfernee Simons…

 

[Tince]

I'm not frustrated with him being played at all. I don't think he should be on the team.

Can you please have the same conversation that we're having?

Chris said he sucks. I'm saying he doesn't. End of conversation.

I'm rarely in the same universe as you, let alone head space!

 

[Natebishop3]

I'm rarely in the same universe as you, let alone head space!

It seems like you just REALLY BADLY wanted to talk about iso ball.

 

[Tince]

It seems like you just REALLY BADLY wanted to talk about iso ball.

Nope, I truly want to know if you like Brogdon at the PG position or not; which is why I asked that question multiple times, and you still haven't answered... it seems you're still really bad at interpreting someone elses feelings though!

 

[PDXFonz]

Kind of wild that Steph just ended his streak of games with a 3 made at 268 in this one.

 

[Tince]

Kind of wild that Steph just ended his streak of games with a 3 made at 268 in this one.

If you told me Steph and Ant would have combined for zero threes, I would've assumed the both crashed into each other in the 1st quarter, hitting heads, and missed the rest of the game.

 

[Whyachi]

the good news is... the Blazers are better then the Wizards at rebuilding their team.

 

[Natebishop3]

Nope, I truly want to know if you like Brogdon at the PG position or not; which is why I asked that question multiple times, and you still haven't answered... it seems you're still really bad at interpreting someone elses feelings though!

Because what does that have to do with whether he sucks or not?

I like him as a backup point guard in theory, but he’s taking minutes from Scoot.

 

[Whyachi]

It seems like you just REALLY BADLY wanted to talk about iso ball.

I think Billups said in a presser he doesn't run very much iso. I suppose we can call them "reading the defense" in a tactical clear out switch-a-roony opportunity.
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