Game Thread 2024-25 GAME #6 - BLAZERS VS THUNDER - NOVEMBER 1, 2024 - 7:00 PM - KATU 2.2, BLAZERVISION

Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
The one team in the league I can point to in order to say coaching matters is this Thunder team. I think their 3rd stringers could win 30 games based on they way they play.
 
PCmor7 said:
I'm not seriously trying to argue anything. I'm saying it.

Camara does what he did when we got him, but he does shoot better. Rupert ... again, this is who we thought he could be, but this game was an offensive outlier.

I'm more talking, though, about the inability to stop the drive, the inability to play the pick and roll, the inability to defend the 3, not valuing the ball when we're on offense ... these are the things those guys really need to be learning, and I don't know that they are.

Chauncey's team too often looks like it has a concept of a plan.
Click to expand...
Your not the only one to criticize Billups, I just don't see that.

Seems to me these are all things because our roster severely lacks talent, not some thing the head coach is instilling.

Blazers have two huge wins this year and had flashes tonight. The Thunder are favored for the beat record in the league. We haven't beat them since 2019.

Just seems to me that the head coach is getting too much credit and too much blame with these observations and cricisms.
 
PCmor7 said:
I'm not seriously trying to argue anything. I'm saying it.

Camara does what he did when we got him, but he does shoot better. Rupert ... again, this is who we thought he could be, but this game was an offensive outlier.

I'm more talking, though, about the inability to stop the drive, the inability to play the pick and roll, the inability to defend the 3, not valuing the ball when we're on offense ... these are the things those guys really need to be learning, and I don't know that they are.

Chauncey's team too often looks like it has a concept of a plan.
Click to expand...

Rupert had a field goal percentage of 70 % before this game.

Is today's game an outlier because he only shot 55.5 % ?
 
SharpesTriumph said:
Your not the only one to criticize Billups, I just don't see that.

Seems to me these are all things because our roster severely lacks talent, not some thing the head coach is instilling.

Blazers have two huge wins this year and had flashes tonight. The Thunder are favored for the beat record in the league. We haven't beat them since 2019.

Just seems to me that the head coach is getting too much credit and too much blame with these observations and cricisms.
Click to expand...

OK? I don't really understand a lot of why you're engaging me on this and what I do understand I largely disagree with, but I guess that's fine.

For instance, I don't see how someone could realistically try to argue that getting a team to hustle or to be smart with the basketball or to have a good plan for defending the 3-point line on the PnR isn't a coach's responsibility, but, I guess if that's what you think, OK, I'm not going to debate it with you, because I'm not here to debate.

BTW, you mentioned Scoot. Saying he's improved this year is premature, too. I'm optimistic.

But here's the thing with that: His rookie year was well below what was expected from him.

In other words, his improvement's relative. For him not to improve from last year was pretty much impossible.
 
I'm glad Billups is addressing the (especially 3-point) rebounding issue in the post-game.
 
I love how it's all Simons and Grant's faults in the 3rd. Simons leaves at the 4:47 mark. We're down 7. Grant leaves at the 3:49 mark, less than a minute later, we're down 10. We finish the quarter down 21.
And someone said they should have to be out there because it's on them? Everyone wants to lose, we lose like we should have, and everyone loses their fucking minds. Hey guess what, Grant, Ayton and Ant are not just gonna randomly get benched in fucking November to play Clingan, Rupert and Murray 36 minutes a night! Sorry. It aint happening. So why the fuck bitch about it so much? I wanna hook up with Halle Berry and Salma Hayek. Should I bitch and moan every day that it isn't happening? Fuckin hell. Sucks when we're a playoff team. Sucks when we're a lotto team. And it sucks everywhere in between. Some of y'all need a better hobby. I know I do. I see why I rarely venture in to the game threads. @THE HCP is right to laugh at them.
 
Natebishop3 said:
If he hadn’t been a number one pick I don’t think anyone would give the guy even remotely as much grief.
Click to expand...

Nobody cares that Ayton was the 1st pick 6 years ago. It's that he's an empty-calorie C making 35M/year....and, that 6 games into the season he's a 7'C with totals of 6 assists, 4 blocks, and 3 FTA's

he's just about the opposite of what a C should be
 
Last edited:
Tince said:
I think front offices around the league have always been aware what kind of player Ant is. How he's played in 5 games this year is unlikely to move the needle either direction.
Click to expand...

The threshold from being young and having upside to being exposed for what you are is very minimal in pro sports.
 
wizenheimer said:
Nobody cares that Ayton was the 1st pick 6 years ago. It's that he's an empty-calorie C making 35M/year....and, that 6 games into the season he's a 7'C with totals of 6 assists, 4 blocks, and 3 FTA's

he's just about the opposite of what a C should be
Click to expand...

Again. He's exactly what we thought he'd be. Anyone who expected more, clearly wasn't paying attention.
 
Natebishop3 said:
Again. He's exactly what we thought he'd be. Anyone who expected more, clearly wasn't paying attention.
Click to expand...

yes, he's exactly what was expected; exactly the player Phoenix was desperate to dump. He's exactly the player I expected when I railed against the notion of trading for him. Knowing what he was, and the rebuild the Blazers were obviously headed for, it's a giant black mark against Cronin's judgement

so yeah, I'm not surprised at all he wasn't different in his 6th season from his first 5 seasons. And he's the same in his 7th season. I know he doesn't bother you but he bugs me
 
wizenheimer said:
yes, he's exactly what was expected; exactly the player Phoenix was desperate to dump. He's exactly the player I expected when I railed against the notion of trading for him. Knowing what he was, and the rebuild the Blazers were obviously headed for, it's a giant black mark against Cronin's judgement

so yeah, I'm not surprised at all he wasn't different in his 6th season from his first 5 seasons. And he's the same in his 7th season. I know he doesn't bother you but he bugs me
Click to expand...

Why do you care? We need salary. We got Toumani. We dumped Nurk, who was also overpaid. And Little. And Keon. We gave up a bunch of nothing and we got two starters right now. Ayton isn't a star, but he's a starting center. Who cares if he's overpaid right now? Were we going to use that money for something else?
 
Natebishop3 said:
Why do you care? We need salary. We got Toumani. We dumped Nurk, who was also overpaid. And Little. And Keon. We gave up a bunch of nothing and we got two starters right now. Ayton isn't a star, but he's a starting center. Who cares if he's overpaid right now? Were we going to use that money for something else?
Click to expand...

wut?

"gave up a bunch of nothing"? other than that guard from Weber St.

as far as the notion of "you have to spend it on somebody"....no you don't. The salary floor is 127M. Portland is 38M above that. They don't need to be spending it on an empty stat player like Ayton. Blazers have been dancing around the tax line for years now and the Vulcans will limit any options that threaten the tax payments. Maybe that's why the Blazers have allowed three 9M (approx.) TPE's for Hart, Payton, and Dame to expire. And will almost certainly let the 7M TPE from Brogdon expire

and by the way, LOL at that tepid defense of Ayton..."hey, you've got to waste 35M on somebody; why not Ayton!"
 
Can’t trade Simons because nobody wants him.
 
wizenheimer said:
wut?

"gave up a bunch of nothing"? other than that guard from Weber St.

as far as the notion of "you have to spend it on somebody"....no you don't. The salary floor is 127M. Portland is 38M above that. They don't need to be spending it on an empty stat player like Ayton. Blazers have been dancing around the tax line for years now and the Vulcans will limit any options that threaten the tax payments. Maybe that's why the Blazers have allowed three 9M (approx.) TPE's for Hart, Payton, and Dame to expire. And will almost certainly let the 7M TPE from Brogdon expire

and by the way, LOL at that tepid defense of Ayton..."hey, you've got to waste 35M on somebody; why not Ayton!"
Click to expand...

Come on man...... come on....

Yeah, Dame was for Ayton.

stephen-a-smith-first-take.gif
 
Natebishop3 said:
Again. He's exactly what we thought he'd be. Anyone who expected more, clearly wasn't paying attention.
Click to expand...
I'm fine getting him because I thought Nurk was much worse on a worse contract.

But it was stupid to try and keep him and these other vets the day after we traded Dame. It's even dumber that over a year later 5 of the 6 are still here. The one we traded away since was primarily a luxury tax salary dump where we gave up two picks.

This franchise needs to commit to rebuilding with our youth. We have exciting young players and finally with wing length but have annoying mediocre vets in their way that provide virtually zero benefit.
 
PCmor7 said:
OK? I don't really understand a lot of why you're engaging me on this and what I do understand I largely disagree with, but I guess that's fine.

For instance, I don't see how someone could realistically try to argue that getting a team to hustle or to be smart with the basketball or to have a good plan for defending the 3-point line on the PnR isn't a coach's responsibility, but, I guess if that's what you think, OK, I'm not going to debate it with you, because I'm not here to debate.

BTW, you mentioned Scoot. Saying he's improved this year is premature, too. I'm optimistic.

But here's the thing with that: His rookie year was well below what was expected from him.

In other words, his improvement's relative. For him not to improve from last year was pretty much impossible.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. Yeah not totally disagree with a lot of what you are saying just small parts.

I think our talent is so low those poor performances you list are inevitable with this roster. With a truly bad coach it would be much worse.

Even if Billups is a bad coach I don't see why it matters with this roster and our tanking. The players give effort and stay engaged more than is typical for a franchise with so much losing and tanking. I think he has a good track record developing youth.

What good players have excelled on other team but not under Billups?
 
RR7 said:
I love how it's all Simons and Grant's faults in the 3rd. Simons leaves at the 4:47 mark. We're down 7. Grant leaves at the 3:49 mark, less than a minute later, we're down 10. We finish the quarter down 21.
And someone said they should have to be out there because it's on them? Everyone wants to lose, we lose like we should have, and everyone loses their fucking minds. Hey guess what, Grant, Ayton and Ant are not just gonna randomly get benched in fucking November to play Clingan, Rupert and Murray 36 minutes a night! Sorry. It aint happening. So why the fuck bitch about it so much? I wanna hook up with Halle Berry and Salma Hayek. Should I bitch and moan every day that it isn't happening? Fuckin hell. Sucks when we're a playoff team. Sucks when we're a lotto team. And it sucks everywhere in between. Some of y'all need a better hobby. I know I do. I see why I rarely venture in to the game threads. @THE HCP is right to laugh at them.
Click to expand...
Good post
 
Natebishop3 said:
Why do you care? We need salary. We got Toumani. We dumped Nurk, who was also overpaid. And Little. And Keon. We gave up a bunch of nothing and we got two starters right now. Ayton isn't a star, but he's a starting center. Who cares if he's overpaid right now? Were we going to use that money for something else?
Click to expand...

Would have been better to not have been over the luxury tax and had to give up picks to Washington. Spurs used cap space to get picks back.

Maybe that wasn't possible as we got out of Nurk bad contract that Cronin handed out a year prior.

As you say Ayton deal expires next year so it's not a big problem but it still would be better to have got more value from that max salary slot
 
Tyrant of Ants said:
Tough lost. I thought our guys were going to pull off another upset, but the Thunder changed gear in the second half and our guys just couldn't keep up. Very impressed with Rupert. I'd like to see him play more.
Click to expand...

He's like a smaller version of Camara.

Both Camara and Rupert are good defenders who are shooting the 3-pointer very well so far.

Camara is 10/19 , 52.6% on three-pointers.

Rupert is 5/9 , 55.5 % on three-pointers this season.

It's kind of asinine that Billups does not set up more catch-and-shoot 3-pointers for both of them.

And if you're playing good defense and shooting 55% on three-pointers, you should be getting more than 23 minutes for a team that lost by 23 points.

Especially if you're the youngest player on the roster.
 
wizenheimer said:
wut?

"gave up a bunch of nothing"? other than that guard from Weber St.

as far as the notion of "you have to spend it on somebody"....no you don't. The salary floor is 127M. Portland is 38M above that. They don't need to be spending it on an empty stat player like Ayton. Blazers have been dancing around the tax line for years now and the Vulcans will limit any options that threaten the tax payments. Maybe that's why the Blazers have allowed three 9M (approx.) TPE's for Hart, Payton, and Dame to expire. And will almost certainly let the 7M TPE from Brogdon expire

and by the way, LOL at that tepid defense of Ayton..."hey, you've got to waste 35M on somebody; why not Ayton!"
Click to expand...
Ayton isn't ranked as a top100 player by ESPN but is in a max contract. Not saying ESPN's is perfect but it's still a decent gauge. Cronin has somehow brought all these vets together the last 3 years and ALL of them have lost major value.
 
Driew said:
Baby might be keeping him up a lot of the night so he's adjusting to that. I seem to remember dame struggling for a bit when his first kid was born.
Click to expand...
Does the baby even live with him? Mom has kids with Ingram too.
 
Driew said:
Baby might be keeping him up a lot of the night so he's adjusting to that. I seem to remember dame struggling for a bit when his first kid was born.
Click to expand...

Come on now..

This is an NBA player. His window for sleeping while at home is huge.

He’s just an awful #1 option. Should be a prized bench player. But I’ve been saying this going on 4 years now
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top