Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the... (2 Viewers)

[e_blazer]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Show me where that is incorrect

In logic, that's called Ad ignorantiam, which basically states that a specific belief is true because we don’t know that it isn’t true.

 

[e_blazer]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

The way I see it, the conventional wisdom is that you have to have superstars (25+PER players) to win a title. The recent exceptions to this are the '04 Pistons, the '11 Mavericks, and (possibly) this year's Spurs.

• The Pistons had five starters with PERs between 16 and 19, and five bench players between 13 and 15, as well as steller defense.
• The Mavs had a not-quite superstar (Dirk) three others between 16-19 (one as a sixth man), and six others between 12.8 and 15.
• This year's Spurs have two guys above 23, three more between 16-19 (one as a sixth man), and four others between 13 and 15.

IMO, for this Blazer team to be able to approximate the above:

• Aldridge will need to improve his overall FG% (spending more time in the post would help) as well as his rebounding.
• Lillard will need to progress to a 20+ PER level PG (top 7 in the league).
• Batum will need to provide what he showed in December/January over the course of a full season
• Matthews needs to increase his non-scoring contributions, or he needs to improve his shooting percentages in every area
• We need a ~17-PER-level center
• We need 4-5 more players that can contribute at a 13-15 PER level (Leonard at 12.1 and Maynor at 10.6 were our only bench guys in double figures

When reviewing "what if" scenarios, usually one or two variables make a scenario relatively reasonable. At the moment, we have 6. I'd say that for us to think that this roster to give us hope of a future championship, we would need to see at least three of the above to come to fruition this coming season.

I think that's a pretty good assessment. Repped.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

The way I see it, the conventional wisdom is that you have to have superstars (25+PER players) to win a title. The recent exceptions to this are the '04 Pistons, the '11 Mavericks, and (possibly) this year's Spurs.

• The Pistons had five starters with PERs between 16 and 19, and five bench players between 13 and 15, as well as steller defense.
• The Mavs had a not-quite superstar (Dirk) three others between 16-19 (one as a sixth man), and six others between 12.8 and 15.
• This year's Spurs have two guys above 23, three more between 16-19 (one as a sixth man), and four others between 13 and 15.

IMO, for this Blazer team to be able to approximate the above:

• Aldridge will need to improve his overall FG% (spending more time in the post would help) as well as his rebounding.
• Lillard will need to progress to a 20+ PER level PG (top 7 in the league).
• Batum will need to provide what he showed in December/January over the course of a full season
• Matthews needs to increase his non-scoring contributions, or he needs to improve his shooting percentages in every area
• We need a ~17-PER-level center
• We need 4-5 more players that can contribute at a 13-15 PER level (Leonard at 12.1 and Maynor at 10.6 were our only bench guys in double figures

When reviewing "what if" scenarios, usually one or two variables make a scenario relatively reasonable. At the moment, we have 6. I'd say that for us to think that this roster to give us hope of a future championship, we would need to see at least three of the above to come to fruition this coming season.

Wait, so all we need to do is
* Have Aldridge totally change his game
* have Lillard leap frog 7 other PG's
* Batum needs to play as one of the top 3 Sf's int he world
* Mathews needs to be a player he is not
* We need to find one of the most difficult things in the NBA, a good center
* We need one of the best benches in the NBA


It's almost too easy

 

[e_blazer]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Wait, so all we need to do is
* Have Aldridge totally change his game
* have Lillard leap frog 7 other PG's
* Batum needs to play as one of the top 3 Sf's int he world
* Mathews needs to be a player he is not
* We need to find one of the most difficult things in the NBA, a good center
* We need one of the best benches in the NBA


It's almost too easy

Whereas your plan seems to be to find a totally new team comprised of at least one elite player, two very good All-Stars, and a top defender. Maybe PA should just buy the Heat and move them here.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Whereas your plan seems to be to find a totally new team comprised of at least one elite player, two very good All-Stars, and a top defender. Maybe PA should just buy the Heat and move them here.

It's not my plan, it's reality

 

[e_blazer]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

It's not my plan, it's reality

Maybe, maybe not. I think that the Spurs are off to a pretty good attempt at winning a title without that formula.

I'm not saying that I think the Blazers current Big 3 is likely to achieve a title, but I do think that there's a whole lot of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" attitude that gets expressed around here. There seems to be a near compulsion to magnify the perceived inadequacies of the players on our roster and overstate the attributes of players on other teams. I think that the idea that you keep tossing in your hand in hopes of drawing a straight flush in a series of drafts is a piss poor strategy for building a title contender. I think that NO needs to look to build on what we've got here and then trade/draft up over the next few seasons until we do have a team that is capable of contending. I also think that the ride for the players and the fans is likely to be a whole lot more enjoyable with that strategy over the next few years than the alternative of remaining a cellar-dweller in search of the next great player.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Wait, so all we need to do is
* Have Aldridge totally change his game
* have Lillard leap frog 7 other PG's
* Batum needs to play as one of the top 3 Sf's int he world
* Mathews needs to be a player he is not
* We need to find one of the most difficult things in the NBA, a good center
* We need one of the best benches in the NBA


It's almost too easy

Nobody said anything was easy, but your exaggerations are obvious and tedious. A more accurate characterization might be:
* Have Aldridge play a style of game that he's already demonstrated he's capable of.
* have Lillard improve in the manner that should be expected from a Rookie of the Year
* Batum needs to play as one the way he's already shown he can when healthy
* Mathews needs to be the player he was in Utah, or be the exact same player he has been here but make about 10% more shots
* We need to trade for Gortat or sign Pek or Splitter
* We need to develop the players already on our bench, and draft smartly to strengthen our bench

Every single one of those things is reasonable. Perhaps not likely, but then again, no path that would lead to a title is.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Maybe, maybe not. I think that the Spurs are off to a pretty good attempt at winning a title without that formula.

I'm not saying that I think the Blazers current Big 3 is likely to achieve a title, but I do think that there's a whole lot of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" attitude that gets expressed around here. There seems to be a near compulsion to magnify the perceived inadequacies of the players on our roster and overstate the attributes of players on other teams. I think that the idea that you keep tossing in your hand in hopes of drawing a straight flush in a series of drafts is a piss poor strategy for building a title contender. I think that NO needs to look to build on what we've got here and then trade/draft up over the next few seasons until we do have a team that is capable of contending. I also think that the ride for the players and the fans is likely to be a whole lot more enjoyable with that strategy over the next few years than the alternative of remaining a cellar-dweller in search of the next great player.

I don't understand?

Duncan was first team all NBA and second team all defense
Parker was second team all NBA

How does that not fit the formula?

 

[e_blazer]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

I don't understand?

Duncan was first team all NBA and second team all defense
Parker was second team all NBA

How does that not fit the formula?

You got me there. I guess I was thinking of last year when Duncan didn't make the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd all NBA team and didn't make the defensive teams either. Which illustrates the point I was trying to make earlier...it's a bit of a chicken and egg argument. The guys who make those teams generally are on the most successful teams and benefit from the media attention they get as a result. To say that the championship contenders have to have those guys on their roster is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Rhal]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

This seems like a very simple and very complex question at the same time. The only real part of the question we can answer at the moment with the data on hand is that are LA/Lillard/Batum good enough to win a championship with how they played together and how our team looked this year . The answer to that is they are not even in the discussion to take the Blazers out of the first round let alone championship talk.

The question gets more complex when you start looking at data you do not have yet which is anything yet to happen. Drawing a conclusion from what you perceive will happen is in all honesty is more a guess then anything because nothing is set in stone when it comes to people. So here is my guess for the future.
Do I think our "Big Three" will continue to develop and be able to win a Championship in the next few years, the answer to that is yes I think they are capable of doing it if a few things happen.

LA: LA is a premier big in the league and has shown an ability to be unstoppable in the post but seems at times to want to settle for a nice 18 footer pick and pop shot. A shot he is going to make a little under half the time. It isn't going to be a great shot if its taken in large quantities (Last year he shot 7.3 of those a game). That is a shot that doesn't put LA in a position to grab his own miss nor is it a shot that results in FT's. Its a shot to keep the D honest but needs to be used by him as just that instead of a huge % of his shots. LA needs to move more into the post and go for shots with a higher % because if he is going to take the most shots on our team he needs to also be the best at making said shots. Defensively I don't think LA is really going to get a lot better, he isn't a great defender nor is he a bad one. His help D is very suspect and he isn't a rim protector but his freakish length does effect shots making him a good post defender (http://www.blazersedge.com/2013/3/4...arcus-aldridge-among-nbas-best-post-defenders). A good Defensive center that can protect the rim will help make up for LA's inability to stop penetration.

Batum: Batum is truly an enigma here. He showed for several months this year that he had a much bigger skill set then McMillian allowed him to use his first few years in the league. He showed that he can not only set teammates up but create his own shot at times, was very active offensively but even when playing at great had to many turnovers. This can be attributed to the fact he wasn't used to having so much responsibility on the offensive end but regardless of why it happened those turnovers need to come drastically down. Something happened a month before the all-star break and Batum's game shifted. He stopped attacking as much, would ignore open shots to instead pass the ball and became really passive about scoring the ball. Instead most of his shot attempts came from the 3 point line and even then he seemed to pass those shots up more then he should. You can blame his wrist if you want or you can blame pressure, whatever it is you want to blame Batum has to evolve and show us more of the player we saw during the first couple of months instead of the player we saw the last couple of months. Defensively he needs to body up on the defender more instead of his almost lazy style of defense which relies almost entirely on his long arms to effect the shot.

Lillard: This guy has me in a state of constantly hugging the person nearest me whenever someone mentions his name. Lillard has a very good offensive game already and likes to mix it up. He can beat his man off the dribble, pull up from just about anywhere and a deadly 3 point barrage seems to be waiting every game. I love his fearlessness at attacking the rim but he needs to learn how to finish better after contact and needs to work on his pull up mid range game. His court vision and passing ability is better then I assumed it would be but he has trouble figuring out how to get teammates involved on fast breaks instead seeming to either attack or wait and reset. Defensively he was a travisty, as a lot of young PG's are, and he needs to work hard on that. I'd like to see a large improvement on the defensive end in the next few years instead of him looking like Irving(who didn't seem to improve defensively at all from his rookie to sophomore year). Working with Payton this off season should help.

We need all three of these guys to top 10 at their positions in the league and two of them to be in consideration of top 5 as well as one of them to be in the MVP talk. I think thats a real possibility but time will tell.

 

[BigGameDamian]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Why does everyone seem to think Mathews is so great? He's average at best.

 

[BigGameDamian]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Don't know?

 

[Pinwheel1]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Don't know?

It's more like we don't know what you are talking about. Most posters like him and would like if he stayed with the team, but the majority have expressed that his best role is to come off the bench. Like he was signed to do behind Roy. Maybe a handful think he is great but the vast majority just plain like him. To me he is a healthy version of James Jones. And we need someone like that off the bench.

 

[ebott]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Why does everyone seem to think Mathews is so great? He's average at best.

I think you're creating a straw man here. I don't remember anyone referring to Mathews as "great"

 

[BrianFromWA]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

It could be that he's thinking about media types referring to Wes as one of the "Core Four". Personally, I like Wes, but I don't consider him "core".

 

[Sinobas]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

The Blazers are not going to win a championship unless they get REALLY lucky someday in the in the NBA draft...as in win the lottery when the next Lebron James comes while already having a roster full of young talent.

 

[BigGameDamian]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

The Blazers are not going to win a championship unless they get REALLY lucky someday in the in the NBA draft...as in win the lottery when the next Lebron James comes while already having a roster full of young talent.

I think there are other ways to build a team than by doing it out of the draft especially when your team already has a core group to build off of. Not everything good has to come from the draft. The only two players worth going after in this draft for the Blazers is Victor Oladipo and Ben McLemore. Everyone else is well, simply just a waste of time.

 

[RR7]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

The Blazers are not going to win a championship unless they get REALLY lucky someday in the in the NBA draft...as in win the lottery when the next Lebron James comes while already having a roster full of young talent.

It seems to me if the options are wait for a once in a lifetime prospect, or be a team that is a solid playoff contender, that can maybe get lucky with a hot streak to win it all, I'd rather bank on the hot streak than a once in a lifetime player.

 

[Pinwheel1]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

I think there are other ways to build a team than by doing it out of the draft especially when your team already has a core group to build off of. Not everything good has to come from the draft. The only two players worth going after in this draft for the Blazers is Victor Oladipo and Ben McLemore. Everyone else is well, simply just a waste of time.

I agree that those two are the best options for Portland, but the Blazers have a lot of other needs for everyone else to be a waste of time. Like a bench........

 

[BigGameDamian]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Ya but just stock piling the team with rookies just because of potential isn't going to help much. In other wards it's like cheap thrills & no frills. Go out and get a few veterans and a center that can really push this team.

 

[blue9]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Why does everyone seem to think Mathews is so great? He's average at best.

Yes, in the pantheon of NBA shooting guards, Wes is average. But in the NBA as it exists at this point in time, Wes is an above-average SG. Good luck finding an obtainable upgrade.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Why does everyone seem to think Mathews is so great? He's average at best.

Yes, in the pantheon of NBA shooting guards, Wes is average. But in the NBA as it exists at this point in time, Wes is an above-average SG. Good luck finding an obtainable upgrade.

Also Matthews is one of the few warriors on the team. The man does not know the word quit. Play through injuries like no one else currently on the Blazers. Heart, attitude and grit means a lot to me. Sure, there are much better SG's in the NBA but for what his salary is I think he's a great value.

 

[magnifier661]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Yes, in the pantheon of NBA shooting guards, Wes is average. But in the NBA as it exists at this point in time, Wes is an above-average SG. Good luck finding an obtainable upgrade.

Matthews is a real talent, especially defensively; but I question his value on this team. He cannot create his own shot and rarely gets to the line. I know his range is stellar, but I think we need a guard that penetrates and creates his own shot; especially when we know that most teams will try their hardest to keep the ball out of Lillard's hands. WE need a guard that will punish you for doing that. I just don't think Wes is capable.

Now keep in mind that I love Wes. I wish he would come off the bench for us. Sadly, I think he won't like that, therefor he will ask to be traded. I would much rather move Batum to SG and find a SF defensive guy to start in place of Batum at SF. Who knows, maybe even Claver could be that guy.

 

[BBert]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Wes will make a great sixth man.

 

[blue9]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Matthews is a real talent, especially defensively; but I question his value on this team. He cannot create his own shot and rarely gets to the line. I know his range is stellar, but I think we need a guard that penetrates and creates his own shot; especially when we know that most teams will try their hardest to keep the ball out of Lillard's hands. WE need a guard that will punish you for doing that. I just don't think Wes is capable.

Now keep in mind that I love Wes. I wish he would come off the bench for us. Sadly, I think he won't like that, therefor he will ask to be traded. I would much rather move Batum to SG and find a SF defensive guy to start in place of Batum at SF. Who knows, maybe even Claver could be that guy.

Okay - name an available SG that "penetrates and creates his own shot". Now, does that player play even moderately good defense?
Oh, wait, you want Nic to play SG? Does that fit your criteria of someone who penetrates and creates his own shot?

 

[BigGameDamian]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Okay - name an available SG that "penetrates and creates his own shot". Now, does that player play even moderately good defense?
Oh, wait, you want Nic to play SG? Does that fit your criteria of someone who penetrates and creates his own shot?

Interesting take..........You know two SG I would not mind going after are Jeremy Lamb or Terrence Ross.

 

[magnifier661]

Okay - name an available SG that "penetrates and creates his own shot". Now, does that player play even moderately good defense?
Oh, wait, you want Nic to play SG? Does that fit your criteria of someone who penetrates and creates his own shot?

Nic handles the ball much better than Matthews; plus his length would be a nightmare for opposing teams.

Also, nic can post up too; which will be an advantage against smaller guards. Nic is quick enough to guard other guards too.

 

[RoyToy]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Nic can post up?

News to me

 

[KeepOnRollin]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Nic handles the ball much better than Matthews; plus his length would be a nightmare for opposing teams.

Also, nic can post up too; which will be an advantage against smaller guards. Nic is quick enough to guard other guards too.

I could see some scenarios for moving Batum to SG but it isn't because he is a better penetrator because I don't think he is. Not that Wes is all-world, just better than Batum.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Re: Are the Blazers big three good enough to wheel this team to a championship in the

Nic handles the ball much better than Matthews; plus his length would be a nightmare for opposing teams.

Also, nic can post up too; which will be an advantage against smaller guards. Nic is quick enough to guard other guards too.

Batum cannot post up with any efficiency against any size of defender. I also wouldn't say Nic handles the ball much better than Wes, if he's any better, it's only slightly. He certainly can't penetrate any better.