Ben Golliver, Kicking ass and taking names

[Minstrel]

However, remember the Miller isn't the best defender

Unless you mean that literally, I don't agree at all. Miller is known as a very good defender. From what I've seen of him, that reputation is deserved.

 

[LittleAlex]

I would like to the first to wish Blake all the luck in the world with his new team.

The one thing Ben didn't mention that I think is worth stating is the pathetic percentage of shots Blake took that resulted in a foul. A shot by Blake resulted in a foul 2.3% of the time. How in the fuck can that be acceptable in a league where the team that goes to the line more tends to win? All of the rules made by the NBA in the last 10 years favor a small guard who can attack the rim and get to the line. Why would Portland use a player that can't use that to the teams advantage?

As a comparison, Sergio has a 7.6% ratio. Roy has a 13.8% rate. Frye was 3.4%. That is not a misprint. Frye was better at drawing fouls then Blake.

 

[blue32]

Whatever we do, please free the B-Rex

 

[Nikolokolus]

I would like to the first to wish Blake all the luck in the world with his new team.

The one thing Ben didn't mention that I think is worth stating is the pathetic percentage of shots Blake took that resulted in a foul. A shot by Blake resulted in a foul 2.3% of the time. How in the fuck can that be acceptable in a league where the team that goes to the line more tends to win? All of the rules made by the NBA in the last 10 years favor a small guard who can attack the rim and get to the line. Why would Portland use a player that can't use that to the teams advantage?

As a comparison, Sergio has a 7.6% ratio. Roy has a 13.8% rate. Frye was 3.4%. That is not a misprint. Frye was better at drawing fouls then Blake.

Miller also has a draw foul rate similar to Roy ... neither can even carry Jerryd's jock who had a draw foul rate of 18%

 

[Wizard Mentor]

Interesting diatribe with a lot of truth to it. Unfortunately, there were several holes in his arguments which convinced me more than ever that we need Blake as our backup PG.

 

[yakbladder]

Oddly enough Brandon seems to be able to get into the lane just fine with Greg and LaMarcus on the court. It's not like they're just going to plant their butts in the post and sit there waiting for a dump off or lob from a driving point guard. Secondly, while Miller does not have a good three point percentage, he does have a very effective mid-range game and can hit from 12-15 feet at a good percentage -- you don't have to be 23 feet away from a player to space the floor as a point guard, that's what your wings are supposed to do anyway.

Want more evidence that a slashing point guard without a consistent 3 point shot (let alone a reliable jumper) can be effective? Loot at Rajon Rondo, about all he can do to score is drive the lane, yet KG, Davis, Powe, and Perkins all seem to have managed to play alongside him.

I'm really kind of shocked at how defensive people are when it comes to people pointing out Blakes weaknesses as a starter. He's a great spot up shooter and a normally steady hand with the ball, but this team is going to need more out of this position if it's going to compete at the next level.

Because Brandon is a primary option, which requires everyone to space out and leave him in ISO. But you're talking about the guard who would presumably now be the, 4th? option, driving to the lane which goes against the grain of the 2nd and 3rd options.

I'm shocked at how often people pull out the terms "hater" on one side or "defensive" on the other. Because both of them are hogwash in my book - if I criticize Blake I'm a hater if I argue against some details from the consistent, biased pounding of Blake then I'm defensive. No, I'm just stating as in my original post that while the guy has some points even the most inept of readers should be able to infer his obvious bias against Blake and that there are some faults with his logic.

 

[Tince]

Unless you mean that literally, I don't agree at all. Miller is known as a very good defender. From what I've seen of him, that reputation is deserved.

I guess I made too general of a statement, my bad. Miller really struggles against quick PG's like Aaron Brooks, so he wouldn't have solved one of the problems we have against the Rockets.

Miller does a good job against bigger points, but I think that is where Blake's defense was fine as well.

 

[Tince]

Nobody is talking about Greg's atrocious hook from 8+ feet, we're talking about looks in the immediate basket area where Greg took the vast majority of his shots http://www.82games.com/0809/08POR15.HTM there's the numbers if you don't believe me. 90% of Greg's shots were in the 'inside' category and he hit 59% of them.

Well I can't imagine Ben thinks of the 300+ possessions, had we not taken a wide open 3, that we would have got Greg or LMA a dunk. Blake was wide open most likely because there were more defensive players in they key than offensive players.

We all agree that Greg's 8' shot is horrible, but I'm saying he didn't seem to make half of his 3'-5' shots. That makes Steve's 40% from 3 a much better option.

 

[Nikolokolus]

]Because Brandon is a primary option, which requires everyone to space out and leave him in ISO.[/B] But you're talking about the guard who would presumably now be the, 4th? option, driving to the lane which goes against the grain of the 2nd and 3rd options.

I'm shocked at how often people pull out the terms "hater" on one side or "defensive" on the other. Because both of them are hogwash in my book - if I criticize Blake I'm a hater if I argue against some details from the consistent, biased pounding of Blake then I'm defensive. No, I'm just stating as in my original post that while the guy has some points even the most inept of readers should be able to infer his obvious bias against Blake and that there are some faults with his logic.

Frankly, I believe in my heart that the Brandon iso oriented offense has to change if this team is going to take a step up to the next level. Secondly, if Andre Miller was here he'd be the third option on offense behind Brandon and LaMarcus, and since he's a good distributor and would be setting the table for others off the drive that's exactly what you want out of a starting point guard -- to be able to get his if needed, but to focus on trying to get the primary scorers going.

Finally, my comment about people being defensive wasn't only targeted at you, but it was this comment by you that sure made it seem like you were being defensive about Ben Golliver's take on Blake

I think that while Ben makes some good points he so obviously loathes Blake that he digs as hard as he can to take shots at him.

Did you really think the critique he gave was some kind of smear job or character assassination? It was certainly brutal and didn't hold back, but I didn't read it as a hatchet job.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Well I can't imagine Ben thinks of the 300+ possessions, had we not taken a wide open 3, that we would have got Greg or LMA a dunk. Blake was wide open most likely because there were more defensive players in they key than offensive players.

After the shot? I would expect that to be the case if they were even half-way decent at boxing out, before the shot there's no way to generalize what the defense looked like for an entire season. But, if memory serves Steve took a helluva lot of corner threes off of kick-outs from Brandon driving into the lane.

We all agree that Greg's 8' shot is horrible, but I'm saying he didn't seem to make half of his 3'-5' shots. That makes Steve's 40% from 3 a much better option.

Well that's the funny thing about things that "seem" to be a certain way, when "in fact" he made 59% of his shots in the immediate basket area (which accounted for 90% of his total shots attempted).

Here's one way to think about it.
Player A:
shoots 40% from three and generates 1.2 points per shot attempt, put that together with a 2.3% draw foul rate (which is for all shots that player took and is probably close to nil on three pointers since most teams avoid fouling three point shooters like the plague)

Player B:
shoots 60% from the immediate basket area and generates 1.2 points per shot attempt, but because he's got a draw foul rate of 22.7% he's going to be getting a decent number of 'and-one' attempts and free trips to the charity stripe.

Which would you rather have as the primary offensive weapon? That's what Ben was talking about in his critique.

 

[oldmangrouch]

Blech.

Any "solution" that starts with force-feeding Oden in the post is pure wishcasting. First of all, you can't generate shots for a player that is on the bench with injures/foul trouble. Second, Oden's offensive game is too rudimentary for him to be more than a garbage player on offense. Like Joel, his value is at the other end of the floor.

As Rudy and Batum develop, both will deserve shots more than Oden. Whoever replaces Blake as starting PG will also need to score enough to keep the defense honest.

There is a need to redistribute shots....but not the way this guy advocates.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Blech.

Any "solution" that starts with force-feeding Oden in the post is pure wishcasting. First of all, you can't generate shots for a player that is on the bench with injures/foul trouble. Second, Oden's offensive game is too rudimentary for him to be more than a garbage player on offense. Like Joel, his value is at the other end of the floor.

As Rudy and Batum develop, both will deserve shots more than Oden. Whoever replaces Blake as starting PG will also need to score enough to keep the defense honest.

There is a need to redistribute shots....but not the way this guy advocates.

I totally agree that there is no magic formula, but whenever I think about Oden I start thinking about Tyson Chandler who has always been a very limited offensive player, but was somehow magically tranformed into a dunking machine once he and Paul paired up.

Greg is a terrible option as an iso low post player, but if he had guards who could get him the ball off of lobs or off of the roll I suspect he'd be at least somewhat more effective.

 

[Natebishop3]

if only Batum was able to fluidly run the point like PIP then Steve would be perfectly acceptable.

STOMP

Actually, if Batum was able to score with any consistency at all, Blake's life would be much easier. The Rockets really exposed our starting lineup for what it is, two scorers, one spot up jump shooter, and two defensive stoppers with limited scoring ability. When Brandon and LMA are off, the starters would stumble. Blake needs to be open to be effective, and when the Rockets took away his open shots, he floundered. If Batum were more of a slasher, Blake would be far more effective.

With that said, I still believe we need a distributor at the point.

 

[andalusian]

Any "solution" that starts with force-feeding Oden in the post is pure wishcasting. First of all, you can't generate shots for a player that is on the bench with injures/foul trouble. Second, Oden's offensive game is too rudimentary for him to be more than a garbage player on offense. Like Joel, his value is at the other end of the floor.

Oden, raw as hell, with his timing off is a much better offensive player than Joel if only for the reason that he can back most of the people who guard him down.

I think that labeling Oden as a garbage player on offense for the rest of his career is way premature - even if it was mostly right this year because our guards rarely hit him with a pass after he set the picks and rolled to the basket.

Someone mentioned Tyson Chandler - but Chandler never had the strength to back people to a favorite spot. All Greg needs to do is work on his footwork and keep shooting them5 footer hook shots - and he will have offense in this league. Might not be a great offensive player - but 15PPG should be very reasonable for him.

 

[Natebishop3]

Or, just hit him cutting to the basket. Doen't have to be a PnR, could just be Greg changing directions and receiving a pass while he's in motion to the hoop.

Exactly. I felt all season that Blake wasn't looking for Oden, or Rudy for that matter. Blake almost exclusively passed to Roy and Aldridge, which was very frustrating to watch.

 

[Tince]

After the shot? I would expect that to be the case if they were even half-way decent at boxing out, before the shot there's no way to generalize what the defense looked like for an entire season. But, if memory serves Steve took a helluva lot of corner threes off of kick-outs from Brandon driving into the lane.

And where is Roy usually drawing double teams? In the key. Which means there is a defender on his hip, one sliding over, and a perimeter defender sliding down. It is very uncommon to double team out on the perimeter, and outside of a few games, Roy was not getting double out at the 3pt line.

Most coaches at any level design their help defense to take away the easy dunk and at least force teams to shoot 3's.

I could go more into depth about why this is, but I know you watch the games, so you must have noticed this is a standard NBA scheme.

Well that's the funny thing about things that "seem" to be a certain way, when "in fact" he made 59% of his shots in the immediate basket area (which accounted for 90% of his total shots attempted).

Here's one way to think about it.
Player A:
shoots 40% from three and generates 1.2 points per shot attempt, put that together with a 2.3% draw foul rate (which is for all shots that player took and is probably close to nil on three pointers since most teams avoid fouling three point shooters like the plague)

Player B:
shoots 60% from the immediate basket area and generates 1.2 points per shot attempt, but because he's got a draw foul rate of 22.7% he's going to be getting a decent number of 'and-one' attempts and free trips to the charity stripe.

Which would you rather have as the primary offensive weapon? That's what Ben was talking about in his critique.

Define immediate basket area for me please. Does this include dunks? I'm sure it did if it accounted for 90% of the shots he took. As I've said over and over, those often came from offensive rebounds, not from superior post up play or the ability to finish in traffic.

I can pull up the observations I made from Game 2-6 of the Houston series of Greg's ability to score if you would like. Off hand, Greg only scored on less than 25% of his post-ups (that includes FT's) and the there was not one possession where anyone on the rest of the team scored after Greg touched the ball in the post.

I understand what Ben is saying, but I never saw Greg score at a 60% clip on any post up or pick and roll play. If he thinks Blake driving into traffic would somehow free Greg up for a wide open dunk, when there was already more defenders in the key, then I believe he is mistaken.

Knocking a guy for shooting 42% from 3 is just plain silly in my eyes.

 

[Tince]

No doubt Chris Paul would make Greg better. I think once Greg gets his legs back, and is able to go up and get passes (like Chandler does), he'll become a much stronger offensive threat. Early in the season I recall Roy, Blake, Rudy, and even LMA, throwing up lob passes to Oden, but he was never able to go up and get it like players such as Nene, Chandler, and Howard can. I saw he could do it pre-microfracture surgery, so I think he will be able to once again.

 

[Natebishop3]

Comparing Blake to Oden is apples to oranges. One plays a position that has the ball in his hand a large portion of the time, and should be able to possess some ability to create his own shot. One plays a position that relies on others to get him the ball, unless he's getting rebounds. Oden can't be effective if he isn't given the ball in scoring position.

 

[Tince]

Comparing Blake to Oden is apples to oranges. One plays a position that has the ball in his hand a large portion of the time, and should be able to possess some ability to create his own shot. One plays a position that relies on others to get him the ball, unless he's getting rebounds. Oden can't be effective if he isn't given the ball in scoring position.

I agree with everything you said here.

My whole point is thatshooting 42% three is as good or better than attempting to create for Oden. Remember, every time someone passes up on an open 3 just to attempt to give Oden the ball, doesn't mean Oden will even get a field goal attempt. Driving into an already crowded lane makes for tight passing lanes. Greg might shoot 40-50% when he gets the ball, but that doesn't account for the turnovers and poor shots taken when the ball is forced back out in that same possession.

I think it's a shame that Ben had some great points, but reached to far to try and put the nail in the coffin. Blake would be a great backup, he just isn't a great starter. As of right now, the same could be said about Oden.

 

[retroblazers]

i think with the whole 328 possessions thing, he wasn't saying we would win more games by getting oden and lamarcus the ball, but rather that it'd help their development along faster. and isn't that what everybody is really saying, for us to win championships, lamarcus and oden have to develop into really good players, and more touches for oden would help him develop.

 

[Tince]

i think with the whole 328 possessions thing, he wasn't saying we would win more games by getting oden and lamarcus the ball, but rather that it'd help their development along faster. and isn't that what everybody is really saying, for us to win championships, lamarcus and oden have to develop into really good players, and more touches for oden would help him develop.

You could say that about everyone. If Brandon gave up half his attempts to Greg, it would help Greg's development when it comes to in game post experience.

As a post, you want your perimeter players to be knock down shooters because it gives you more space to work inside. Blake's inability to drive and create hurt Oden, but shooting 42% on his 328 three's certainly shouldn't be considered a negative.

 

[Natebishop3]

I agree with everything you said here.

My whole point is thatshooting 42% three is as good or better than attempting to create for Oden. Remember, every time someone passes up on an open 3 just to attempt to give Oden the ball, doesn't mean Oden will even get a field goal attempt. Driving into an already crowded lane makes for tight passing lanes. Greg might shoot 40-50% when he gets the ball, but that doesn't account for the turnovers and poor shots taken when the ball is forced back out in that same possession.

I think it's a shame that Ben had some great points, but reached to far to try and put the nail in the coffin. Blake would be a great backup, he just isn't a great starter. As of right now, the same could be said about Oden.

I don't disagree with you, but I have two points on that subject.

1) Steve shoots a high percentage, but he mostly shoots open threes. He's not like Rudy, who can create his own shot.

2) It would behoove use to establish Oden in the post, because most teams tend to sag on him when he gets the ball, which would create open shots for guys like Blake. We need to work with Oden on passing out of the double team, and we need to work with our perimeter players on getting him the ball and then moving to an open area for the pass out.

 

[retroblazers]

it's a 2 way stream, it's true that centers need perimeter players hitting 3's to open the paint for them, but perimeter players need bigs playing well down low to get open looks.

if oden developed better this year, he would get guys like rudy/roy/blake better open shots which would only help all of their shooting percentages.

 

[Natebishop3]

it's a 2 way stream, it's true that centers need perimeter players hitting 3's to open the paint for them, but perimeter players need bigs playing well down low to get open looks.

if oden developed better this year, he would get guys like rudy/roy/blake better open shots which would only help all of their shooting percentages.

Exactly, that's pretty much where I stand on this as well.

 

[Tince]

I don't disagree with you, but I have two points on that subject.

1) Steve shoots a high percentage, but he mostly shoots open threes. He's not like Rudy, who can create his own shot.

2) It would behoove use to establish Oden in the post, because most teams tend to sag on him when he gets the ball, which would create open shots for guys like Blake. We need to work with Oden on passing out of the double team, and we need to work with our perimeter players on getting him the ball and then moving to an open area for the pass out.

1) He shouldn't be punished for taking and making open shots. Nor should anyone encourage a good shooter to pass up open shots.

2) I agree with this. Oden did not do near as well passing out of double teams as I thought he would. Granted, after the all-star break, it was rare for anyone to double team him, so he had few opportunities to get an assist. If he was scoring at 60% of these opportunities like people imply he did, then you know he would have got double teamed a lot more.

 

[Minstrel]

2) I agree with this. Oden did not do near as well passing out of double teams as I thought he would. Granted, after the all-star break, it was rare for anyone to double team him, so he had few opportunities to get an assist. If he was scoring at 60% of these opportunities like people imply he did, then you know he would have got double teamed a lot more.

Our observations are quite dissimilar on this. IMO, teams double-teamed Oden a lot, throughout the year. That surprised me, and led me to think that coaches have quite a bit of respect for Oden's ability to score around the hoop, even in his reduced form of this year.

 

[Tince]

Our observations are quite dissimilar on this. IMO, teams double-teamed Oden a lot, throughout the year. That surprised me, and led me to think that coaches have quite a bit of respect for Oden's ability to score around the hoop, even in his reduced form of this year.

You thought at the end of the year teams were doubling Greg?

I know they doubled him all the time at the start.

I guess I'm basing it off the fact that Houston never doubled him, even when Yao was out. The Nuggets didn't double him. The Lakers didn't double him. Even the Thunder played him straight up with Swift. In the month of April we played 14 games, and I can only recall Memphis doubling down on Oden.

 

[Natebishop3]

I agree with Minstrel, I did see teams double Oden quite a bit, simply because most centers are not big enough to keep Oden out of the paint. I also feel that fewer teams doubled Oden than could have, and I wasn't very impressed with Oden's passing. I'd really like to see Oden and his teammates work on feeding the post, assessing the double, and then passing back out. We have so many shooters, there's really no reason why we shouldn't be using Oden to get better shots for Blake, Roy, Aldridge, Rudy, etc.

 

[yakbladder]

Did you really think the critique he gave was some kind of smear job or character assassination? It was certainly brutal and didn't hold back, but I didn't read it as a hatchet job.

Yes - I think it was far from a balanced assessment of Mr. Blake....

I understand re: Miller and I can see where you are coming from. But Mr. Miller has only been mentioned as a possibility. It seems clear from others, not necessarily you, that we need a "driving, slashing" point guard.

 

[Sinobas]

The Blazers finally started running over that last 12 game streach, and they were kicking ass doing so. But during the playoffs they let up. Blake didn't push the ball up in the playoffs, though you saw Nate on the sideline trying to push him on.

I really don't blame Nate for our Tempo, I think the issue is actually with our guards.