Blazers ranked 3rd worst future of NBA teams ahead of only Wizards and Kings

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I mentioned a hypothetical lineup earlier:

Dame
Simons
Top-7 pick (32% chance of top-4 pick)
Grant
Nurkic

with a bench of Hart-Winslow-Little-MLE-Eubanks-Watford-Dunn-Johnson

(first thing is it's pretty hilarious that I'm being essentially called a sunshine-pumper)

my thinking is that is a playoff team with a good shot of not being in the playin. But apparently some are convinced that's a lottery team

anyway, my thinking is that if

Dame
CJ
Harkless
Aminu
Nurkic (Kanter)

with a bench of Turner, Curry, Zach, Meyers. Layman can win 53 games, be the 3rd seed, and make it to the WCF then the team I hypothesized has a good shot at the playoffs
 
Ranking current teams are somewhat accurate. Ranking future teams have never been accurate.
Things can change quickly in the NBA. Good and bad
 
I've never understood how someone thinking that CJ (with Dame) wasn't a good fit offensively because they could never both be at their full potential, and that defensively as a pair, they were at a deficit almost every game......how that is construed as "CJ hate".

He is a tremendous offensive player that needed to be a lead guard for his own team and would likely flourish there....which has absolutely happened. But that doesn't change that it was never going to be optimal here due to the duplication and lack of defense. That does not make it "CJ hate".
 
Fairly-Hard said:
Sugar coat it all you want. Nurk has never played a full season in a Blazer uniform and we all have watched what Little has brought thus far. You literally compared them to players like James, Curry and Durant.
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I literally did not compare them to those players in terms of talent, just propensity for injuries. Injuries happen to all NBA players, but Blazers fans tend to hone in on injuries to Blazers players. LeBron James has only played all 82 games in a regular season one time in his career. And, no, I’m not saying Nurk is as good a player as James.
 
i dont think we bottom 3, but that's based on hoping for a healthy roster which we really havent had for any good length of time and we always struggle with quality FA signings.

LA has an aging roster but they at least have LA.

Looking at how teams like the Grizz, Suns n Timberwolves have evolved does give some hope - but its a longish shot. I think we'll be muddling around in the lower middle for a while yet.
 
e_blazer said:
I literally did not compare them to those players in terms of talent, just propensity for injuries. Injuries happen to all NBA players, but Blazers fans tend to hone in on injuries to Blazers players. LeBron James has only played all 82 games in a regular season one time in his career. And, no, I’m not saying Nurk is as good a player as James.
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It's just so freakin Easy!
Lebron James is considered by many to be the best player ever to play the game. Nurk is a center that might be starting quality if he could stay healthy.
James played 74 or more games in 13 of his first 15 seasons. The two he didn't he played 62 and 69 games.
Nurkic has played over 70 games twice in his career. 72 and 79. In 10 seasons. He has had two broken legs a broken wrist and multiple other boo boo's.
His average to this point in the other 8 seasons is 40 games. That is being generous.

And yes you continue to try to compare them? It's probably best that you just stop.
 
Hoopguru said:
They will move off of Davis this off season is my guess. Russ too if they can find a taker?
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Who would trade for Russ? No one. AD won’t get back anything close to what they gave up for him.
 
Fairly-Hard said:
It's just so freakin Easy!
Lebron James is considered by many to be the best player ever to play the game. Nurk is a center that might be starting quality if he could stay healthy.
James played 74 or more games in 13 of his first 15 seasons. The two he didn't he played 62 and 69 games.
Nurkic has played over 70 games twice in his career. 72 and 79. In 10 seasons. He has had two broken legs a broken wrist and multiple other boo boo's.
His average to this point in the other 8 seasons is 40 games. That is being generous.

And yes you continue to try to compare them? It's probably best that you just stop.
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Even when I specifically say I’m not comparing players' talents you seem to want to push the discussion that direction. I’m a pretty easy to discuss things with. You seem to love to argue for no particular reason and to personalize it when you do.

If you want to say Nurk gets hurt a lot and the Blazers should move on from him, that’s a fair point since his injuries have been significant. I have a harder time with your characterization of Little the same way. Except for the shoulder injury, most of his lost time has been to Covid, a concussion from a fall, and ankle and knee sprains. Covid hit a lot of players and the fall and sprains were from playing hard. I want that in a young player.
 
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KSF-ERIC said:
Who would trade for Russ? No one. AD won’t get back anything close to what they gave up for him.
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Regarding Russ, maybe a team thats not wanting to win next year and would like to dump some salary and the end of next year? A team like maybe Indiana?
Davis,They may not get equal value but what if they could get a pick and a couple solid players that stay healthy, and can give James one more shot while getting younger?
 
wizenheimer said:
c'mon man...that's insulting.

it's also kind of funny....so, if people don't share your perspective it must be because their judgement is clouded by hate. It couldn't be because they just have a different view of the situation

the only praise I've directed to Cronin is that I think he's done a decent job of backing Portland out of the cul-de-sac they were parked in for 7 years. I've said many times I'm unimpressed with the return he got from the trades, but I don't think it was as bad as some claim. In fact, I think the basis of a lot of those claims is an overvaluing of the players traded

as for the 2nd best player, it wouldn't be Grant...he'd be a 3rd of 4th option assuming the Blazers land him. But CJ vs Simons or Nurk? That's a lot closer and I'd like to see what they can do first before making any judgement. I've already seen 7 years of nowheresville that CJ as 2nd best creates

what I'm hoping for is somehow the Blazers land a 2nd best that's better than any of CJ-Ant-Nurkic and there was no fucking way that was possible with Olshey as GM and CJ on the payroll

CJ this season:

PER: in Portland 15.9....in New Orleans 22.4
TS%: in Portland .532....in New Orleans .590
FTRate: in Portland .102....in New Orleans .206
Assist Rate: in Portland 22.3%....in New Orleans 31.4%
winshare/48: in Portland .044....in New Orleans .150
BPM: in Portland 0.1....in New Orleans 5.1

I won't buy, for a millisecond any blahblah bullshit about "it was Dame" or "it was Stotts" or "he needed to be #1". Those 'in-Portland' numbers there are really similar to what he did for 7 years. There was no damn reason he couldn't have played as a Blazer like he has as a Pelican. But instead he spent way too much time being MeJ while playing bad defense. That really isn't a high standard, at all, for a 2nd best player
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The Pelican's version of CJ has been playing SIGNIFICANTLY better than he ever has in Portland. All of those metrics you presented are significantly better than his prior career bests. They are almost in line with Dame's career averages (although Dame's best years are another step above this).

Which leads to two questions:
1) Will CJ revert to his normal self with a larger sample size? (it's only been 22 games thus far)
2) How much of the performance issues were due to the Dame/CJ pairing? We've seen small stretches when CJ played extremely well when Dame was out injured.
 
CJ_is_Gone said:
The Pelican's version of CJ has been playing SIGNIFICANTLY better than he ever has in Portland. All of those metrics you presented are significantly better than his prior career bests. They are almost in line with Dame's career averages (although Dame's best years are another step above this).

Which leads to two questions:
1) Will CJ revert to his normal self with a larger sample size? (it's only been 22 games thus far)
2) How much of the performance issues were due to the Dame/CJ pairing? We've seen small stretches when CJ played extremely well when Dame was out injured.
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Or Maybe CJ was never the problem. Maybe CJ was never selfish. Maybe Dame and CJ could have worked better over the years in a different offense and with a different coach. Maybe the MeJ so many of you liked to reference was due to Stotts.
 
e_blazer said:
Even when I specifically say I’m not comparing players talents you seem to want to push the discussion that direction. I’m a pretty easy to discuss things with. You seem to love to argue for no particular reason and to personalize it when you do.

If you want to say Nurk gets hurt a lot and the Blazers should move on from him, that’s a fair point since his injuries have been significant. I have a harder time with your characterization of Little the same way. Except for the shoulder injury, most of his lost time has been to Covid, a concussion from a fall, and ankle and knee sprains. The Covid hit a lot of players and the fall and sprains were from playin hard. I want that in a young player.
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I can't tell if your trying to say Little isn't injury prone or are you being sarcastic?

"Except for the shoulder injury, most of his lost time has been to Covid, a concussion from a fall, and ankle and knee sprains."

Thats 5 major injuries for a player in less than 3 seasons. Unable to complete 2 of 3 years. Zack Collins was much more healthy.
 
e_blazer said:
Even when I specifically say I’m not comparing players' talents you seem to want to push the discussion that direction. I’m a pretty easy to discuss things with. You seem to love to argue for no particular reason and to personalize it when you do.

If you want to say Nurk gets hurt a lot and the Blazers should move on from him, that’s a fair point since his injuries have been significant. I have a harder time with your characterization of Little the same way. Except for the shoulder injury, most of his lost time has been to Covid, a concussion from a fall, and ankle and knee sprains. Covid hit a lot of players and the fall and sprains were from playing hard. I want that in a young player.
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I don't know. I specifically posted actual games played and missed for both players. I guess if you say that is arguing then so be it.
e_blazer said:
If you want to say Nurk gets hurt a lot and the Blazers should move on from him, that’s a fair point since his injuries have been significant.
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That was my original post. It was about the team next year depending on them to actually be available to compete.

We don't even want to start doing numbers on Little. Believe me it isn't much better but it is a little better. Thing is he is actually hurt right now and out for the season.
 
Pinwheel1 said:
Or Maybe CJ was never the problem. Maybe CJ was never selfish. Maybe Dame and CJ could have worked better over the years in a different offense and with a different coach. Maybe the MeJ so many of you liked to reference was due to Stotts.
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he had 36 games under Billups and performed 'poorly'. That's a bigger sample size than New Orleans
 
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WesleyMatthews said:
I can't tell if your trying to say Little isn't injury prone or are you being sarcastic?

"Except for the shoulder injury, most of his lost time has been to Covid, a concussion from a fall, and ankle and knee sprains."

Thats 5 major injuries for a player in less than 3 seasons. Unable to complete 2 of 3 years. Zack Collins was much more healthy.
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I'm saying that a player falling and hitting his head in practice, spraining an ankle, and spraining a knee over a three year career doesn't seem to me to be particularly unusual or worrisome. Those were all, fortunately, minor injuries that kept him out a week or two each. That's considerably different that Nurk's history of multiple broken bones that have kept him out large portions of several seasons. Little's shoulder injury, obviously, is a significant injury, but it was his first such major injury and isn't something that's likely to bother him again after his rehab.
 
calvin natt said:
It’s simple really. Not seeing this is just Laker blind hate
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If the Lakers were in a normal city, they would absolutely be in the worst situation of any team currently. But, it is L.A. and they have a way of turning things around pretty quickly. They can just tread water for a year or 2, and then wait for the next super star who wants to relocate to L.A. Easy Peasy
 
theprunetang said:
If the Lakers were in a normal city, they would absolutely be in the worst situation of any team currently. But, it is L.A. and they have a way of turning things around pretty quickly. They can just tread water for a year or 2, and then wait for the next super star who wants to relocate to L.A. Easy Peasy
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Bingo....LA is the place where 99% of super stars want to go. Entertainment, Sun, Beaches & Hollywood, Diversity.
 
calvin natt said:
It’s simple really. Not seeing this is just Laker blind hate
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I do dislike the Lakers no denying that. I think the run of the Lakers being the destination isn’t what it use to be. Prior to Lebron they struggled so I don’t see why they won’t struggle with no draft picks and aging Lebron. Their best hope is to trade AD or Lebron and start over.
 
1 Eye Jack said:
I do dislike the Lakers no denying that. I think the run of the Lakers being the destination isn’t what it use to be. Prior to Lebron they struggled so I don’t see why they won’t struggle with no draft picks and aging Lebron. Their best hope is to trade AD or Lebron and start over.
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Long term though is the topic. Once AD and LJ move on they’ll have all the money they need and every young player wanting to be there. They’ll reload.
 
calvin natt said:
Long term though is the topic. Once AD and LJ move on they’ll have all the money they need and every young player wanting to be there. They’ll reload.
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I get what you are saying. They have a built-in advantage in rebuilding. That being said 9 of the last 10 years they have sucked. In 2012-13 they were 7th in the west and were swept in the first round. They then missed the playoffs for 6 straight years before winning it all in the Bubble. Last year they were 7th again and lost in the first round and this year they are most likely out again. Yes, many young players will want to go there, but will they get the right ones? This is not the NCAA where there is no salary cap.
 
calvin natt said:
Long term though is the topic. Once AD and LJ move on they’ll have all the money they need and every young player wanting to be there. They’ll reload.
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It's actually not too long term. The first line of the article is "How will your team perform over the next three NBA seasons?" So I do think the Lakers being in the middle of the pack might be a little generous but at the same time they're the Lakers so I wouldn't be too shocked if they pulled off something that made them relevant again as soon as next season... who knows?
 
Bingo Bango said:
But we’re tanking! That’s the ticket to future success, or haven’t you heard?
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We've been tanking for like two months after refusing to accept we were mediocre for YEARS in spite of making a bunch of win-now moves.

Trying to build a winner next year will result in just more of the same: mediocrity and a lack of future assets.
 
calvin natt said:
Because within the next two years guys like Zion, Lamelo, and Anthony Edwards will make it known that’s where they want to go. And they will.
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not if LA team sucks. Super stars don’t like going to teams that aren’t good. You’re living in the past players aren’t jumping to teams like LA like they use to.
 
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