CJ is Awesome

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KeepOnRollin said:
As an aside, CJ just moved into 10th place on the Trial Blazer's all-time scoring list.
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Yep. And Mychal Thompson is only 80 points ahead of CJ for that 9th spot.

upload_2021-1-10_13-59-35.png

That's a pretty impressive list of names there.
 
Nice regular season numbers.
Wonder what the post-season ranking look like.
 
KSF-ERIC said:
CJ is 3rd in the NBA in scoring right now on 47/44/88 shooting. And the two people ahead of him are just there because of one 60+ game. CJ's consistent. Forget All Star. CJ is All NBA this season.
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Not quite. Take out his 60 point game and Beal is still averaging 32. His lowest total so far this season is 27.

Don't know if it lasts, but he's legit at the top of the board.
 
KSF-ERIC said:
Averaging nearly 6 assists per game with less than 1 turnover. 28.0 ppg is 6th in the NBA behind only Harden, Curry, Beal, Durant, and Trae Young. All Star game here he comes!
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We've got to feel this way about him.......Now<.
Lets re visit when the all star game date is approached and at the end of the season.
 
I'm actually very fine with CJ being the leading scorer on the team, because it means he's turned the corner as a consistent, valid threat. Makes Damians game easier.
 
KingSpeed said:
But will there be an All Star team?
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I believe there will still be all star teams made up. I don't know if they're going to do it like they've done it the last few years ("Team X" vs "Team Y" where it's not based on conference).
 
Don't some contracts have incentives for being named to an all-star team? I can't see them not having the vote.
On another note, the next 3 all-star games will be in Cleveland, Salt Lake City, and Indianapolis. I would skip them and go somewhere warm.
 
julius said:
I believe there will still be all star teams made up. I don't know if they're going to do it like they've done it the last few years ("Team X" vs "Team Y" where it's not based on conference).
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I found this in an article about this year’s ASG being canceled and Indy hosting it being moved to 2024:

“This will be the first time since 1999 that the league won't have an All-Star Game. The event was cancelled that year due to the league's lockout. There will, however, be some version of All-Star festivities this year, though those plans will be announced at a later date. Something that could honor this season's All-Stars and makes sure they're recognized for their achievements would be nice.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cb...ces-indianapolis-will-host-event-in-2024/amp/

Hey, maybe the League could finally throw the Blazers a bone and let them host the non-ASG here. I mean, for 50 years the litany has been we don’t have the hotel space to host the game. Pretty sure we could handle it this year with no game and no fans. ;)
 
e_blazer said:
I found this in an article about this year’s ASG being canceled and Indy hosting it being moved to 2024:

“This will be the first time since 1999 that the league won't have an All-Star Game. The event was cancelled that year due to the league's lockout. There will, however, be some version of All-Star festivities this year, though those plans will be announced at a later date. Something that could honor this season's All-Stars and makes sure they're recognized for their achievements would be nice.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cb...ces-indianapolis-will-host-event-in-2024/amp/

Hey, maybe the League could finally throw the Blazers a bone and let them host the non-ASG here. I mean, for 50 years the litany has been we don’t have the hotel space to host the game. Pretty sure we could handle it this year with no game and no fans. ;)
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That article was written 2 months ago. In light of the exploding pandemic (and it's getting worse) and an increasing number of games being cancelled, I'd wonder if the league will cancel any kind of festivities around all-stars.

I guess this year, we can see a Zoom All-star team
 
What is absurd to me is CJ's turnover rate. He's averaging 1.1 turnovers with a 4.7% turnover rate.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2021_advanced.html#advanced_stats::tov_pct

Obviously the players that will lead this category are catch and shoot guys, players who don't handle the ball much, or are strictly isolation scorers (Trent and Melo also appear on this list). The difference is CJ handles the ball A TON, and he's managed to improve his AST% from 19% to 26% this year, all while reducing his turnover % from 8% to 5%.

He is third in the league based on players qualifying, and no one ahead of behind him has even near the same AST%. You have to go to the 23rd player (Derozan) before you find someone with a higher AST%.

I don't know if this is sustainable, but it's a major reason for his success so far.
 
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

3rd in RAPTOR. He's an advanced stat darling right now.

Kind of nuts considering most advanced stats were not very generous to him the last few years when compared to his raw numbers.

Still, it's a small sample, but obviously hoping he keeps it up.

SIDENOTE: Based on RAPTOR, Dame has been the worst defensive player in the league with a minimum of 135 minutes played. Matches the eye test as well. Dame has been getting blistered on defense this season. Just looks lazy on that end.

Trent and Kanter are there as well in the bottom 20. Screen Shot 2021-01-12 at 12.09.06 PM.png Screen Shot 2021-01-12 at 12.10.01 PM.png
 
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B-Roy said:
What is absurd to me is CJ's turnover rate. He's averaging 1.1 turnovers with a 4.7% turnover rate.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2021_advanced.html#advanced_stats::tov_pct

Obviously the players that will lead this category are catch and shoot guys, players who don't handle the ball much, or are strictly isolation scorers (Trent and Melo also appear on this list). The difference is CJ handles the ball A TON, and he's managed to improve his AST% from 19% to 26% this year, all while reducing his turnover % from 8% to 5%.

He is third in the league based on players qualifying, and no one ahead of behind him has even near the same AST%. You have to go to the 23rd player (Derozan) before you find someone with a higher AST%.

I don't know if this is sustainable, but it's a major reason for his success so far.
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AND he’s among the league leaders in steals. If he keeps this up, he’s All NBA. I can’t name 6 guards better than him.
 
B-Roy said:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

3rd in RAPTOR. He's an advanced stat darling right now.

Kind of nuts considering most advanced stats were not very generous to him the last few years when compared to his raw numbers.

Still, it's a small sample, but obviously hoping he keeps it up.

SIDENOTE: Based on RAPTOR, Dame has been the worst defensive player in the league with a minimum of 135 minutes played. Matches the eye test as well. Dame has been getting blistered on defense this season. Just looks lazy on that end.

Trent and Kanter are there as well in the bottom 20. View attachment 36031 View attachment 36032
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when looking at those numbers, I think you really need to consider rotations

by that I mean Portland's regular rotation is around the 6 minute mark of 1st Q, the subs start coming in: Melo replaces Covington; Hood replaces Jones; Kanter replaces Nurkic. Maybe around that time or a minute or two later Trent replaces CJ. Dame stays in until the quarter break. The same pattern generally follows in the 2nd half

that means, about half the time Dame is on the floor with some combination of Melo, Kanter, and Hood. And all three of those guys absolutely suck at defense. And maybe, for a minute or two, Dame is on the floor with CJ-Hood-Melo-Kanter. Can you think of a worse defensive lineup?...anywhere?

that's not to say that Dame is playing well or defending well. He's obviously out-of-sync on both ends of the floor. Maybe it was too short an off-season, or maybe that knee injury in the bubble was more serious than reported. Still, he's posting the 2nd highest TS percentage of his career and his PER, while lower than it has been the last 3-4 seasons has been rising. I'm still convinced Dame will go superstar sometime this season

what I'd like to see...and I still haven't seen it this season even though CJ is on fire...is a team come in and assign their best perimeter defender to CJ instead of Dame. Let Dame spend some time drafting off of attention to CJ like CJ has drafted off Dame for 5 seasons
 
wizenheimer said:
when looking at those numbers, I think you really need to consider rotations

by that I mean Portland's regular rotation is around the 6 minute mark of 1st Q, the subs start coming in: Melo replaces Covington; Hood replaces Jones; Kanter replaces Nurkic. Maybe around that time or a minute or two later Trent replaces CJ. Dame stays in until the quarter break. The same pattern generally follows in the 2nd half

that means, about half the time Dame is on the floor with some combination of Melo, Kanter, and Hood. And all three of those guys absolutely suck at defense. And maybe, for a minute or two, Dame is on the floor with CJ-Hood-Melo-Kanter. Can you think of a worse defensive lineup?...anywhere?
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RAPTOR takes all of these things into account in the on/off component.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/introducing-raptor-our-new-metric-for-the-modern-nba/

Now HOW it takes those into account are not fully disclosed, but a simple description it gives:

The “on-off” element of RAPTOR evaluates how a player’s team performed while he was on the floor, how the player’s courtmates (the teammates that the player most often shared the court with) performed while they were on the floor without the player, and, finally, how those courtmates’ other courtmates performed when they were on the floor without the player’s courtmates, all adjusted for the strength of competition they were facing. We know it might sound a little goofy. But it’s relatively simple to calculate. And it correlates very well with RAPM, while stabilizing a lot faster than RAPM, which can take years’ worth of data to estimate reliably.
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The "box" component also looks at aspects that are not simple box score stats:

On defense, it looks at factors like how often the player was the nearest defender on an opponents’ shot and how often those shots went in, how many points and rebounds were scored by opponents at the defender’s position, and how often the player induced offensive fouls.
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CJ is a slight negative based on the "box" component, but he's a sizable positive by the "on-off" component. Dame is a huge negative in both components, and that matches my eye test as well. Watching the games, he is dying on every screen, he doesn't close out on defenders, and he's not even providing much resistance on post-ups, which he has historically been good at.

Beyond that, CJ also spends a number of minutes each game with Hood/Melo/Kanter in the second quarter (Hood has actually been a positive defensive player according to RAPTOR, if you believe it). Maybe not as much as Dame, but that should theoretically be picked up in the "on/off" component of RAPTOR. So either way, I'm not really buying your premise. This post isn't meant to shit on Dame, he's earned a lot of leeway due to having 3 MVP calibre seasons in a row, but it also doesn't change the fact that CJ has been better so far this season, on both ends, and it's been validated by both stats and the eye test. Does it mean I don't think Dame will pick it up as the season goes on and CJ may regress a bit? Of course not, but this is a reflection of the team's reality as of 1/12/21.

Personally, I think Dame is conserving his energy on defense in the regular season. I've seen him play good (or at least acceptable) defense for stretches of games in a row (like in the bubble), so I think he definitely has the ability. My only wish is that he is a little less lazy on that end in general. Consistently giving effort on that end is a good habit to have, and it's built over time and with consistency. With how many minutes he plays per game, he's been a HUGE part of us having one of the worst defenses in the league.
 
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