Gary Trent's breakout late last year reminded me of Zach Randolph's first season, where he finally got minutes in the playoffs and proved to everyone he belonged. In Year 2, it was plain as day to everyone that Zbo was getting huge minutes.
Portland needed to enter this season with a plan to make Trent the featured third scorer on the team, averaging 35mpg. Maybe he doesn't start because the fit isn't right, but for damn sure he's getting all the minutes he can handle. He's young, talented, can shoot and play defense, and he's absolutely part of the future (or a fantastic trading piece if he's not).
Instead in the second game of the year he gets 5 minutes of playing time! That shit is insane!
I've seen nothing to indicate that Stotts has seen this light. On the contrary, he's wasting 25mpg every night on Carmello, a guy who provides basically the same offense and absolutely no defense and has no future in the NBA beyond the end of the bench.
On the plus side, in the last 3 games (all wins) Trent is averaging 29mpg. Not enough, but better. I like the trend, but I feel like Stotts is being dragged into reality rather than taking advantage of it.