Has reality set in yet?

[Boise Blazer]

That is a good point, with no role and limited minutes he averaged 5 ppg. He should at least do that with the Blazers. And I do come out of summer league with the expectations he will be an effective rebounder.

Strange how T-Rob reminds me of Hickson (only seen T-Rob for a game and half in summer league so may be off here). Will be interesting to see them match up against each other in the regular season.

Hickson has a fairly reliable jumper but yes there are some similiarities

 

[Natebishop3]

CJ is way better than Bayless.

J-Bay could only drive and draw contact. Half his points were from foul shots. He couldn't shoot, in SL or during the regular season. CJ is a shooter. His shooting percentage has gotten worse as SL has gone on, but he is miles ahead of Bayles at this point. The two are nothing alike.

 

[Ed O]

CJ is way better than Bayless.

J-Bay could only drive and draw contact. Half his points were from foul shots. He couldn't shoot, in SL or during the regular season. CJ is a shooter. His shooting percentage has gotten worse as SL has gone on, but he is miles ahead of Bayles at this point. The two are nothing alike.

Well, Bayless already had two summer leagues under his belt by the time he was McCollum's age, so it's tough to compare where CJ is right now to where Bayless was as a Blazer.

With that being said: Bayless was never and will never be the kind of deep shooter than McCollum is, and that is obviously a critical skill for tweener guards their size.

Ed O.

 

[Natebishop3]

Well, Bayless already had two summer leagues under his belt by the time he was McCollum's age, so it's tough to compare where CJ is right now to where Bayless was as a Blazer.

With that being said: Bayless was never and will never be the kind of deep shooter than McCollum is, and that is obviously a critical skill for tweener guards their size.

Ed O.

Well that's really the point, CJ is a shooter and Bayless was/is not. CJ reminds me of Jamal Crawford a lot.

 

[magnifier661]

Well that's really the point, CJ is a shooter and Bayless was/is not. CJ reminds me of Jamal Crawford a lot.

And to the mannerism and well spoken style of communication.

 

[oldguy]

Our bench last season couldn't score to save their lives. There were so many wide open opportunities for them and they just couldn't cash in. Most the time we had a lead only to lose it when our bench came in.

Wright, trob and cj all can score. I doubt we have a 8 ppg bench next season. I just don't see it happening.

Was that what the bench scored last season? I knew they were pretty weak, but I thought they scored more than that.

Go Blazers

 

[magnifier661]

Was that what the bench scored last season? I knew they were pretty weak, but I thought they scored more than that.

Go Blazers

I remember seeing 8.8 ppg on TNT around the final 10 games

 

[jlprk]

I'm curious; can you derive a correlation between SL performance (just wins and losses) and performance in the regular season and playoffs? I'm not going to do the work, but I figure you probably have the time and where-with-all to do it.

The well-known correlation is that players who are bad in SL will be bad in regular season. Those who are great in SL will not necessarily be good in the regular.

Exceptions like Batum are explained by saying that it's a guard's league. None of this bodes well for McCollum, who has been 10% the player that Roy was in the last SL.

Most SL teams contain 2-3 players who will be at the bottom of the regular season roster. Our SL contains 7 players who will comprise the entire bottom half of our roster. Thus, our SL failure this year is more predictive than usual of a frustrating season coming up.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

In fairness to CJ, these are his first games after his foot injury.

 

[jlprk]

I knew it! The old foot injury excuse, eh?

 

[blazerboy30]

Are we REALLY already starting with jlprk's irrational rants and bashing of a Blazer, this time CJ, after seeing 3 SL games? Really?

 

[Boob-No-More]

Most SL teams contain 2-3 players who will be at the bottom of the regular season roster. Our SL contains 7 players who will comprise the entire bottom half of our roster. Thus, our SL failure this year is more predictive than usual of a frustrating season coming up.

Yeah, because we all know it's the bottom 7 guys on your roster that win championships. Screw the Heat and their Big 3, the key to winning the championship is upgrading our Little 7.

Seriously, adding Wright and Watson alone makes our bench better. All our bench needs to do this year is not be the worst bench in the entire 65 year history of the NBA and it will be an improvement.

BNM

 

[oldguy]

I remember seeing 8.8 ppg on TNT around the final 10 games

No offense, but 8.8 is so historically bad I had to go looking for that stat.

It’s no secret that the bench from last year’s Blazers squad was the team’s weak link. The bench contributed only 18.5 points per game (worst in the NBA), but perhaps the more damaging consequence was that it forced the starters (Damian Lillard in particular) into playing unsustainable minutes.

http://ripcityproject.com/2013/07/13/portland-trail-blazers-bench-player-upgrade/

18.5 is still pathetic, but it's a lot more than 9.

Go Blazers

 

[Boob-No-More]

No offense, but 8.8 is so historically bad I had to go looking for that stat.



http://ripcityproject.com/2013/07/13/portland-trail-blazers-bench-player-upgrade/


18.5 is still pathetic, but it's a lot more than 9.

Go Blazers

Yeah, I thought the previous low was something like 24.5 ppg.

BNM

 

[magnifier661]

No offense, but 8.8 is so historically bad I had to go looking for that stat.



http://ripcityproject.com/2013/07/13/portland-trail-blazers-bench-player-upgrade/

18.5 is still pathetic, but it's a lot more than 9.

Go Blazers

I just remembered on TNT they had something like that. It's not like I've been wrong before.

Anyway, it still is a good sign because even if T.Rob could average what he did last year buried deep in the bench; he would still average close to half the points we did from last season.

 

[B-Roy]

The well-known correlation is that players who are bad in SL will be bad in regular season. Those who are great in SL will not necessarily be good in the regular.

Exceptions like Batum are explained by saying that it's a guard's league. None of this bodes well for McCollum, who has been 10% the player that Roy was in the last SL.

Most SL teams contain 2-3 players who will be at the bottom of the regular season roster. Our SL contains 7 players who will comprise the entire bottom half of our roster. Thus, our SL failure this year is more predictive than usual of a frustrating season coming up.

We made it past the first round! How are we a failure?

 

[BlazerCaravan]

We made it past the first round! How are we a failure?

SL - SUCCESS
RS - TBD
PO - TBD


One down, two to go!

 

[Boob-No-More]

I just remembered on TNT they had something like that. It's not like I've been wrong before.

Anyway, it still is a good sign because even if T.Rob could average what he did last year buried deep in the bench; he would still average close to half the points we did from last season.

Dorell Wright, CJ and TRob should combine to average more than 18.5ppg off the bench between them. Throw in a few more ppg from Leonard, Claver, Barton, Freeland and our bench scoring should be somewhere in the 25 - 30 ppg range, possibly more.

BNM

 

[maxiep]

In fairness to CJ, these are his first games after his foot injury.

That idea hadn't occurred to me until I read his self-review after the Hawks game. It's his 4th game since January, so I'll cut him some slack for his inefficiencies. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[KeepOnRollin]

That idea hadn't occurred to me until I read his self-review after the Hawks game. It's his 4th game since January, so I'll cut him some slack for his inefficiencies. Thanks for the reminder.

It is pretty funny that we have to cut him some slack when he most likely is going to be MVP of the SL.

 

[magnifier661]

Dorell Wright, CJ and TRob should combine to average more than 18.5ppg off the bench between them. Throw in a few more ppg from Leonard, Claver, Barton, Freeland and our bench scoring should be somewhere in the 25 - 30 ppg range, possibly more.

BNM

And that's a very good sign!

 

[Boob-No-More]

And that's a very good sign!

BTW, our bench scoring went up by about 4 ppg after we got Eric Maynor.

Another way to look at it is we are replacing Eric Maynor (6.9ppg), Luke Babbitt (3.9ppg), and Nolan Smith (2.8ppg) with Dorell Wright (9.2ppg), Thomas Robinson (4.8ppg) and C.J. McCollum (??ppg). Given the fact that Robinson will have a bigger role than he did for SAC/HOU last year and McCollum was drafted specifically to provide bench scoring, how can our bench not be vastly improved? Even if you ignore Wright, replacing Babbitt and Nolan with TRob and CJ is bound to be a huge uptick in bench scoring.

BNM

 

[magnifier661]

BTW, our bench scoring went up by about 4 ppg after we got Eric Maynor.

Another way to look at it is we are replacing Eric Maynor (6.9ppg), Luke Babbitt (3.9ppg), and Nolan Smith (2.8ppg) with Dorell Wright (9.2ppg), Thomas Robinson (4.8ppg) and C.J. McCollum (??ppg). Given the fact that Robinson will have a bigger role than he did for SAC/HOU last year and McCollum was drafted specifically to provide bench scoring, how can our bench not be vastly improved? Even if you ignore Wright, replacing Babbitt and Nolan with TRob and CJ is bound to be a huge uptick in bench scoring.

BNM

ABSOLUTELY!