I Can't take Blake any further

[oldmangrouch]

Why are people singling out Blake?

Roy amd LMA are going to play big minutes - that's a given.

Because of injuries, the team has little choice except to play Joel and Webster.

That leaves PG as the only position where an upgrade is even possible - and the coach refuses to even try. If Blake was playing as well as he did last season, you could make a case for that. He isn't.

In a sense, Blake is the victim of circumstances. If he was playing like last year, if the team was playing well, if Nate/Roy weren't so gawdawful stubborn - but this season has turned into a perfect (shit) storm.

 

[hasoos]

Why are people singling out Blake?

Roy amd LMA are going to play big minutes - that's a given.

Because of injuries, the team has little choice except to play Joel and Webster.

That leaves PG as the only position where an upgrade is even possible - and the coach refuses to even try. If Blake was playing as well as he did last season, you could make a case for that. He isn't.

In a sense, Blake is the victim of circumstances. If he was playing like last year, if the team was playing well, if Nate/Roy weren't so gawdawful stubborn - but this season has turned into a perfect (shit) storm.

I have never said Blake was the only problem. The problem is that 3 of our 5 starters do not score. We all know that is Blake, Webster and Joel. Joel is never going to be a scorer, but that doesn't mean we should be so inflexible as to not make some moves on the other two slots.

Part of the reason that players who do not score much are used as backups is because they can provide some solid play for a few minutes while the starters get rest, and because they are used for so few minutes, the fact that they don't score isn't as much of a detriment to your team.

I don't know how I can stress this more. When we were in the playoffs last year against Houston, it was easily shown that the superior defensive teams in the league can limit or slow down your first two options on offense. If your other 3 guys out on the floor cannot get some buckets, you are totally fucked. You are in for a rough night where they can double team your main guys and your pressure relief guys aren't getting it done. This leads to your stars trying to do too much while under the duress of double and triple teams. We cannot afford to have the PG and SF in the offense not scoring when Joel is in the game. One player not scoring is bad enough. 3 is fucking insane.

 

[blue32]

Because there are statistics that show that, for some reason, the team plays its best with Blake on the floor.

The "majority" seems to just disregard these statistics, or say that they don't matter anyhow. Bashing ANY player, when there are statistics that support his impact on winning, is worth debating IMO. The tendency of many in this community to target their rage/angst at one player, when that player isn't completely at fault, and when the criticisms are based primarily on opinion, make it an interesting topic to debate.

Wow, enjoying the blinders much?

The team plays better with Blake on the floor because the team hasn't had the opportunity to play with anyone else (starting). So that's a moot point.

The fact remains, Andre Miller is a better player than Blake, always has been, always will be. And Bayless is catching up to Blake quickly. There is no reason why our team shouldn't play the best starting 5 possible and the coaching staff should use their "coaching" ability to maximize the efficiency of the offense, not just rely on what we did last year which is blatantly predictable.

 

[Kaydow]

You know I don't like Blake at all, but I have no problem with his play last night. It wasn't stellar. But it wasn't as bad as it had been a lot lately. (not that I was happy that he scored nothing.)

I thought the whole team played pretty well. The unfortunate part was, as Jim Mora once said, "They are who we thought they were." We couldn't get the offensive effort with Martell past a quarter (when he is on, he is on, and when he is not, he is not. Wax on. Wax off.) And I think that Juan Howard just ran our of gas.

Dennis Green

[video=youtube;aYKIcnj1MJY]

 

[hasoos]

Dennis Green

Jim Mora. Dennis Green. Still caffeinating. My bad!

 

[Kaydow]

While you're caffeinating, I'm going to ask Jim Mora if he thinks this Blazer team can make the playoffs despite all the injuries. Let's see what he thinks . . .

[video=youtube;p3-eavMSBnk]

 

[yakbladder]

I have never said Blake was the only problem.

I think what PapaG is getting at (and who knows about KingSpeed but probably along the same lines) is the hyperbole in Blake bashing. I'm pretty certain that Miller is a better player than Blake. I reserve judgment on Bayless. But just the constant, narrowly-focused effort by a few posters to just tear Blake to pieces on every possible miscue makes it unbearable at times. It makes it easier to come out and defend Blake as well because you can only take so much of someone stating something so entirely preposterous or exaggerated that you have to speak up. And of course the people who can't say one nice thing about Blake instantly assign those people the "Blake lover" title because they can't fathom that an individual could bring one iota of talent to the team.

Is Blake a weak link? Sure. But he's not single-handedly costing us games. The team has done fine screwing up games with or without him. I'm just thinking positively that the adversity the team is facing now will make them stronger in the long run.

 

[hasoos]

While you're caffeinating, I'm going to ask Jim Mora if he thinks this Blazer team can make the playoffs despite all the injuries. Let's see what he thinks . . .

Hmmm. He seemed pretty ambiguous there. What do you think he meant?

 

[Ed O]

Is Blake a weak link? Sure. But he's not single-handedly costing us games. The team has done fine screwing up games with or without him. I'm just thinking positively that the adversity the team is facing now will make them stronger in the long run.

Dude. He's TERRIBLE. His PER is 9.3. And he's playing 30 minutes a night... third-most on the team. He gets to the line fewer than one time a game. He has zero blocked shots in 720 minutes.

He's been Channing Frye-bad, and yet there are still people defending him on the board. And--more cripplingly, of course--the coaches still keep putting him out there.

There's no reason and no excuse for him to play so much when he's playing so poorly. He's not helping the team win now and he's not going to be a part of the future of this team as a starter. He should settle into the backup role that he deserves.

Ed O.

 

[Natebishop3]

Dude. He's TERRIBLE. His PER is 9.3. And he's playing 30 minutes a night... third-most on the team. He gets to the line fewer than one time a game. He has zero blocked shots in 720 minutes.

He's been Channing Frye-bad, and yet there are still people defending him on the board. And--more cripplingly, of course--the coaches still keep putting him out there.

There's no reason and no excuse for him to play so much when he's playing so poorly. He's not helping the team win now and he's not going to be a part of the future of this team as a starter. He should settle into the backup role that he deserves.

Ed O.

But it's not his fault Ed! This team wins more with Blakey as the point guard. He could attempt 20 shots, make none of them, but if we're winning..... Blakey should start! Oh, and he's a lockdown defender

 

[yakbladder]

Dude. He's TERRIBLE. His PER is 9.3. And he's playing 30 minutes a night... third-most on the team. He gets to the line fewer than one time a game. He has zero blocked shots in 720 minutes.

He's been Channing Frye-bad, and yet there are still people defending him on the board. And--more cripplingly, of course--the coaches still keep putting him out there.

There's no reason and no excuse for him to play so much when he's playing so poorly. He's not helping the team win now and he's not going to be a part of the future of this team as a starter. He should settle into the backup role that he deserves.

Ed O.

But apparently from what we've seen in the other threads, stats mean absolutely nothing, eh?

Read through the game threads. If you can't see the hyperbole that some people have with regard to Blake then I don't know what to tell you. No other player has multiple threads devoted to them discussing how horrible they are. No other player gets called out for every possible mistake they might make on the court, regardless of whether their teammate may have helped or not. No other player gets blamed for losing the game on one single event in a game. Come on, Ed, you're smarter than that. You know that even with one bad player he isn't going to lose the game on one single possession.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Dude. He's TERRIBLE. His PER is 9.3. And he's playing 30 minutes a night... third-most on the team. He gets to the line fewer than one time a game. He has zero blocked shots in 720 minutes.

He's been Channing Frye-bad, and yet there are still people defending him on the board. And--more cripplingly, of course--the coaches still keep putting him out there.

There's no reason and no excuse for him to play so much when he's playing so poorly. He's not helping the team win now and he's not going to be a part of the future of this team as a starter. He should settle into the backup role that he deserves.

Ed O.

But it's not his fault Ed! This team wins more with Blakey as the point guard. He could attempt 20 shots, make none of them, but if we're winning..... Blakey should start! Oh, and he's a lockdown defender

I actually don't even have a problem with Blake, my real beef is with the mind numbing usage of him by the coaching staff. Blake with 3 or 4 other offensive threats as an outlet scorer and a low mistake player is probably fine because he can at least play adequate team defense (man to man is another story) and can take advantage of the fact the lesser defensive talents are covering him (usually). I just can't quite figure out how to wrap my brain around the fact that he plays so much more than two other guys who clearly put more pressure on a defense.

If the point is to give Roy more room to operate, it seems like a defense having to pay more attention to third and fourth options would ease some of the double and triple teams that get thrown at him, vs. guys whose biggest calling card is "getting out of the way" and merely spacing the floor ... on sub 35% shooting from distance (even worse in the past 5 or so games).

Blake isn't the problem and for 20 or so minutes a night I think he's probably fine ... I just want to see a more reasonable use of him and our other two guards.

 

[Minstrel]

But apparently from what we've seen in the other threads, stats mean absolutely nothing, eh?

Read through the game threads. If you can't see the hyperbole that some people have with regard to Blake then I don't know what to tell you. No other player has multiple threads devoted to them discussing how horrible they are. No other player gets called out for every possible mistake they might make on the court, regardless of whether their teammate may have helped or not. No other player gets blamed for losing the game on one single event in a game. Come on, Ed, you're smarter than that. You know that even with one bad player he isn't going to lose the game on one single possession.

Blake is clearly not responsible for all of what ails Portland. I think he's simply become the symbol to many of a larger problem: McMillan's lineups and substitutions. Whether it's going with a three guard lineup, having both Oden and Przybilla on the bench at the same time, removing Oden at the 6 minute mark regardless of anything going in the game, people have justifiable questions about what McMillan is doing with the personnel. The overuse of a fairly replaceable role-player like Blake has simply been symptomatic of that bigger problem and many people's upset over that larger problem has centered on Blake as the most visible symptom.

When you're sick, the runny nose is never the most damaging part of the sickness, but it's often what people complain about because it's easy to notice and ever-present.

I agree that Blake is being targeted to unfair extents, but as the most obvious example of what many consider to be a major problem with the team, it's kindof to be expected.

 

[e_blazer]

I don't think that anybody's saying that Blake should be the longterm solution at the starting PG position. He's having a horrible year, but hopefully he can get back to how he's played the past few seasons...which in my mind would translate into a solid backup PG for the Blazers' future. What I don't see is the answer at the starting position right now in either Miller or Bayless. Miller's and Roy's chemistry is far from ideal with them both liking to have the ball in their hands. Miller's D is suspect. Bayless needs more minutes, no doubt, but I think he's a year away from being a starter.

 

[hasoos]

I don't think that anybody's saying that Blake should be the longterm solution at the starting PG position. He's having a horrible year, but hopefully he can get back to how he's played the past few seasons...which in my mind would translate into a solid backup PG for the Blazers' future. What I don't see is the answer at the starting position right now in either Miller or Bayless. Miller's and Roy's chemistry is far from ideal with them both liking to have the ball in their hands. Miller's D is suspect. Bayless needs more minutes, no doubt, but I think he's a year away from being a starter.

Sometimes throwing a player into the fire works out though. It wasn't that long ago a certain kid named Batum was thrown into the starting lineup. By end of year, he was showing some good progress, even though he was playing on one arm.

 

[Minstrel]

Miller's and Roy's chemistry is far from ideal with them both liking to have the ball in their hands.

Not playing Miller and Roy together due to lack of on-court chemistry is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? How are they going to develop that chemistry if they are not played together for a significant amount of time? Theorycrafting based on their respective games is all well and good, but games can change, especially for talented, intelligent players like Roy and Miller. Players have to adapt many times in their careers to account for new personnel around them...it's nothing new.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I don't think that anybody's saying that Blake should be the longterm solution at the starting PG position. He's having a horrible year, but hopefully he can get back to how he's played the past few seasons...which in my mind would translate into a solid backup PG for the Blazers' future. What I don't see is the answer at the starting position right now in either Miller or Bayless. Miller's and Roy's chemistry is far from ideal with them both liking to have the ball in their hands. Miller's D is suspect. Bayless needs more minutes, no doubt, but I think he's a year away from being a starter.

I respectfully beg to differ, as would this man

 

[PapaG]

Dude. He's TERRIBLE. His PER is 9.3. And he's playing 30 minutes a night... third-most on the team. He gets to the line fewer than one time a game. He has zero blocked shots in 720 minutes.

He's been Channing Frye-bad, and yet there are still people defending him on the board. And--more cripplingly, of course--the coaches still keep putting him out there.

There's no reason and no excuse for him to play so much when he's playing so poorly. He's not helping the team win now and he's not going to be a part of the future of this team as a starter. He should settle into the backup role that he deserves.

Ed O.

Yet he has the highest win% on the team this year. He was tied with LMA for 2nd last year.

Focus on PER if you must, but I'd rather have a player who helps his team win while on the court. To say a player with a consistently solid win% is TERRIBLE seems more like an emotional decision than it does anything else.

Is Blake great? No. Is he the ideal PG? No. Does the team perform well while he's on the floor, for whatever reason? The stats say YES. Thus, using hyperbolic pejoratives like TERRIBLE seems rather counter-productive to actually assessing what BLANKY does for this team.

 

[PapaG]

Not playing Miller and Roy together due to lack of on-court chemistry is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? How are they going to develop that chemistry if they are not played together for a significant amount of time? Theorycrafting based on their respective games is all well and good, but games can change, especially for talented, intelligent players like Roy and Miller. Players have to adapt many times in their careers to account for new personnel around them...it's nothing new.

All of this may true, but if Blake still leads the team in win%, have the "experts" here considered that the coaching staff feels that starting him gives the team the best chance to win at this point? Or is the CW that Nate is literally not caring he loses games so he can start Blake?

That's a very serious charge, if so. Also, it seems like more a problem with the coach than anything else. I just don't see how fun it could be to watch one player, on the team a person supposedly love, to see how bad they eff up while on the court. That's basically what the game threads here are now. It's like group therapy for people projecting all of their anger on a player who is a role player. So, if a person bothers to say something positive about Blake, they are accused of defending the "Alamo".

 

[Nikolokolus]

Can we at least agree that win% is not the be all end all stat? It is but one piece of a larger puzzle of quantitative analyses and it's been documented that +/- along with win% is one of those pieces that rely on large sample sizes to be useful and eliminate standard errors.

 

[e_blazer]

To borrow from Mark Twain, there're three levels of liars: liars, damned liars and messageboard statisticians.

 

[Ed O]

Can we at least agree that win% is not the be all end all stat? It is but one piece of a larger puzzle of quantitative analyses and it's been documented that +/- along with win% is one of those pieces that rely on large sample sizes to be useful and eliminate standard errors.

I'm not convinced that win% means much of anything. PER seems to be consistent with what I see on the floor, while win% (perhaps because of the large sample size required) seems to be disconnected with what I see.

What I see doesn't define reality, but when a statistic just seems like noise to me (i.e., it has no relation to what I see) then I tend to discount it.

Blake has been terrible this year. I don't think that any meaningful stats state anything else.

Ed O.

 

[e_blazer]

I respectfully beg to differ, as would this man

All fun and games aside, Nate plays Blake in the starting spot because he thinks he gives the team the best chance at winning with him in that role and Miller off the bench. Obviously, most here think he's wrong in that assessment. Personally, I'd love to see him start Miller for a stretch just to shut down some of the constant bitching around here. It would be very interesting to see what would happen.

 

[Ed O]

But apparently from what we've seen in the other threads, stats mean absolutely nothing, eh?

Read through the game threads. If you can't see the hyperbole that some people have with regard to Blake then I don't know what to tell you. No other player has multiple threads devoted to them discussing how horrible they are. No other player gets called out for every possible mistake they might make on the court, regardless of whether their teammate may have helped or not. No other player gets blamed for losing the game on one single event in a game. Come on, Ed, you're smarter than that. You know that even with one bad player he isn't going to lose the game on one single possession.

I've never claimed a single player is losing a game on a single possession.

I AM claiming that Blake has done very little that benefits the Blazers this year. He puts almost no pressure on the opposition at either end of the floor and he has not shot the ball well.

Blake gets called out more because he WORSE than other players; he deserves to get called out. There is simply no excuse for a guy who has a PER in single digits to play as much as he does unless he's fantastic defensively... and he's definitely not fantastic defensively.

Ed O.

 

[e_blazer]

I'm not convinced that win% means much of anything. PER seems to be consistent with what I see on the floor, while win% (perhaps because of the large sample size required) seems to be disconnected with what I see.

What I see doesn't define reality, but when a statistic just seems like noise to me (i.e., it has no relation to what I see) then I tend to discount it.

Blake has been terrible this year. I don't think that any meaningful stats state anything else.

Ed O.

The only explanation that makes any sense to me on the apparent contradiction between win% and PER is that Blake does things that let Roy and Aldridge be more effective than do either Bayless or Miller. Knowing where and when to deliver the ball to those guys so that they're in their comfort zone and knowing when to get out of their way so that they can do what they do best on offense may not show up in stats, but it has a way of making a difference in offensive production. Maybe Miller could learn those things, but he hasn't shown himself to be a very adept student from what I've seen so far.

 

[PapaG]

Can we at least agree that win% is not the be all end all stat? It is but one piece of a larger puzzle of quantitative analyses and it's been documented that +/- along with win% is one of those pieces that rely on large sample sizes to be useful and eliminate standard errors.

Who said it was? It's a piece of the BLANKY is "TERRIBLE" puzzle. He seems to be a very complex player, at least in terms of why the team plays better with him than without him.

 

[OSUBlazerfan]

Ugh PapaG

 

[Nikolokolus]

The only explanation that makes any sense to me on the apparent contradiction between win% and PER is that Blake does things that let Roy and Aldridge be more effective than do either Bayless or Miller. Knowing where and when to deliver the ball to those guys so that they're in their comfort zone and knowing when to get out of their way so that they can do what they do best on offense may not show up in stats, but it has a way of making a difference in offensive production. Maybe Miller could learn those things, but he hasn't shown himself to be a very adept student from what I've seen so far.

Which is all well and good if he was at least holding up his end offensively or we didn't have another non-factor in Martell and Joel on the offensive end of the court. A starting unit with only two viable offensive weapons is leading to all sorts of double and triple teams for those guys which blunts their effectiveness. It's no accident that Brandon and LaMarcus are both much less productive than they were last year, teams overplay them and dare the other guys to beat them -- which they never seem to do.

This is turning into Hornets syndrome -- two guys and a bunch of underperformers -- Peja was/is horrible and they weren't getting anything out of anybody but CP3 and West to an extent and they started losing frequently, despite the fact that Paul was putting some of the best offensive numbers of his career. Scott gets fired, and all of sudden Bower puts in guys like Thornton and Collison and they become legitimate offensive weapons and now teams can't double down on Paul and West so much, which leads to more wins.

If this is the kind of offense you'd like to watch, where LMA and Brandon get mobbed by defenders and have to play at heroic levels just to get by then more power to you, but personally I'd rather see them single covered some of the time because they can't afford to leave other guys alone. Maybe Miller isn't the answer nor Bayless either, but I'd sure like to see it given a legitimate try before writing it off completely.

 

[Minstrel]

All of this may true, but if Blake still leads the team in win%, have the "experts" here considered that the coaching staff feels that starting him gives the team the best chance to win at this point?

That's what I assume McMillan believes. I don't think he's throwing games. I just disagree with him about Blake giving Portland the better chance to win.

 

[e_blazer]

If this is the kind of offense you'd like to watch, where LMA and Brandon get mobbed by defenders and have to play at heroic levels just to get by then more power to you, but personally I'd rather see them single covered some of the time because they can't afford to leave other guys alone. Maybe Miller isn't the answer nor Bayless either, but I'd sure like to see it given a legitimate try before writing it off completely.

Nobody is pleased with the wreckage that currently makes up the Blazers' lineup and of course it isn't the offense I'd like to see. I don't have a problem with starting either Bayless or Miller, I just don't expect it to be the panacea that some here seem to think it's going to be. I don't think that there is a good alternative available absent some trade magic from KP. Maybe flicking in the season and giving the reins to Bayless is the smartest move for the future...I just expect it to result in more losses this year.