KP Interview Today

[Mediocre Man]

i think you're fooling yourself if you thing acquiring a young player somehow sets back the blazers. as long as the player is an improvement of what the blazers have, age is irrelevant, the player will make the team better.

Yep, if there is one thing these playoffs confirmed it's that experence does not matter for shit.

 

[rocketeer]

Yep, if there is one thing these playoffs confirmed it's that experence does not matter for shit.

did you miss orlando in the finals? when you compare them to boston and cleveland, they don't come close to stacking up playoff experience wise, but we all know who won both of those series.

 

[Mediocre Man]

did you miss orlando in the finals? when you compare them to boston and cleveland, they don't come close to stacking up playoff experience wise, but we all know who won both of those series.

Orlando???? Yeah, I saw the 5th OLDEST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE in the finals. I also saw Orlando beat Boston without clearly it's best player in Kevin Garnett. Then I saw the 12 players on Orlando beat Lebron James. Then I saw Orlando get it's ass kicked by the L*kers, and heard Kareem, Magic and other NBA experts mock SVG when he said experience didn't matter.

The Magic by the way have been to the playoffs 3 years in a row.
Boston 2 years in a row
Cleveland 4 years in a row.


So I'm not sure where

when you compare them to boston and cleveland, they don't come close to stacking up playoff experience wise

comes from.

 

[Crimson the Cat]

Experience is helpful, but it's not the highest priority IMO when adding new players to our roster. If our team was constructed differently I'd change my mind, but we've added pieces that have been developed in outstanding programs and have battled it out in their age group's toughest competitions.

Let's not forget the goal. Portland's attempting to build a dynasty. I'm sure if Pritchard wanted to he could trade for Nash, Kidd, Miller, Carter, Jefferson, Wallace, Prince or Butler. There are issues though with doing this. The cost is high, some are out of their primes, others are leaving their primes, and the others don't really have much more experience than our current core.

I contend that draftees like Curry, Flynn, or Rubio would have more talent (increasing significantly each season for the next decade) and less experience (decreasing significantly each season for the next decade) than a Nash or Kidd.

IMO, it would even out for the next couple of seasons. Given this, I'd rather take Rubio for the next decade than Nash for the couple of years.

 

[rocketeer]

Orlando???? Yeah, I saw the 5th OLDEST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE in the finals. I also saw Orlando beat Boston without clearly it's best player in Kevin Garnett. Then I saw the 12 players on Orlando beat Lebron James. Then I saw Orlando get it's ass kicked by the L*kers, and heard Kareem, Magic and other NBA experts mock SVG when he said experience didn't matter.

right. so like i've always said, being the better team matters not experience. the magic beat more experienced teams when the magic were better than them, but lost to the more experienced team when they weren't better.

all the blazers need to do is work on improving their team to be the best team in the league. doesn't matter if that's adding rookies or guys with finals experience who have been in the league for 10 years. whatever it is to improve the team gives them a better shot at winning. the experience level of the players is irrelevant.

 

[oldmangrouch]

Orlando???? Yeah, I saw the 5th OLDEST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE in the finals. I also saw Orlando beat Boston without clearly it's best player in Kevin Garnett. Then I saw the 12 players on Orlando beat Lebron James. Then I saw Orlando get it's ass kicked by the L*kers, and heard Kareem, Magic and other NBA experts mock SVG when he said experience didn't matter.

The Magic by the way have been to the playoffs 3 years in a row.
Boston 2 years in a row
Cleveland 4 years in a row.


So I'm not sure where comes from.

You're wasting your breath dude.

There is a subset of Blazer fans who will not accept the claim that experience means anything until the day that KP signs/trades for a vet and crows that he has added an important piece to the team. Until/unless that happens, they will rationalize that vets must have no value.

 

[Nikolokolus]

You're wasting your breath dude.

There is a subset of Blazer fans who will not accept the claim that experience means anything until the day that KP signs/trades for a vet and crows that he has added an important piece to the team. Until/unless that happens, they will rationalize that vets must have no value.

You mean confirmation bias is a problem amongst some fans around here? Say it aint so!

 

[rocketeer]

You're wasting your breath dude.

There is a subset of Blazer fans who will not accept the claim that experience means anything until the day that KP signs/trades for a vet and crows that he has added an important piece to the team. Until/unless that happens, they will rationalize that vets must have no value.

nope, that's not it at all. vets are fine. experience is certainly not a negative. it's just that it is vastly overrated as a positive. if the blazers add a vet who i feel helps the team i'll be happy just like i would be if they added a young player who i feel helps the team. but it won't change how i feel at all about how much experience matters and whether or not the blazers "need" to add a vet.

 

[rocketeer]

The Magic by the way have been to the playoffs 3 years in a row.
Boston 2 years in a row
Cleveland 4 years in a row.

boston was in the finals last year. all of their players gained finals experience. ray allen played in the 2nd round with seattle and was a game away from the finals in milwaukee. paul pierce also played in the conference finals previously with the celtics.

the cavs made the finals two years ago. that gave lebron, gibson, big z, varejao, and pavlovic finals experience. ben wallace has tons of playoff experience. wally, west, and joe smith all experienced going to game 7 in round two with the champs last year. the only significant player without much playoff experience was mo.

compare that to the magic. dwight howard had experienced getting dominated by the pistons. lewis had the same sonics experience as allen, but nothing more. hedo came off the bench for some playoff teams, but never made the finals. the only time alston got out of the first round was off the bench. other than lewis, all their playoff experience came as bench players. that doesn't compare to the finals experience from the past two years of boston and cleveland.

in terms of playoff experience, boston and cleveland definitely beat orlando. but they didn't beat orlando on the court. is that really difficult to see?

 

[illmatic99]

Marc Stein's thoughts on the experience.... Link. And a (warranted, imo) shot at Nate.

Playoff inexperience

Orlando's Van Gundy said repeatedly during the Finals that the notion of the Lakers' experience edge was a media myth that kept coming up because writers like to come up with stories beforehand and then foist their theories on coaches to make their angles work.

That immediately prompted my man Mark Heisler of the Los Angeles Times to conclude that Van Gundy knows more about sportswriting than any of us press hacks know about coaching -- which is a line I wish I had come up with myself -- but I have to go back at Stan on this one.

If you believe that experience affects execution under pressure, as I do, I don't see how you can conclude that L.A.'s championship know-how didn't help the Lakers win the two crucial OT games in a five-game series.

Or that experience wasn't a huge difference in the Houston-Portland series, when Nate McMillan's Blazers got swamped at home by 27 points in Game 1 and never quite recovered from the rough playoff baptism. Portland was a trendy pick to get to the second round and see if its regular-season success against L.A. could carry over, but the Rockets halted a string of playoff disappointments of their own to win in six games, helped along by McMillan's refusal to speed the game up to try to take advantage of the Blazers' athleticism.

"It's just too cliché to say it's all about Finals experience and that we're all of a sudden playing with 11-foot baskets and a smaller court," Van Gundy argues. "I just don't buy it."

Fair enough. But Orlando sabotaged itself with 20 turnovers in Game 2 and by missing 15 free throws at home in Game 4. Derek Fisher, meanwhile, drained two killer 3s in the same Game 4 after starting out 0-for-5. It might all be coincidental, but that's hard for me to buy.

 

[Crimson the Cat]

You're wasting your breath dude.

There is a subset of Blazer fans who will not accept the claim that experience means anything until the day that KP signs/trades for a vet and crows that he has added an important piece to the team. Until/unless that happens, they will rationalize that vets must have no value.

Who stated that experience has no value?

 

[rocketeer]

Marc Stein's thoughts on the experience.... Link. And a (warranted, imo) shot at Nate.

my problem with that is that the magic beat the defending champs(even if it was without garnett) and the cavs who had been to the finals two years ago and had more experience as well.

if experience didn't matter in those two series, why did it suddenly matter against the lakers?

 

[Crimson the Cat]

if experience didn't matter in those two series, why did it suddenly matter against the lakers?

The silence is deafening.

 

[oldmangrouch]

The silence is deafening.

2 veteran teams played, and the better team won....what's your point?

Inexperience hurt the Blazers against the Rockets. That was obvious to anybody watching the series....and that is the only series I give a rat's rump roast about.

 

[rocketeer]

2 veteran teams played, and the better team won....what's your point?

the point is that the lakers winning the finals was billed as experience beating inexperience. but when that same magic team beat more experienced teams in boston and cleveland to get to the finals, no one talked about it being inexperience triumphing over experience.

Inexperience hurt the Blazers against the Rockets. That was obvious to anybody watching the series....and that is the only series I give a rat's rump roast about.

inexperience hurt the blazers in one game. and really you could argue that game one was really more about the blazers trying to play behind yao and him absolutely dominating.

 

[Mediocre Man]

the point is that the lakers winning the finals was billed as experience beating inexperience. but when that same magic team beat more experienced teams in boston and cleveland to get to the finals, no one talked about it being inexperience triumphing over experience.


inexperience hurt the blazers in one game. and really you could argue that game one was really more about the blazers trying to play behind yao and him absolutely dominating.

I think it wasn't talked about because despite the Celtics winning it all last year, they didn't really have more playoff experience than Orlando, and they were without Garnett. Had he been there we, more than likely, wouldn't be having this conversation. As for LA, they have more playoff experience than any of those teams.


And you can't say inexperience only hurt the Blazers in one game. They lost several close games to the Rockets, and I think experience might have been the difference in those games.

 

[crandc]

The best teams have a mix of both young and experienced. Right now all we have is young. KP talks about Blake and Pryz being the vets already on this team. But the difference between them and other veterans is that other veterans have been through the playoff battle. They have not. They have barely tasted it.

Ah, but all the Blazers will get much bigger playoff meals very shortly. Like next spring.

I think KP is saying he won't draft for the sake of drafting or get a vet for the sake of getting a vet. The foundation is here, it's time to fiddle around the edges, put in the right role players. Wherever they come from. I don't think, Pop, he's saying we just want young guys. I agree that experience has (generally, of course there are exceptions) been a factor in a championship team, but this team is growing in experience by leaps and bounds.

 

[STOMP]

I seem to recall a young inexperienced Blazer team winning a championship beating several older more experienced clubs along the way. The average age of their starters was under 25 and they'd never been to the playoffs before.

Thats not to say that experience doesn't have value and of course there are examples that can be sited where it was probably the deciding factor, but talent is probably at least as important of a factor in the mix of who wins as anything else. Referring back to the OP, I think KP was addressing just that...
-"For me personally it's about bringing in the right people. With Brandon, LaMarcus, Joel, Blake they bring us veteran leadership now. It's not so critical that we have that guy who is a veteran leader. We have a two year all star, a budding all star in LaMarcus, Przybilla and Blake have been around. I'm not so sure that's exactly what we need right now."

Does the team need to get older? "We added four rookies last year. If I added 4 rookies this year I think Nate will kill me... If they're good, who cares what age they are?"

STOMP

 

[hasoos]

You know it's funny how folks remember series. I could just as easily say that it was the physical element of Houston that took Portland out of their game as easily as experience could be pointed at. I just look back to when teams like the Bulls were trying to climb the ladder. It took them 3 years to get over the top of the Pistons. They had the experience problem. They had the physicality problem. All the problems Portland has now. But they got there.

 

[Ed O]

And you can't say inexperience only hurt the Blazers in one game. They lost several close games to the Rockets, and I think experience might have been the difference in those games.

I think a lack of talent hurt them more than a lack of experience.

Travis Outlaw just isn't that good, irrespective of whether he has no playoff games under his belt or a hundred. The same with Blake and Sergio and Frye.

If the team is able to upgrade the roster talent-wise, the team will organically get more experienced (as its core (Roy, Aldridge, Oden, Batum) gets more playoff time) AND improve its talent base. If the team merely adds experience, in the form of a lateral but older player, there might be a slight near-term improvement but I think it's a less wise investment of a roster spot.

Ed O.

 

[Boise Blazer]

You know it's funny how folks remember series. I could just as easily say that it was the physical element of Houston that took Portland out of their game as easily as experience could be pointed at. I just look back to when teams like the Bulls were trying to climb the ladder. It took them 3 years to get over the top of the Pistons. They had the experience problem. They had the physicality problem. All the problems Portland has now. But they got there.

I agree.

Patience is a bitch. I want to see them win championship just as much as the next guy but I also realize that as much as a I want that NOW its unrealistic to think they arent going to have to go through the same processes that most teams have to go through. So in the meantime Im going to enjoy the ride be excited for the next 10+ years.

Now if we arent seriously progressing in the next 2-3 years, well .... thats a whole other issue.

 

[Mediocre Man]

You know it's funny how folks remember series. I could just as easily say that it was the physical element of Houston that took Portland out of their game as easily as experience could be pointed at. I just look back to when teams like the Bulls were trying to climb the ladder. It took them 3 years to get over the top of the Pistons. They had the experience problem. They had the physicality problem. All the problems Portland has now. But they got there.

This is a great post, but Brandon Roy is not Michael Jordan. He might not even be Scottie Pippen. Chicago is a poor example to use with anyone other than maybe LA or Cleveland because Jordan was just so much better than anyone on the planet. A better team to compare us to is our own teams back in the day. We had a lot of homegrown talent in Drexler, Porter, Uncle Cliffy, Kersey and Duck Traded for early in his career. It wasn't until they traded for Buck and brought in some vets that they started to compete for championships.

 

[adrenalize74]

So we need to add "players with playoff experience"?? What about an entire team that has the experience of being through a very tough playoff series? A team that is very young, very talented now has some Playoff experience?? Roy, LA, Rudy, Bayless, Batum and Oden are all going to develop and improve next year and ALL have playoff experience already.....what more do we need? I agree we need to upgrade the PF position and bench, but to say we need more "playoff experienced players" is rediculous. All "playoff experienced" players started out with none, where did they get it? They played in the playoffs, just like we did.

 

[RR7]

So trading for Buck was what pushed them over the top, not the fact that all of their young players(Drexler, Porter, Kersey, Duckworth) were all entering at least their 4th seasons if not more, basically all hitting their prime, and had all been through the first round of the playoffs the previous 3 seasons? Buck Williams, who hadn't been to the playoffs the previous 3 seasons, and had a whopping 21 games of playoff experience.

I'm not saying Buck didn't help, but you ignore everyone else on the team having 4 years of experience with eachother. Also, that first season they finally made the Finals, they added Buck. They also added two rookies who played 13 and 19 minutes for the team, and provided decent contributions to the club, in Drazen and Cliff. But, lord know we don't want to add more rookies. That's the bad thing to do. So that model was flawed, or?....

 

[Minstrel]

This is a great post, but Brandon Roy is not Michael Jordan. He might not even be Scottie Pippen. Chicago is a poor example to use with anyone other than maybe LA or Cleveland because Jordan was just so much better than anyone on the planet.

Not a good argument. That best player on the planet (along with Pippen and Grant) failed to win the championship for several years. So it's not like they sprang from the "draft womb" ready to dominate. They needed time to grow together and figure it out.

And while Portland doesn't have a top-two as good as Jordan and Pippen, they will potentially have more talent beyond the best two players if Oden, Bayless, Rudy and Batum pan out. So, I don't think talent is the issue or what separates those Bulls from these Blazers. The more direct point is that much of the Bulls' talent was pre-prime when they were failing in the playoffs, and much of the Blazers' talent was pre-prime this previous season. As Pippen and Grant reached their primes, the Bulls began to dominate. Considering that the Blazers just won 54 games with four key players (in terms of talent) as rookies (and one of them barely played), it's very likely that they, too, can dominate once more of their talent reaches their prime.

 

[Crimson the Cat]

Let's put some faces to this argument. Let's say Stephen Curry would be the ideal target for the team out of all the draft prospects (you could insert whichever young stud Portland has targeted as the next special player). And let's say that Andre Miller (could insert Nash or Kidd) is the veteran point guard we could add.

By adding Curry, say we lose Blake and Rudy. There may be other coming and going, but those are two key cogs lost.

By adding Miller, we use all of our cap space, giving him 4-year minimum length contract. We lose Blake in another deal.

Both approaches we lose valuable resources, one cap space, the other, one of our young studs.

With Curry, the key attraction is his high value, being locked into a low cost contract for a fraction the cost of Miller.

We also have to consider that we'd possibly have Curry for three times the amount of time, including all of his prime years, whereas, we wouldn't have Miller for any of his prime years.

The question for me is if we're gaining enough in skill, intangibles, and experience to pay for that additional salary while also missing out on having a superior player (Curry age 25 to 30) to the current Miller (age 33 to 37).

With Miller, for the next couple of years, I could see us making a legitimate run at a championship for two seasons.

With Curry, I could see us going deeper in the Playoffs the next couple of seasons, but still not sniffing a championship. After that though, I could see us contending for championship for the 10 years.

I'll take the young stud.

 

[hasoos]

I see Curry as more of a Vinny Johnson right now than starting PG. But I could easily be wrong, he was on a team that besides him, was otherwise pretty bad and they went pretty far.