Pat Connaughton

Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
Rastapopoulos said:
I'm only arguing about this because there's fuck-all else Blazer-related to talk about, but if there AREN'T better people out there than there are a lot fewer decent players than I believe there are. Obviously Gutierrez is a better player, but the argument against signing him is that we have Shabazz (who can shoot but who is smaller, a much worse defender and not really a PG) but we're thin on the wings. So yes, there are better players (TONS) certainly playing in Europe (and that's just the Americans). I think keeping Connaughton is the fallacy of sunk costs. I'm just glad I'm not the one paying him OVER A MILLION DOLLARS.

In fact, I have to avoid talking about money in the context of sports, otherwise I'll never be able to enjoy it.
Click to expand...

Part of those sunk costs, though, is the investment in teaching the guy your system, and bringing him into your culture. You are probably right that there are other guys with similar talent out there at the same age (or even younger), but when you factor in that Pat knows his role, knows what the coaches and star players want out of him, well, it's probably going to waste less of everybody's time to just bring Pat back.

The opportunity cost of dumping Pat for somebody who might have slightly more talent is real. It's not massive, but for a fringe position I can see why the team might prefer to go with the player they know. Between Nurk, Vonleh, Meyers, Harkless, Swanigan and Collins, Portland has a lot of young guys with upside they need to focus on developing. Pat's professionalism and experience means Portland doesn't have to worry about integrating somebody new.
 
One other thought--Portland really seems to have a great three point shooting culture. Between Dame and CJ, you've got two of probably the top 5 three point shooters in the league, and Crabbe was the most accurate in the league last year. Portland guards are going to hit their threes.

Pat took 33 last year and made 51% of them.

Given that Crabbe didn't do much of anything else beside hit wide open threes (at a phenomenal rate, to his credit) you can see how the Front Office probably just figured they could get the same production as Crabbe at 1/18th the price.
 
mook said:
(A complete absence of even the smallest incremental trajectory in Vonleh and Meyers is why I've pretty much given up on them.)
Click to expand...
Year-over-year, Vonleh's MP, TRB, and most importantly his FG% have seen incremental improvement each season. More significantly, Vonleh showed significant statistical improvement from the first half of the year to the second half. Check out his splits through the end of January as compared to after Feb. 1:

upload_2017-9-1_6-10-40.png
upload_2017-9-1_6-13-51.png

upload_2017-9-1_6-9-32.png
upload_2017-9-1_6-14-46.png

It's like night and day. Does that meet the threshold of incremental improvement? Definitely much too early to give up on him.

Now Meyers--that's a different story...
 
PtldPlatypus said:
Year-over-year, Vonleh's MP, TRB, and most importantly his FG% have seen incremental improvement each season. More significantly, Vonleh showed significant statistical improvement from the first half of the year to the second half. Check out his splits through the end of January as compared to after Feb. 1:

View attachment 15912
View attachment 15913

View attachment 15911
View attachment 15914

It's like night and day. Does that meet the threshold of incremental improvement? Definitely much too early to give up on him.

Now Meyers--that's a different story...
Click to expand...
Except Vonleh's rebounding %, steal % and block % and DTRG all went down.
 
UKRAINEFAN said:
Except Vonleh's rebounding %, steal % and block % and DTRG all went down.
Click to expand...
Drtg going down is a good thing. The TRB% decrease was almost imperceptible (17.0 to 16.6)--it basically stayed consistent. Steals and blocks are a very minor part of his job, so who really cares?

I didn't say he improved in every facet of the game, so that's a pointless nitpick, but it's indisputible that he improved overall.
 
PtldPlatypus said:
Year-over-year, Vonleh's MP, TRB, and most importantly his FG% have seen incremental improvement each season. More significantly, Vonleh showed significant statistical improvement from the first half of the year to the second half. Check out his splits through the end of January as compared to after Feb. 1:

View attachment 15912
View attachment 15913

View attachment 15911
View attachment 15914

It's like night and day. Does that meet the threshold of incremental improvement? Definitely much too early to give up on him.

Now Meyers--that's a different story...
Click to expand...

Eh, given his featured role as a starter, getting to play major minutes with our best players this year, I'm not really sold on his improvement. I'm particularly not impressed with his stats raising with the arrival of Nurkic--I think that says a lot more about Nurk than it does Vonleh. Having watched Swanigan and Collins in SL and some youtube highlights, I'm not convinced at all that he's better than either of those guys.

His best year was actually his rookie season (after which his former team was so impressed they dumped him for Batum). So his trajectory looks great if you just forget he was better 3 years ago.

He reminds me a lot of Webster, Outlaw, Jack....you see him do a little better when given more of a role but it's not like it's mind-blowing.

Does that sound hypocritical given my endorsement of Pat? Maybe, but then Portland isn't handing over to Pat the starting position for a year. Vonleh got that. That's a golden opportunity, and in the end he was maybe the 4th or 5th worst starting PF in the NBA. You shouldn't get to be that bad as a starter multiple seasons, even if you are young.
 
Last edited:
mook said:
His best year was actually his rookie season (after which his former team was so impressed they dumped him for Batum). So his trajectory looks great if you just forget he was better 3 years ago.
Click to expand...
His rookie year was basically garbage time for 25 games--that's not even worth looking at. On a different team in a different system with a different role. Claiming he was better then is just silly. And still, his actual efficiency (not PER) has increased significantly since then.

And yes, his youth is a factor. He is still at this moment younger than Pat was before he got drafted. Way too early to give up on him or claim he hasn't improved. Not saying he's a star, but he's a player.
 
PtldPlatypus said:
His rookie year was basically garbage time for 25 games--that's not even worth looking at. On a different team in a different system with a different role. Claiming he was better then is just silly. And still, his actual efficiency (not PER) has increased significantly since then.

And yes, his youth is a factor. He is still at this moment younger than Pat was before he got drafted. Way too early to give up on him or claim he hasn't improved. Not saying he's a star, but he's a player.
Click to expand...

Eh, if we'd given Pat the starting role for 82 games I'd be a lot harsher in my judgment. But Vonleh shouldn't be compared to Pat--his yardstick is our rookies.

Vonleh got a massive opportunity last season and I just don't think he proved it was worth it. It's not like we had any better options, so I'm not angry. But this season is a hell of a lot different--we (very rightly) drafted two bigs who will hopefully ensure we don't make the same mistake a second season.

If Vonleh comes out in practice and somehow beats out Collins and Swanigan, well, that's great. More power to him. But if he gets handed the starting position again by default, well, fuck that. He, Collins and Swanigan are basically in a wide-open contest for the job, IMO. If I had to put money on which one of those three is least likely to be in the league in 5 years, it's Vonleh hands down.
 
mook said:
Eh, if we'd given Pat the starting role for 82 games I'd be a lot harsher in my judgment. But Vonleh shouldn't be compared to Pat--his yardstick is our rookies.

Vonleh got a massive opportunity last season and I just don't think he proved it was worth it. It's not like we had any better options, so I'm not angry. But this season is a hell of a lot different--we (very rightly) drafted two bigs who will hopefully ensure we don't make the same mistake a second season.

If Vonleh comes out in practice and somehow beats out Collins and Swanigan, well, that's great. More power to him. But if he gets handed the starting position again by default, well, fuck that. He, Collins and Swanigan are basically in a wide-open contest for the job, IMO. If I had to put money on which one of those three is least likely to be in the league in 5 years, it's Vonleh hands down.
Click to expand...
It's a bit more complicated than that due to Vonleh being an expiring contract. The question is "do we want to trade him instead of invest in him?" PT could also be a sign that he's being traded. It'll be hard to tell.
 
Wizard Mentor said:
It's a bit more complicated than that due to Vonleh being an expiring contract. The question is "do we want to trade him instead of invest in him?" PT could also be a sign that he's being traded. It'll be hard to tell.
Click to expand...

I think Vonleh has a lot more perceived value in this forum than in the league. Obviously, that's just my opinion but I don't think the numbers or how he looks on the floor would make him a promising prospect. I don't think he's shown enough that Portland should invest more playing time in him "just to make sure" before he hits free agency. If he legitimately wins playing time away from two well-regarded rookies due to his performance, great. If not, I'm fine with him getting a few reserve minutes and letting him depart in free agency.
 
Minstrel said:
I think Vonleh has a lot more perceived value in this forum than in the league. Obviously, that's just my opinion but I don't think the numbers or how he looks on the floor would make him a promising prospect. I don't think he's shown enough that Portland should invest more playing time in him "just to make sure" before he hits free agency. If he legitimately wins playing time away from two well-regarded rookies due to his performance, great. If not, I'm fine with him getting a few reserve minutes and letting him depart in free agency.
Click to expand...
Agreed, but I think that Stotts will apply a "tie-goes-to-the-Vonleh" metric, if for no other reason, because of familiarity with the system. If one of the rookies start, you can be sure they earned it.

The interesting question to me is "how much to pay Vonleh." I would absolutely pay him $8 mil/year. His agent will want $14. We'll see how he plays this year...
 
Wizard Mentor said:
Agreed, but I think that Stotts will apply a "tie-goes-to-the-Vonleh" metric, if for no other reason, because of familiarity with the system. If one of the rookies start, you can be sure they earned it.
Click to expand...
I'm more of the mindset that tie goes to the rookie. If a player with 3 years NBA experience, 2 in this system with these teammates, performs comparably in training camp to a rookie, I would conclude that the rookie had much more likelihood of improving over the course of the season and finishing the year as a better player than the vet would with the same PT.
 
PtldPlatypus said:
I'm more of the mindset that tie goes to the rookie. If a player with 3 years NBA experience, 2 in this system with these teammates, performs comparably in training camp to a rookie, I would conclude that the rookie had much more likelihood of improving over the course of the season and finishing the year as a better player than the vet would with the same PT.
Click to expand...

Can't really argue with that
 
PtldPlatypus said:
I'm more of the mindset that tie goes to the rookie. If a player with 3 years NBA experience, 2 in this system with these teammates, performs comparably in training camp to a rookie, I would conclude that the rookie had much more likelihood of improving over the course of the season and finishing the year as a better player than the vet would with the same PT.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Though I can't say I think Stotts' brain works the same way. I fully expect either Vonleh or Aminu (BARF!) to be our starting PF. Of the two it BETTER be Vonleh.
 
mook said:
--I think that says a lot more about Nurk than it does Vonleh
Click to expand...
It says to me that Nurk is a center and Vonleh was subbing as an undersized center...his game improved a lot when he played next to Nurk as opposed to Plumlee....he's better, next to Plumlee he had to guard big starting centers...now he doesn't....I like Vonleh a lot since the Nurk acquisition..big upgrade...strongest lower core in the post on the team...when he's planted he's not getting pushed out of position...great screens...and he's really young. I think he has a breakout year this season.
 
riverman said:
It says to me that Nurk is a center and Vonleh was subbing as an undersized center...his game improved a lot when he played next to Nurk as opposed to Plumlee....he's better, next to Plumlee he had to guard big starting centers...now he doesn't....I like Vonleh a lot since the Nurk acquisition..big upgrade...strongest lower core in the post on the team...when he's planted he's not getting pushed out of position...great screens...and he's really young. I think he has a breakout year this season.
Click to expand...

S2 in the offseason:

1v5kjp.jpg
 
riverman said:
I stopped breaking out at about 11 years of age....complexion cleared right up...learned an important stress relieving skill about then
Click to expand...
I had bad acne in high school....ugh.
People called me Pruneface.
 
riverman said:
I stopped breaking out at about 11 years of age....complexion cleared right up...learned an important stress relieving skill about then
Click to expand...

Never had trouble with acne. Guess I got lucky in that way
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ironcrotch
Serge Ibaka extends with OKC - 4 Years 48 mil
2
Replies
44
Views
3K
e_blazer
e_blazer
B-Roy
Aldridge would re-sign
4 5 6
Replies
152
Views
6K
OSUBlazerfan
OSUBlazerfan
BonesJones
Is it possible to extend McCollum's contract another year given the new CBA?
Replies
1
Views
209
Charcoal Filtered
Charcoal Filtered
BigGameDamian
Pacers ganna give Paul George give 5 years 90 million....
4 5 6
Replies
151
Views
7K
Boob-No-More
Boob-No-More
illmatic99
  • Poll Poll
What would you give up for LeBron in a trade?
4 5 6
Replies
156
Views
9K
blazerkor
blazerkor

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top