Scout says Blazers better without Oden

[Rastapopoulos]

From the Weekend Dime:

Western Conference scout on Andre Miller's future with the Portland Trail Blazers:

"Portland is probably going to trade him sooner rather than later, but I don't think Miller has necessarily been the problem. I really don't want to knock the kid, but I think some of it has to do with [Greg] Oden being on the floor. He's been putting up some numbers, but I think they play more fluidly when [LaMarcus] Aldridge is at the 5.

"It's great that the kid's healthy, but Oden jams up the floor sometimes. If you're the other team you want [Portland] to throw it to him. The more he gets it the less it's in their best players' hands.

"[Travis] Outlaw being hurt obviously hurts them because he can space the floor. To me their best group is when they're playing smaller. Aldridge is much more of a handful at the 5 than the 4. "

Hmm. Weren't there some numbers that showed that the Blazers got absolutely killed when Aldridge played the 5? I seem to remember that.

 

[Natebishop3]

Experts, eh?

 

[alex42083]

Shh... don't tell Eric aka KingSpeed!

 

[Buzz Killington]

wtf?

 

[hasoos]

He is probably taking last year into account, where the small unit with Aldridge at the 5 did pretty well. Lets face it. No units are playing well this year, so I am not sure a scout would bank much on that. I wonder how the scout can say that when the effective FG% of the whole team goes above 50% when Oden is in, and sinks into the low 40's when he is out.

 

[The Sebastian Express]

Yes, because easy points in the paint equals worse team.

 

[Natebishop3]

Someone explain to me then, how our team seems to play better when Oden is on the floor and not in foul trouble? Explain that one and you win at life.

 

[hasoos]

Someone explain to me then, how our team seems to play better when Oden is on the floor and not in foul trouble? Explain that one and you win at life.

Actually they play better when he is on the floor and in foul trouble too. We just rarely see them do it because Nate has no gonads.

 

[julius]

That was just the Lakers scout and he meant that playing Portland is easier when Greg is out..

 

[alex42083]

Playing Aldridge at the 5 right now doesn't really make much sense anyway, when you have to go with Juwan or Dante on the floor, while Greg and Joel sit on the bench.

 

[Natebishop3]

Who hired Bill Simmons as their scout?

 

[Boob-No-More]

Even if the Blazers are worse on offense (I don't believe they are - he has the highest FG% and TS% on the team) with Oden in, they are MUCH better on defense and rebounding with Oden at the 5 rather than Aldridge. People focus so much on offense, but defense and rebouding are even more important - and that's what Oden brings that Aldridge doesn't.

BNM

 

[MIXUM]

so is it oden or millers fault?

 

[Rhal]

Im betting this scout also thinks that the lakers were a lot better when shaq wasn't in the game.

 

[hasoos]

Well hopefully it wasn't one of the Blazers scouts....

 

[Mediocre Man]

Every team Shaq has left has been better too.


That scout is off base. I actually had a chance to sit and watch a game with a pro scout about a week ago, and he had the exact opposite thing to say.

 

[bobf]

Yeah thats it... the Blazers are imploding because Oden is getting 3 and a half more minutes per game than last year.

 

[Nikolokolus]

The team is certainly adjusting the way the play with Oden in the lane on offense and this probably has cut down on some of Brandon's drives to the hoop, but longterm these guys have to learn to play together and that's the only thing that matters. Other than that though, shit this team hemorrhages leads or runs the moment Oden steps off the floor, I don't need an advanced scout to tell me that.

 

[oldguy]

Must be a Cub Scout.

Go Blazers

 

[handiman]

Scout ... that's that old jeep thingie that broke down all the time and had upside down windshield wipers, and people couldn't give them away even when running. The word doesn't have "reliable" connotations.

 

[BBert]

Apparently this "scout" must head out to the beer line before half time, and he hasn't noticed when Nate sits Oden with 2 minutes left in the half and the other team immediately crushes us. Yeah, I never get tired of watching that. Dang Oden.

 

[Minstrel]

That "Oden jams up the floor" has amusing parallels, in my opinion, to the silly criticism of slow players in baseball with high on-base percentage that they "clog up the base paths." Yes, it's awful to have people on base. And in basketball, it's awful to have someone who scores efficiently inside and draws double-teams. He may not be the most dynamic scorer (yet), but does so many beneficial things.

This seems more like visual-aesthetic scouting, rather than analytic scouting. "They seem too slow and boring to me, hence it is bad."

 

[Moo2K4]

Well, if he wasn't on the court, the other team might not shoot as many FTs.

 

[barfo]

Scouts say the darnedest things.

barfo

 

[VanillaGorilla]

This guy is an idiot.. nothing else to say.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Well, if he wasn't on the court, the other team might not shoot as many FTs.

And they'd get A TON more easy baskets. Aldridge is a terrible defender, on ball and especially on help defense.

 

[azsun67]

This just points out the fact that many "experts" love playng small ball. Small ball is a gimmick and until someone actually wins a Championship with it I do not buy it.

 

[Denny Crane]

There's merit to the article in the OP. The team did seem to play better last year with Oden far less of a focus. Roy's game has certainly taken a dip, as has Aldridge's and even Blake's. Is this a 54 win team this year?

It may be a short term negative, though, as the team will have to get better at playing around Oden as he gets better.

 

[Idog1976]

Scout says "Watching blazer games more fun after huffing glue."

 

[Public Defender]

There's merit to the article in the OP. The team did seem to play better last year with Oden far less of a focus. Roy's game has certainly taken a dip, as has Aldridge's and even Blake's. Is this a 54 win team this year?

It may be a short term negative, though, as the team will have to get better at playing around Oden as he gets better.

Yes, I tend to agree. It's not Oden's fault, but there are higher-percentage shots for the other players on the Blazers when the team isn't focused so much on getting the ball to Oden.

Now that the Blazers have figured out how they can use Oden in a set offense (something they couldn't do last year, because Oden needed to improve offensively), it'd be great if the Blazers could basically go back to more of last year's style of offense, where Roy and Aldridge were getting shots in more of a flow. But, the team should still look for Oden. It's a more nuanced attack - and might require a little more "thinking" for a while - but in the end, it's the Blazers' ticket to a championship, if they can figure it out and run it.