What did we learn from pre-season?

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Rastapopoulos

Rastapopoulos

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Are we trying to play faster? Should Nurkic shoot threes? Is Jake Layman going to be in the rotation? What about Baldwin? Does Stauskas's offense make up for his (lack of) defense? Are we going to make the playoffs?
 
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So I missed last nights game, because I was out on a date with my wife.

Heres my take from the others. I dont like Curry and CJ on the court together unless they have a distributor and they’re playing off the ball.

That said I think Curry does look more prepared to get significant minutes than Baldwin, Simons or Trent Jr.

Stauskus / Layman looked better than I expected and I think they will see some bench minutes at the forward spots.

Nurkic is going to be an above average center for us and defensively his impact is great.

Swanigan Im not sure he’s ever going to play significant minutes, Zach well, I still see potential in him but he’s got a lot of developement to do.

Meyers can shoot we all knew this but his defense and rebounding makes him like almost unplayable and when he does play you notice right away how much of a hole is left in the paint
 
All I really learned is PHO sucks and SAC's bigs can't handle Meyers Leonard and Zach Collins.

Actually, I knew the former already. The latter is somewhat surprising, but more of an indictment of SAC's drafting than an endorsement of Leonard's and Collins' talent.

BNM
 
Our offense will be better this year, appears our defense worse.
 
Although I like the Stauskas signing, I like Layman better.
 
Rastapopoulos said:
Are we trying to play faster? Should Nurkic shoot threes? Is Jake Layman going to be in the rotation? What about Baldwin? Does Stauskas's offense make up for his (lack of) defense? Are we going to make the playoffs?
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The 2nd team does seem to be trying to shoot quicker.
No Nurk should not be taking ANY 3's. He shouldn't even be standing out there.
Jake better be in the rotation.
Baldwin will get minutes but they won't be consistent.
Stauskas D is not bad enough to keep him on the bench. Not sure it is bad at all. Not great by any means, but not horrible.
No idea if we make the playoffs. Too many decent teams in the west to know at this point.
 
Nothing. Some guys have me intrigued but until they carry the production over to the season it doesn’t matter.

I guess the player that has me most intrigued is Layman. Talent was never a question with him. If he can carry over the assertiveness to the regular season we’ll have a nice rotation player, maybe more.
 
That this forum can be a shit show?


we already knew that
 
Scalma said:
Nothing. Some guys have me intrigued but until they carry the production over to the season it doesn’t matter.

I guess the player that has me most intrigued is Layman. Talent was never a question with him. If he can carry over the assertiveness to the regular season we’ll have a nice rotation player, maybe more.
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Bingo. How can we judge anything on 5 low intensity, glorified scrimmages when most people want to hold off judgement on a season until we are at least like 30 games into it? Preseason means nothing. It's just a nice time to see guys that will rarely, if ever, play the rest of the season and get over-hyped about what they could do in the future.
 
Here's what I learned:

1) This stupid offense where we keep handing the ball off to another player over and over again is actually pretty interesting when each of the dudes you're handing the ball to can shoot the 3.

2) Layman might actually make the 3rd year jump.

3) Biebs MIGHT actually help us, and he MIGHT become tradeable.

4) Regardless of how much I like Biggy, and how he has actually had some very good games few here acknowledge, he too often looks like garbage (and that's an understatement).

5) Stauskas is better than I thought.

Based on our offseason, we need a few guys to really improve. I'm a bit more optimistic of this happening after the preseason.

edit: That improvement could come from CJ. He looks stronger, and is embracing contact on his drives.
 
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What is now called preseason, used to be called exhibition games, and the exhibition season.

What I learned is that it's shorter than it used to be. Also, I learned that the regular season no longer starts around November 1.

The NBA opening used to conflict with baseball's World Series, which was in early October. About 25-30 years ago, the NBA, as a courtesy to MLB, moved its schedule back, and started their preseason when the Series ended. Apparently that agreement has died (when Stern retired?) because now, the World Series starts weeks later. So, the NBA dropped the Nov. 1 start.
 
Well, Seems we are seeing more ball movement and pushing the pace up court more. This is important with shooters like Layman, Sauce, Curry etc. as they know they could be getting a good look of a curl or back door.
If we slow it down and let two guys dominate the ball and pace, others will stagnate like Mo has done in years past.
I think we need to play Zack at the four and get comfortable down low.
Im hoping we let the O on occasion go through Nurk at the top of the key as he's a decent passer and we do have guys that move well without the ball too.
Bottom Line though is, we are 1 of 11 teams that could finish anywhere 8&3 seed.
 
jlprk said:
What is now called preseason, used to be called exhibition games, and the exhibition season.

What I learned is that it's shorter than it used to be. Also, I learned that the regular season no longer starts around November 1.

The NBA opening used to conflict with baseball's World Series, which was in early October. About 25-30 years ago, the NBA, as a courtesy to MLB, moved its schedule back, and started their preseason when the Series ended. Apparently that agreement has died (when Stern retired?) because now, the World Series starts weeks later. So, the NBA dropped the Nov. 1 start.
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The earlier start is to stretch out the schedule so that there are less back to backs and 4 out of 5s and the stars won't rest nationally televised games.

Are we trying to play faster?

A little bit.

Should Nurkic shoot threes?

He was way off the last two games but sure, why not?

Is Jake Layman going to be in the rotation?

I hope so. It depends on Harkless' health. When Turner, Jake, and Harkless are all healthy, it's going to be tough to find all three of them minutes but Jake should at least be used situationally.

What about Baldwin?

Curry is ahead of him in the rotation.

Does Stauskas's offense make up for his (lack of) defense?

His defense didn't look bad and his offense is awesome. Great fucking signing. Best scorer we've had off the bench since Mo Williams.

Are we going to make the playoffs?

Definitely. Top 4 seed.
 
KingSpeed said:
The earlier start is to stretch out the schedule so that there are less back to backs and 4 out of 5s and the stars won't rest nationally televised games.

Are we trying to play faster?

A little bit.

Should Nurkic shoot threes?

He was way off the last two games but sure, why not?

Is Jake Layman going to be in the rotation?

I hope so. It depends on Harkless' health. When Turner, Jake, and Harkless are all healthy, it's going to be tough to find all three of them minutes but Jake should at least be used situationally.

What about Baldwin?

Curry is ahead of him in the rotation.

Does Stauskas's offense make up for his (lack of) defense?

His defense didn't look bad and his offense is awesome. Great fucking signing. Best scorer we've had off the bench since Mo Williams.

Are we going to make the playoffs?

Definitely. Top 4 seed.
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I liked the entire post except this.

People need to pay more attention to his defense.
 
KingSpeed said:
You can breakout without being a good defender. Steve Nash broke out into back to back MVPs in his 30s without being great at defense.
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Nik Stauskas is nothing like Steve Nash...
 
Portland was 16th in three pointers made last year.
8th in 2017
3rd in 2016

It's not that we shot less--each of those seasons we made about 10.3 threes per game. The league just caught up with us.

Watching Layman, Curry, Sauce, Biebs and Nurk launch in the preseason, I think it's pretty safe to say the trend will reverse and we'll be back in the top 5 or so in threes made. I mean those guys plus Dame, CJ, Harkless and Aminu--that's 9 guys you can throw out there who will probably all shoot between 35 and 42%. Even Zach has a decent chance of being in that group.

This will easily be the best three point shooting team Portland has ever had.

It makes it feel like letting Ed Davis go was more of a strategic decision than just pure money. Portland's identity is going to be built on Dame/CJ drives with Nurk on the pick and roll with the starters, and a ton of perimeter shooting on the bench feeding off Evan Turner drives. They had to keep ET because of the contract, so they committed to more shooting to put around him.
 
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