Are the Blazers Good?

[PhoSita]

Blazers sitting at 4-2 right now.

Lillard and McCollum are both averaging 20+ points per game.  Aminu looks like his playoff success has carried over -- he's hitting threes and cleaning the glass.  The contract that was so maligned, so far, is looking like a steal. 

Mason Plumlee is as good as ever, making one wonder yet again how the heck Billy King still has a job. 

They haven't even gotten Gerald Henderson back from injury yet.


I had a feeling this off-season that the Blazers weren't going to be as terrible as people thought.  Their current hot start is almost certainly unsustainable, but the evidence is mounting that they have the basis for a pretty competitive, fun team here.

Here's where I once again make my assertion that when it comes to rebuilding a team, having that one young star who can carry a big load already in place makes all of the difference.  That said, if the Blazers win 45+ games this year, Neil Olshey should be win Executive of the Year.

[Rondo9]

And the Pelicans are 0-4 looks like Anthony Davis isn't the star people kept hyping him up to be. 

[PhoSita]

If by that you mean "Anthony Davis isn't capable of carrying a team of borderline NBA players to a winning record in a stacked conference" then yes.

Take that Blazers team and swap Damian Lillard for Anthony Davis and they'd be devastating.

[Rondo9]

C'mon Lebron carried a bunch of scrubs to the playoffs (and even to the finals!) once! Joking aside a lot of the Blazers success so far is C.J Mcollum's offensive explosion. Will that sustain or is he on a hot a streak?

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

They are the Trail Blazers ( pun intended)

[PhoSita]

They are the Trail Blazers ( pun intended)

I'm missing the pun, I guess.

[PhoSita]

C'mon Lebron carried a bunch of scrubs to the playoffs (and even to the finals!) once! Joking aside a lot of the Blazers success so far is C.J Mcollum's offensive explosion. Will that sustain or is he on a hot a streak?

I think that's the main question.

Also, Aminu is shooting REALLY well from deep.  That's can't possibly continue.

[sofutomygaha]

My dream is that they deal their first rounder and expiring contracts for Brook Lopez in December.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

They seem to be good so far.

I expected a bump in offensive numbers for CJ McCollum, but I didn't expect him to be a 22 points per game guy, let alone this efficient. He pretty much covered what LaMarcus Aldridge is giving them, points wise.

And yeah, I think the Aminu 3PT% is more abberation, but I don't think it's going to go down far. He seems to have much more free reign to shoot the ball in Portland than he did with Dallas, so I think he keeps shooting.

They're proving a lot of people wrong so far.

[Celtics18]

It's going to be tough for them to keep winning at their current rate, but the Blazers sure are fun to watch. 

I think that both Aminu and McCollum are for real, and if they win more than forty games, Stotts should get COY.  The way he has that team playing is impressive.

[fairweatherfan]

Here's where I point out that the advanced stats models tended to rate two teams a lot higher than the conventional wisdom:  Portland and Boston. 

[PhoSita]

My dream is that they deal their first rounder and expiring contracts for Brook Lopez in December.

Ugh.  The last thing I want to happen to this fun, bouncy, constantly-running Blazers team is for Brook Lopez to come in and bog things down.


Also, yeah, the Blazers should DEFINITELY give up some picks to acquire a 7 foot big man with foot problems.  They've never been burned in the past by big, talented guys with injury problems, right?

[chambers]

They're way better than expected so far. Overall in the West they are okay. Somewhere similar to the Suns. Won't make the playoffs, but they're good enough that it wouldn't be a surprise to see them slightly out of the race for the 8th seed in the West.

They are coached really well, have a lot of great shooters and youth and will run aaaaallllll gaaaammmeee and wear you down.

I really like their style of just playing young guys and keeping the veterans on stupid one and two year chump deals out of the line up. They are allowing maximum development for their young guys in a winning environment without the need to play a bunch of old role players.

Mcollum looks great, as do Plumlee and Aminu. Vonleh is finally healthy and is their first big man off the bench and he just turned 20 years old lol.

I just wish we'd made moves to get guys like Vonleh rather than signing Amir Johnson, Lee, Turner, Bass and Jerebko etc...I'd much rather sign Perry Jones, give Mickey some minutes and let RJ Hunter get all of Evan Turner's minutes.

I'm jealous of how aggressive they are and disciplined towards their youth movement.

[PhoSita]

I really like their style of just playing young guys and keeping the veterans on stupid one and two year chump deals out of the line up. They are allowing maximum development for their young guys in a winning environment without the need to play a bunch of old role players.

....


I'm jealous of how aggressive they are and disciplined towards their youth movement.

I'm 100% with you, though to be fair, the Blazers already had Damian Lillard in place.  That makes it easier to just play a bunch of athletic young guys.  Without Lillard and the (mostly unexpected) offensive explosion from McCollum, that team would have a really hard time scoring points.


Regardless, I completely agree.  Wholeheartedly.  This summer I wanted to see the Celts make off-season moves more like the Blazers, not so much what they actually did.

[chambers]

I really like their style of just playing young guys and keeping the veterans on stupid one and two year chump deals out of the line up. They are allowing maximum development for their young guys in a winning environment without the need to play a bunch of old role players.

....


I'm jealous of how aggressive they are and disciplined towards their youth movement.

I'm 100% with you, though to be fair, the Blazers already had Damian Lillard in place.  That makes it easier to just play a bunch of athletic young guys.  Without Lillard and the (mostly unexpected) offensive explosion from McCollum, that team would have a really hard time scoring points.


Regardless, I completely agree.  Wholeheartedly.  This summer I wanted to see the Celts make off-season moves more like the Blazers, not so much what they actually did.

Yeah having the top 20 player already there helps them gamble on the youth movement for sure.
Apparently they asked him if he was okay with blowing it up and he was ready to ride with the organization through a rebuild and gave them his support.

Mcollum is playing out of his skin but yeah, you're completely correct that without those two they'll struggle to score. Would be sweet to see Mcollum become a Klay Thompson-like wing man for Lilliard.
Poor Blazers need some good fortune. Probably the unluckiest franchise in the NBA the last 25 years or close to it. At least they got Lilliard for the ghost of Gerald Wallace.

Seeing Mcollum improve as a 3rd year player at age 24, and even Aminu in his 6th year just shows how patient you have to be with guys like Young, Bradley (who also just turned 24) and Hunter etc...the road to be an NBA for longer than your rookie contract is a long uphill battle.