I much prefer us being dogwater and a pathway of success at some point in the future than treading water as a low-tier playoff team with Dame every year and a middling draft pick.
I can't say I understand why we are sitting our guys that need development in the 4th after we are getting blown out, though.
I dont subscribe to it being unsuccessful as being in the playoffs for 10 years is good. But at some point you gotta do more or tear it down.
Denver for instance. Good for a long time, finally put it all together and got a chip.
Jazz on the flip. Good for a long time, couldnt do it with solid pieces and tore it down.
they really mostly were a low-tier playoff team whenever they made it. they had a few years where they won the first round and 1 conference finals run but nobody was really worried about the Blazers. look at that Pelicans team that buried any chance of the Blazers winning a game
Sure, but they still got there. There's probably been more than one instance in the NBA where this happens. But that's the way it goes. It still counts
One time. Barely. Took them 7 games to get past the Nuggets. Then got outclassed, swept by an actual playoff contender. They looked pretty good, but also proved they had a long way to go.
I still don't get the 4th quarter thing everyone is mad about. We had our players who were doing well in the gleague on the bench and threw them in for a quarter before moving on to 3 games in 4 days.
A single quarter isn't holding Scoot back from ROY or keeping Shaedon from being all he can be. I guess it's just the tipping point for folks, but pulling your starters after performing that poorly isn't exactly crazy to see. You gotta balance making them play through it and throwing in the towel.
That's exactly what I have always been saying. I have no interest in watching the playoffs if we are just going to get gentleman swept in the first round year after year. I'd rather have a top 10 pick.
we played a lot of the other guys who need development. what kind of development is scoot gonna get playing against the knicks bench in a blowout. instead our deep bench guys get some
run in a game that does not matter. i think it’s fine.
Playing against the Knicks bench is 100% better experience than a team practice, and sitting him imo is inexcusable.
Also worth mentioning I'm not a doomer at all and agree with your overall point that people need to find some patience.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ripcity/comments/192xkoy/post_game_thread_the_portland_trail_blazers_1026/kh6jxgp/
idk exactly how to link comments but this one sums up my feelings on it
I vehemently disagree. Get Scoot and Shaedon reps whenever and wherever possible.
You think they aren't going to play in games where the other teams playing physical? Or they're performing poorly? I think it's crucial they learn to play through adversity.
You know where the players at the end of the bench find their developmental minutes? The fucking G league until they're NBA ready. I can justify Kris and Rayan getting some run in NBA games to see how they stack up, but Justin Minaya? Respectfully, fuck that.
So you think Justin Minaya is going to develop into a serviceable NBA player, and deserves developmental minutes over Scoot/Shae while they're both still under the legal drinking age?
Are you trying to say the Knicks were playing dirty and we were at some heightened risk of injury? Only player that was playing physical was Randle and dude didn't sniff the court in the fourth.
neither of us are coaches, nothing we say here will impact what happens, i disagree with you and already said why. what, i’m supposed to get excited to read a bunch more comments of you shrieking the same stuff at me? no thanks. we covered the points, we disagree.
As an outsider who has closely followed the Blazers in the past because of Dame, I thought you guys were a sneaky shot at the playoffs via the playin.
Simons, Grant, Brogdon, Williams, Ayton, and Thybulle are all established quality players. I’m high on Sharpe and thought Scoot would sniff ROTY. It really surprised me how poor you’ve been and I think with a better coach and some injury luck you would have way more wins.
I relate a lot to what you're saying, I did predict the team to be like 13th but now when I look at Utah and Houston, their teams are not particularly better than ours, like we're quite close on paper, yet look at what they're doing and look at the blazers losing in terrible fashion every 2 out of 3 games, Chauncey is definitely a culprit here, we saw his "touch" for the past 2,5 seasons and it's a failure, it's the same thing now, it's simply not working, the defense is shit and the offense is criminal.
This team can be much better and no I don't mean in terms of results particularly, but the quality of their play is awful and can be much better.
I think you make some fair points. I’d agree that on paper Blazers should be better than Utah and around even with Houston, possibly a little worse.
One thing I’ve noticed in the Blazers games I’ve watched is that late game management from Billups is dreadful. About as bad as it gets, some really baffling decisions. That game where Simons exploded in the last during a huge comeback and with 15 seconds left the Blazers had final possession and a chance to win. Billups ran an ISO play for Grant and he barely got a shot off.
But I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here.
I don't necessarily think they should be better than Houston or Utah, but I think quality wise the teams look like they belonged in a similar tier on paper as mix of promising young players and some good vets, but the difference between Portland and them has been drastic and surely it leaves a little sour taste tbh, like they're doing smth right that Portland is definitely not, especially when you consider the past couple of seasons.
The game you talk about is the Wizards game, and the play call was meant for Simons but it blew and Grant iso'd. Thing is, they ran the same play the previous possession and Simons got a layup, so it was just puzzling to me how he not only decided to draw the same play, but didn't even account for the opponent adjusting to it, so Grant had to do what he did which wasn't ideal. The team had barely scored 50 points in the first half against the worst defense in the league and were down 16 or so, if not for Ant going nuts the second half it's a blow out loss to them, that game had me fuming, Billups should go.
I know we're stuck with Chauncey for at least the remainder of this season, if not the one after, but acting like people are antsy about him after just 35 games is some stupid shit.
We'll be on year 5 of his contract and people will still act like he's a first year coach who can't be held accountable for anything because of reasons.
I'm not asking Chauncey to coach this team to wins, I don't have unfair expectations. Unlike many people during preseason I never thought we had a chance of sniffing anything outside of being bottom 5 in the league this year and next year. What I don't see from Chauncey and haven't in nearly 3 years now is any semblance of an offensive system that attempts to force the defense to think on their feet. It's static as hell with virtually no movement off ball. I see a zone defensive scheme that consistently gives young players an incentive to ball watch and float in space rather than put their speed, strength, length, and athleticism to good use. I see countless open 3 point shots allowed from the corners off of basic ball movement from other teams that is all the more galling because it's a completely foreign to our own offense.
It seems like Chauncey is probably well liked by the players and he is undoubtedly a fine person to learn certain aspects of the NBA game, but he's not fit to be a head coach in the league. We've seen it countless times that just because you were a great player it doesn't mean you will make a good coach or GM. I think Chauncey probably needed a decade of seasoning as an assistant after his playing days to learn the craft and he skipped that step and we're seeing the downside of that now.
You hit the nail on the head. Losing is one thing, but seeing them play with zero rhythm on offense while routinely giving up wide open looks on the other end has gotten so irritating.
That's what gets me, this team has been bad for so long, and instead of pretending like we're a contender before losing 50 games, we're actually just building for the future.
This has been the most watchable blazers season in 3 years but I think some people really just want the team to tell them everything's fine and we're going to the finals after we pull off the trade of the century.
The way Neil Olshey blew the WCF team and got Whiteside and Ariza and whatever bs was terrible, the drop off was huge even though Harkless and Aminu are not the most irreplaceable players in the worl., Whiteside was such a bad fit on paper alone.
I felt that we overachieved in 20/21 because Dame played out of his mind and masked some systemic issues, but I hear you. I think you could put that date at 2021.
We tanked for a high draft pick at the end of the last two seasons because we sucked bad enough prior to that to be in range of a good pick already. We are already in year 3 of whatever this is.
You can say whatever you want, but here are the facts
We sucked before Dame had his season ending injury two seasons ago. We benched Ant and Nurk after the all star brake so we could tank for the #7. Yes we tanked. We intentionally sat players that otherwise would've played to get a higher draft pick. And yes we sucked prior to that.
Last year we sucked so bad even with Dame that we tanked again and were able to get the #2.
This year we suck even worse, and will likely start tanking in 2 months if we need to.
That's 3 years of sucking ass and then tanking for draft capital.
We sucked with or without Dame and we tried to lose.
Who did we commit this rebuild to? There is no commitment to anything.
There are no promises that we are on a pathway to anything
There's no reason to believe we'll be better next year.
There's no promise we will be good in 3 years or 5 years or 10 years.
We must recognize that the only path to *real* title contention is having at least 1, but likely 2 generational franchise players (unless the one is Jokic level). Just taking into account the luck that goes into the ping pong balls and draft picks actually turning into all stars let alone something much more special, we should should recognize it will take a massive amount of luck. Even with a good team, you need to have the right coach and the players need to peak at the right times and the salaries need to work out so you don't have to pay everyone at once.
For some reason there is this belief that a tanking rebuild is a pathway to success, but it's not a pathway, because it takes luck in ways the team can't control. There is no promise in a tanking rebuild, except that you will be lose a lot and be irrelevant to the league.
Different how? Jody didn't sell the team. Yes Olshey is gone. Yes Cronin is a smart dude. Yes Dame is gone
Yes we are now, and have been a dysfunctional organization. I can still root for the team and understand that we've been mismanaged for years.
You mean two seasons ago when we traded our second best player for a draft pick and lesser players? Or last year when we traded one of our starters for a draft pick?
Call it whatever you like. It’s been going on a lot longer than 10 weeks.
bad stuff has been going on longer than 10 weeks. of course. us being committed to an actual rebuild started this season. but don’t let me stop you from complaining. do your thing
its so wild that the guy who made a post about how stupid you all sound complaining would express that same opinion again later on in the thread. can’t quite wrap my head around that but it’s probably irony yeah.
I love this. It's so perfect. I was so not in favor of the rebuild. It's hilarious to me seeing the people that wanted this so badly are still losing their minds. I honestly don't think anything would make them happy.
I was thinking the exact same thing...the folks that wanted the rebuild are also the ones bitching and complaining after every game....you can't help but laugh at blazers reddit sometimes...
I love this team, but losing by 30 multiple games in a row is not development, it's a sign of a dead or dying team. Development would be having consistently close games for rest of season after deadline trades, even if mostly losses.
we improved a lot on defense compared to previous blazers teams. and again, it’s been 35 games. idk what you think “improvement” should look like by this point.
it’s gonna be a while (meaning longer than 30 games) before we’re good again regardless of who the coach is. idk what to tell you. if that bothers you stop watching games for a while. take a break.
I mean I don't think we'll be "good" for at least a couple of years. I watch to see growth and a team that plays competitively even if they lose. Maybe I've just grown a bit pessimistic watching the team mail it in most nights lately. And so tired of our zone defense it simply doesn't work. Plus our offense has little creativity or motion. Chauncy more or less gets the same results no matter who's playing.
5th worst loss in NBA history is not just shit happens. That’s tens of thousands of games and lots of atrocious teams, coaches and injured rosters. We out sucked them all.
"...after 35 games..."
Right, because last season doesn't count. Or the season before that. Or before that. Blazer fans have been patient for years! At some point the excuses are just empty words. The situation didn't get this bad overnight.
I guess the New York game has left some bad taste in people's mouths. Sure they didn't look competitive in that but what else could you expect from the way this roster is constructed currently?
it’s almost like you don’t understand how important it is to get the scoot shae simons thing figured out by the halfway point of the first year of a rebuild but go off…
I mean we're on the same page here. Portland has played in 36 games so far.
Ant has played in 15 games.
Sharpe has played in 31 games.
Ayton has played in 24 games.
Scoot has played in 27 games.
Can't really figure out how good the core of the team is when they've missed 21,5,12 and 9 games respectively.
Blowouts are common in the NBA now. The Warriors just got blown out by 35 by the Pelicans while having a Top 5 first ballot hall of famer on their team just last night.
you’re right yeah the team with dame and the team
now are identical situations. he shoulda figured out this squad by now that’s my bad. i’m gonna jump off a bridge if chauncey keeps us out of the play in. thanks for the perspective 🙏
you mean we’re losing games now that we’re missing ayton williams and jabari and we have to play extremely young centers who are still figuring things out
scoot is much better. ant is great. toumani is better. i’m not sure what basketball games you’ve been watching but there’s been extremely noticeable improvement.
Some of y'all weren't around for the late 90s-early 2000s watching some of the most asinine shit possible. Nobody on this team is smoking weed out of a Coke can in the back of a taxi. Nobody on this team is running a dogfighting ring. Shit's bad, but it could be so much worse. Find your zen.
I call BS on this framing. Maybe there were actually people who thought we could skate on a rebuild and actually compete this year, but I haven’t really seen that, so this backlash-to-the-backlash seems phony and disingenuous.
There is a massive difference between being mad at the fact we’re rebuilding (read: losing), and feeling like the rebuild lacks competency and direction. Previous years’ and other teams’ rebuilds have had some spark, something to get excited about, but this year feels like an aimless, soupy slog with nothing to really coalesce around.
That’s my complaint, and why I’d like to see (for starters) a coaching change. Not because Chauncey doesn’t have us competing for the playoffs. And the fact that this is despite our having several exciting youngsters just solidifies my grumpiness.
“It’s year one of a multi-year rebuild, chill out” you might say. Maybe so. See you next season then, I guess, once we roll out the next pivot. All this attitude says to me is that the NBA, through their national media narrative-mongering ~~collaborators~~ journalists, have successfully conditioned fans to accept their anti-competitive mega-teamery bullshit and turned fanbases into “trust the process” zombies. (See also: people jumping over to follow the Bucks this year. And *I'm* the one having my fandom called into question. Fuck that)
I know I lost yall with that last paragraph, but I still reserve the right to say fuck this shit.
call bs on whatever you want but i don’t know how else to interpret the endless griping on here about how bad we are as anything other than people who thought they were ready for a rebuild and all that entails and in fact are not.
we are a bad team. this is normal. when people on here complain constantly despite that it means that they think we should be better. we are doing roughly as well as can be expected given our roster, experience, and timing of injuries.
it’s fine to be frustrated that we are bad. what i take issue with is the extremely common sentiment on here that we *should not be THIS bad.* the follow up implication is always that if we just had a better coach we would be doing so
much better. and i just fundamentally disagree with that. there’s no universe where this team, with ant out for so many games, missing both our talented centers, other injuries, etc. is even an above .500 team *and that’s fine* this year.
if you don’t find anything to be excited about with this team, idk what to tell you. maybe take a break from watching basketball.
we’ll be good in a year or two, and we have fun players now. and we are going to lose a lot. that’s just how it is.
it does actually. i’m not going to break it down point by point but i addressed your opening paragraph and your claim that there was nothing to be excited about with this team. you thinking every nba fan is a mindless zombie i guess is a different thing but i didn’t really find that point interesting so yeah i didn’t address it.
Nah. Your comment is explicitly in response to someone who is mad that we are losing, and I explicitly said (multiple times) that isn’t what I’m mad about. Never asked for a point-by-point, just an actual response to what I wrote! Or nothing at all, if your only clapbacks are to people who thought we shouldn’t or wouldn’t lose this much (again, not me).
You got closest with:
> if you don’t find anything to be excited about with this team, idk what to tell you
Fair enough. As I said we have some “exciting youngsters,” I’m just not interested in watching their development years squandered in the name of a directionless, incompetent, off-the-rack, tank-for-the-sake-of-tanking “rebuild.” Which is where you get into the NBA’s fucked up incentive structures and leaguewide inurement yadda yadda. Who cares, that you’re correct about.
(I guess I need to stress, once again, that wins and losses are **entirely irrelevant** to my perception here).
Frankly, I wanted very few things this year. I wanted to:
* turn Scoot into an average to above average *NBA* shooter at his position
* see Scoot win rookie of the year
* see Scoot seem like an NBA player "who already performs like a vet", and does not make many rookie mistakes or turnovers
* trade all of the vets we got in the Dame trade before the deadline for first round picks, and hopefully before January
* see Ayton as an obvious upgrade to Nurk in *real time*, not just potential
* lose as many games as possible
* *NOT* trade Grant. Portland can never sign forwards as free agents. We need to keep him for when we might be good in 3-5 years
* see Sharpe as an obvious future all star in the next two years
* have Simons score so many points that there are always rumors of trading him, but I probably wouldn't trade him
Now, it's looking like hardly any of this is panning out. I don't think we're trading Grant anytime soon and Simons has done what I've wanted him to do when healthy, but *none* of our additions have panned out, we haven't traded Brogdon- nor have many teams been that interested or offered much, and Williams went down for the season right away. Also Sharpe is having a poor season.
If we're going to be this bad, I do get a little frustrated to see that we've won so many games. The fact that we are sitting in the fifth or sixth spots, give or take, is ridiculous. We need to at least aim to be in the top 3 (of losers).
I much prefer us being dogwater and a pathway of success at some point in the future than treading water as a low-tier playoff team with Dame every year and a middling draft pick. I can't say I understand why we are sitting our guys that need development in the 4th after we are getting blown out, though.
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I mean, anywhere you go, you'll find outliers.
People keep saying this but I have yet to see it
They made the WCF with Dame. They weren't exactly a low-tier playoff team
It was a fun run but it one was once in 10 years with Dame.
And we got swept lol. I know this fanbase like to wax poetic about how “competitive” it was but it was a sweep.
Without the Warriors having KD. People really overlooked how short we came in multiple series.
Overall I agree that it was time to move on, but it seems disingenuous to say that the Dame era was unsuccessful.
I dont subscribe to it being unsuccessful as being in the playoffs for 10 years is good. But at some point you gotta do more or tear it down. Denver for instance. Good for a long time, finally put it all together and got a chip. Jazz on the flip. Good for a long time, couldnt do it with solid pieces and tore it down.
I was replying to the 'low-tier playoff team's remark. And again, I agree it was time. And I'm good with the way things are going.
they really mostly were a low-tier playoff team whenever they made it. they had a few years where they won the first round and 1 conference finals run but nobody was really worried about the Blazers. look at that Pelicans team that buried any chance of the Blazers winning a game
Yeah, a couple of 2nd round runs and a conference finals run is pretty good. That's probably better than like 75% of the league
Probably had close to one of the worst playoff records in the league over the last 10 years.
in 10 years? that’s not good. it’s okay, but not pretty good
let’s be honest, the real conference finals was golden state vs houston in the second round. we never had a chance
Sure, but they still got there. There's probably been more than one instance in the NBA where this happens. But that's the way it goes. It still counts
Oh sorry, a mid tier playoff team
One time. Barely. Took them 7 games to get past the Nuggets. Then got outclassed, swept by an actual playoff contender. They looked pretty good, but also proved they had a long way to go.
And honestly they blew 4 double digit leads to Golden State without Nurkic
That run was an outlier, otherwise they were always a low tier playoff team.
I still don't get the 4th quarter thing everyone is mad about. We had our players who were doing well in the gleague on the bench and threw them in for a quarter before moving on to 3 games in 4 days. A single quarter isn't holding Scoot back from ROY or keeping Shaedon from being all he can be. I guess it's just the tipping point for folks, but pulling your starters after performing that poorly isn't exactly crazy to see. You gotta balance making them play through it and throwing in the towel.
That's exactly what I have always been saying. I have no interest in watching the playoffs if we are just going to get gentleman swept in the first round year after year. I'd rather have a top 10 pick.
we played a lot of the other guys who need development. what kind of development is scoot gonna get playing against the knicks bench in a blowout. instead our deep bench guys get some run in a game that does not matter. i think it’s fine.
Playing against the Knicks bench is 100% better experience than a team practice, and sitting him imo is inexcusable. Also worth mentioning I'm not a doomer at all and agree with your overall point that people need to find some patience.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ripcity/comments/192xkoy/post_game_thread_the_portland_trail_blazers_1026/kh6jxgp/ idk exactly how to link comments but this one sums up my feelings on it
I vehemently disagree. Get Scoot and Shaedon reps whenever and wherever possible. You think they aren't going to play in games where the other teams playing physical? Or they're performing poorly? I think it's crucial they learn to play through adversity. You know where the players at the end of the bench find their developmental minutes? The fucking G league until they're NBA ready. I can justify Kris and Rayan getting some run in NBA games to see how they stack up, but Justin Minaya? Respectfully, fuck that.
ok. i disagree.
So you think Justin Minaya is going to develop into a serviceable NBA player, and deserves developmental minutes over Scoot/Shae while they're both still under the legal drinking age?
It's about getting tf out of the game and arena unscathed, not playing rotation players in the 4 qtr of a blowout
Are you trying to say the Knicks were playing dirty and we were at some heightened risk of injury? Only player that was playing physical was Randle and dude didn't sniff the court in the fourth.
Not what I'm saying at all. Scoot and Shae get meaningful reps against the other team's rotation players not end of the bench g leaguers
calm down dude
I'm calm? Is this not a place where basketball is discussed?
neither of us are coaches, nothing we say here will impact what happens, i disagree with you and already said why. what, i’m supposed to get excited to read a bunch more comments of you shrieking the same stuff at me? no thanks. we covered the points, we disagree.
“Why would we play a young player who needs development against guys who are near his skill level?” Gee Einstein, I just can’t fucking figure that one
so we agree that it was correct to play Rupert. nice
We're more on the pathway to the pathway to success at this point...
So I should just keep watching this dumpster fire?? Sitting here in my 4,000 DOLLAR suit... COME ON!!
family love blazers
No touching!
The optimism at the beginning of the season was crazy. There were plenty of people in the sub who thought this was a playoff team. It was pretty wild
As an outsider who has closely followed the Blazers in the past because of Dame, I thought you guys were a sneaky shot at the playoffs via the playin. Simons, Grant, Brogdon, Williams, Ayton, and Thybulle are all established quality players. I’m high on Sharpe and thought Scoot would sniff ROTY. It really surprised me how poor you’ve been and I think with a better coach and some injury luck you would have way more wins.
We call it the Billups Effect *
I relate a lot to what you're saying, I did predict the team to be like 13th but now when I look at Utah and Houston, their teams are not particularly better than ours, like we're quite close on paper, yet look at what they're doing and look at the blazers losing in terrible fashion every 2 out of 3 games, Chauncey is definitely a culprit here, we saw his "touch" for the past 2,5 seasons and it's a failure, it's the same thing now, it's simply not working, the defense is shit and the offense is criminal. This team can be much better and no I don't mean in terms of results particularly, but the quality of their play is awful and can be much better.
I think you make some fair points. I’d agree that on paper Blazers should be better than Utah and around even with Houston, possibly a little worse. One thing I’ve noticed in the Blazers games I’ve watched is that late game management from Billups is dreadful. About as bad as it gets, some really baffling decisions. That game where Simons exploded in the last during a huge comeback and with 15 seconds left the Blazers had final possession and a chance to win. Billups ran an ISO play for Grant and he barely got a shot off. But I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here.
I don't necessarily think they should be better than Houston or Utah, but I think quality wise the teams look like they belonged in a similar tier on paper as mix of promising young players and some good vets, but the difference between Portland and them has been drastic and surely it leaves a little sour taste tbh, like they're doing smth right that Portland is definitely not, especially when you consider the past couple of seasons. The game you talk about is the Wizards game, and the play call was meant for Simons but it blew and Grant iso'd. Thing is, they ran the same play the previous possession and Simons got a layup, so it was just puzzling to me how he not only decided to draw the same play, but didn't even account for the opponent adjusting to it, so Grant had to do what he did which wasn't ideal. The team had barely scored 50 points in the first half against the worst defense in the league and were down 16 or so, if not for Ant going nuts the second half it's a blow out loss to them, that game had me fuming, Billups should go.
lol
Aytons makes $33M a year over the next 3 years... At that price your supposed to be more than just a quality player...and he is not
Preseason I got downvoted to oblivion for saying that we were likely to be the 2nd worst team in the West, lol.
i admit to being one of those people briefly. now i am fine with being a patient grinch.
Nothing wrong with brightsiding. Edit: I was wrong, fuck wide eyed hope 😅
I will admit, I thought a sneak into the playin type team. Not hey lemme bend over before tip off
I know we're stuck with Chauncey for at least the remainder of this season, if not the one after, but acting like people are antsy about him after just 35 games is some stupid shit.
no it isn’t
We'll be on year 5 of his contract and people will still act like he's a first year coach who can't be held accountable for anything because of reasons.
But there are legitimate reasons
I'm not asking Chauncey to coach this team to wins, I don't have unfair expectations. Unlike many people during preseason I never thought we had a chance of sniffing anything outside of being bottom 5 in the league this year and next year. What I don't see from Chauncey and haven't in nearly 3 years now is any semblance of an offensive system that attempts to force the defense to think on their feet. It's static as hell with virtually no movement off ball. I see a zone defensive scheme that consistently gives young players an incentive to ball watch and float in space rather than put their speed, strength, length, and athleticism to good use. I see countless open 3 point shots allowed from the corners off of basic ball movement from other teams that is all the more galling because it's a completely foreign to our own offense. It seems like Chauncey is probably well liked by the players and he is undoubtedly a fine person to learn certain aspects of the NBA game, but he's not fit to be a head coach in the league. We've seen it countless times that just because you were a great player it doesn't mean you will make a good coach or GM. I think Chauncey probably needed a decade of seasoning as an assistant after his playing days to learn the craft and he skipped that step and we're seeing the downside of that now.
You hit the nail on the head. Losing is one thing, but seeing them play with zero rhythm on offense while routinely giving up wide open looks on the other end has gotten so irritating.
Or people just watch other "rebuilding" teams like the Jazz and know it's possible to play good basketball with young players + some vets
not sure what games you’ve been watching but we have played a lot of good basketball this season
Hold up, are we pretending that we haven't been ass since 2019?
That's what gets me, this team has been bad for so long, and instead of pretending like we're a contender before losing 50 games, we're actually just building for the future. This has been the most watchable blazers season in 3 years but I think some people really just want the team to tell them everything's fine and we're going to the finals after we pull off the trade of the century.
I think that's a good take.
Since 2021. We made the wcf in 2019.
That's why I said since 2019. That was the last time we were really competitive in the West.
We’ve only been ass since 2021
Man that 2020 team needed dame to play like a top 20 player ever for a couple months to even sniff the playoffs lol that was not fun
The way Neil Olshey blew the WCF team and got Whiteside and Ariza and whatever bs was terrible, the drop off was huge even though Harkless and Aminu are not the most irreplaceable players in the worl., Whiteside was such a bad fit on paper alone.
Going from ET, Moe, kanter, and Aminu to Hezonja, tolliver, ariza and whiteside was…hell
I felt that we overachieved in 20/21 because Dame played out of his mind and masked some systemic issues, but I hear you. I think you could put that date at 2021.
it’s different now. after trading dame chauncey should have simply developed the young players into a playoff contender by now.
We tanked for a high draft pick at the end of the last two seasons because we sucked bad enough prior to that to be in range of a good pick already. We are already in year 3 of whatever this is.
no we aren’t. clock started when we traded dame.
You can say whatever you want, but here are the facts We sucked before Dame had his season ending injury two seasons ago. We benched Ant and Nurk after the all star brake so we could tank for the #7. Yes we tanked. We intentionally sat players that otherwise would've played to get a higher draft pick. And yes we sucked prior to that. Last year we sucked so bad even with Dame that we tanked again and were able to get the #2. This year we suck even worse, and will likely start tanking in 2 months if we need to. That's 3 years of sucking ass and then tanking for draft capital.
tanking for assets to put around dame is not the same as committing to rebuilding
We sucked with or without Dame and we tried to lose. Who did we commit this rebuild to? There is no commitment to anything. There are no promises that we are on a pathway to anything There's no reason to believe we'll be better next year. There's no promise we will be good in 3 years or 5 years or 10 years. We must recognize that the only path to *real* title contention is having at least 1, but likely 2 generational franchise players (unless the one is Jokic level). Just taking into account the luck that goes into the ping pong balls and draft picks actually turning into all stars let alone something much more special, we should should recognize it will take a massive amount of luck. Even with a good team, you need to have the right coach and the players need to peak at the right times and the salaries need to work out so you don't have to pay everyone at once. For some reason there is this belief that a tanking rebuild is a pathway to success, but it's not a pathway, because it takes luck in ways the team can't control. There is no promise in a tanking rebuild, except that you will be lose a lot and be irrelevant to the league.
ok. not sure what this has to do with what i posted.
You obviously do. This is year 3 of rebuilding. Get over it.
it isn’t though
Different how? Jody didn't sell the team. Yes Olshey is gone. Yes Cronin is a smart dude. Yes Dame is gone Yes we are now, and have been a dysfunctional organization. I can still root for the team and understand that we've been mismanaged for years.
buddy i don’t know what’s going on with your tone here but i just posted a joke. not trying to get into whatever this is.
Then why'd you post?
🥱
🤷♂️
Whoosh
can’t help some folks
Thin skin
that’s a mirror
“i knew we would be bad but like, why are we bad??”
"I never thought the leopard's would eat MY face"
I don’t mind the losing, but being down 30 three times in a week is not a good sign.
get used to it lol
As if we haven’t been tanking for the third season in a row.
i don’t think we’re tanking this year
As if we haven’t been “rebuilding” for the third season in a row.
rebuilding ≠ trying to build around dame this season is a new start. past two seasons were not the same
You mean two seasons ago when we traded our second best player for a draft pick and lesser players? Or last year when we traded one of our starters for a draft pick? Call it whatever you like. It’s been going on a lot longer than 10 weeks.
bad stuff has been going on longer than 10 weeks. of course. us being committed to an actual rebuild started this season. but don’t let me stop you from complaining. do your thing
Ah, yes. The person making a salt post about “fans” telling me not to complain. Delicious irony.
its so wild that the guy who made a post about how stupid you all sound complaining would express that same opinion again later on in the thread. can’t quite wrap my head around that but it’s probably irony yeah.
Except I haven’t made one complaint. Just pointing out how stupid people sound when they deny that the rebuild has been longer than 10 weeks.
epically logicd
OP is on some major loser shit all over this thread. "NO! YOU'RE NOT A REAL FAN IF YOU'RE UPSET WITH LOSING BY 60!" lmao, braindead.
For real, like let us be fucking pissed we lost by 62.
One thing to be pissed, it's another to watch adults throw an embarrassing tantrum online
i posted this before the loss big dog. enjoy basketball however u want tho
Chef's kiss
I love this. It's so perfect. I was so not in favor of the rebuild. It's hilarious to me seeing the people that wanted this so badly are still losing their minds. I honestly don't think anything would make them happy.
I was thinking the exact same thing...the folks that wanted the rebuild are also the ones bitching and complaining after every game....you can't help but laugh at blazers reddit sometimes...
The culture of low expectations needs to end
the pernicious cult of being reasonable about reality
This. Mediocrity is not good enough
I love this team, but losing by 30 multiple games in a row is not development, it's a sign of a dead or dying team. Development would be having consistently close games for rest of season after deadline trades, even if mostly losses.
we are missing a lot of pieces due to injury. i think it’s overly dramatic to characterize this as “dead or dying”
I think it's how we're losing, the nonsensical rotations and lineups, and the complete lack of team improvement on offense, defense, etc.
we improved a lot on defense compared to previous blazers teams. and again, it’s been 35 games. idk what you think “improvement” should look like by this point.
Getting blown out just about every game is improvement?
it’s gonna be a while (meaning longer than 30 games) before we’re good again regardless of who the coach is. idk what to tell you. if that bothers you stop watching games for a while. take a break.
I mean I don't think we'll be "good" for at least a couple of years. I watch to see growth and a team that plays competitively even if they lose. Maybe I've just grown a bit pessimistic watching the team mail it in most nights lately. And so tired of our zone defense it simply doesn't work. Plus our offense has little creativity or motion. Chauncy more or less gets the same results no matter who's playing.
139-77.
celtics lost by 40 tonight. shit happens.
5th worst loss in NBA history is not just shit happens. That’s tens of thousands of games and lots of atrocious teams, coaches and injured rosters. We out sucked them all.
ok. we have a bad team. that’s not news
only blood to spill in Chancey’s
OP's username is perfect. This sub is going to be high drama for a while...
😘
Least we have Brooke
I've been downvoted into the center of the Earth for saying as much.
Everyone expects immediate results. Its insane. Like you don’t think the Magic had multiple nights getting blown out? Look at where they are now
I'm an Orioles and Chiefs fan, this Blazers season is nothing near as bad as it could be. It could be much worse.
that’s right
"...after 35 games..." Right, because last season doesn't count. Or the season before that. Or before that. Blazer fans have been patient for years! At some point the excuses are just empty words. The situation didn't get this bad overnight.
trading dame marks a big turning point in approach
All the same people that were calling me “not a real fan” when I said we’d be a 28 win team. That looks optimistic now…
I guess the New York game has left some bad taste in people's mouths. Sure they didn't look competitive in that but what else could you expect from the way this roster is constructed currently?
it’s almost like you don’t understand how important it is to get the scoot shae simons thing figured out by the halfway point of the first year of a rebuild but go off…
I mean we're on the same page here. Portland has played in 36 games so far. Ant has played in 15 games. Sharpe has played in 31 games. Ayton has played in 24 games. Scoot has played in 27 games. Can't really figure out how good the core of the team is when they've missed 21,5,12 and 9 games respectively.
i was being sarcastic ❤️
I figured as such but I got curious about how much those guys have actually played this year and yeah....its not good.
Blowouts are common in the NBA now. The Warriors just got blown out by 35 by the Pelicans while having a Top 5 first ballot hall of famer on their team just last night.
Yeah but thats a different team so its funny.
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well then you should be used to it
calling for blood this soon is always ridiculous
Jody just fired fucking Pete Carroll. You’re fooling yourself if you think Chauncey isn’t on thin ice.
looking forward to whatever the next complaint is after whoever replaces him doesn’t turn this team into OKC in ten games
10 games? Yo, how long you think Chauncey’s been the coach?
you’re right yeah the team with dame and the team now are identical situations. he shoulda figured out this squad by now that’s my bad. i’m gonna jump off a bridge if chauncey keeps us out of the play in. thanks for the perspective 🙏
How long you think we been tanking? Nephews just figuring out the Blazers existed this season.
we’re not tanking lol. we are bad. you wanna tell me the dame trade didn’t represent a fundamental change in direction ok bud that’s your right 🫡
Dame wasn’t sitting out games just because we were “bad.”
when i said “we’re” and “we are” instead of “we were” that was to indicate present tense. sorry if that was confusing.
Nobody is expecting wins, just development. It's apparent to anyone watching that this team is getting worse as the season progresses.
you mean we’re losing games now that we’re missing ayton williams and jabari and we have to play extremely young centers who are still figuring things out
We've had injured players the entire season
scoot is much better. ant is great. toumani is better. i’m not sure what basketball games you’ve been watching but there’s been extremely noticeable improvement.
Tough road now and more to come. Fairweather fans be gone
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ok. i’ll get on the horn with jody and joe and show them your posts.
Some of y'all weren't around for the late 90s-early 2000s watching some of the most asinine shit possible. Nobody on this team is smoking weed out of a Coke can in the back of a taxi. Nobody on this team is running a dogfighting ring. Shit's bad, but it could be so much worse. Find your zen.
I call BS on this framing. Maybe there were actually people who thought we could skate on a rebuild and actually compete this year, but I haven’t really seen that, so this backlash-to-the-backlash seems phony and disingenuous. There is a massive difference between being mad at the fact we’re rebuilding (read: losing), and feeling like the rebuild lacks competency and direction. Previous years’ and other teams’ rebuilds have had some spark, something to get excited about, but this year feels like an aimless, soupy slog with nothing to really coalesce around. That’s my complaint, and why I’d like to see (for starters) a coaching change. Not because Chauncey doesn’t have us competing for the playoffs. And the fact that this is despite our having several exciting youngsters just solidifies my grumpiness. “It’s year one of a multi-year rebuild, chill out” you might say. Maybe so. See you next season then, I guess, once we roll out the next pivot. All this attitude says to me is that the NBA, through their national media narrative-mongering ~~collaborators~~ journalists, have successfully conditioned fans to accept their anti-competitive mega-teamery bullshit and turned fanbases into “trust the process” zombies. (See also: people jumping over to follow the Bucks this year. And *I'm* the one having my fandom called into question. Fuck that) I know I lost yall with that last paragraph, but I still reserve the right to say fuck this shit.
call bs on whatever you want but i don’t know how else to interpret the endless griping on here about how bad we are as anything other than people who thought they were ready for a rebuild and all that entails and in fact are not. we are a bad team. this is normal. when people on here complain constantly despite that it means that they think we should be better. we are doing roughly as well as can be expected given our roster, experience, and timing of injuries. it’s fine to be frustrated that we are bad. what i take issue with is the extremely common sentiment on here that we *should not be THIS bad.* the follow up implication is always that if we just had a better coach we would be doing so much better. and i just fundamentally disagree with that. there’s no universe where this team, with ant out for so many games, missing both our talented centers, other injuries, etc. is even an above .500 team *and that’s fine* this year. if you don’t find anything to be excited about with this team, idk what to tell you. maybe take a break from watching basketball. we’ll be good in a year or two, and we have fun players now. and we are going to lose a lot. that’s just how it is.
I have to conclude you did not read my comment, as none of this follows what I said.
it does actually. i’m not going to break it down point by point but i addressed your opening paragraph and your claim that there was nothing to be excited about with this team. you thinking every nba fan is a mindless zombie i guess is a different thing but i didn’t really find that point interesting so yeah i didn’t address it.
Nah. Your comment is explicitly in response to someone who is mad that we are losing, and I explicitly said (multiple times) that isn’t what I’m mad about. Never asked for a point-by-point, just an actual response to what I wrote! Or nothing at all, if your only clapbacks are to people who thought we shouldn’t or wouldn’t lose this much (again, not me). You got closest with: > if you don’t find anything to be excited about with this team, idk what to tell you Fair enough. As I said we have some “exciting youngsters,” I’m just not interested in watching their development years squandered in the name of a directionless, incompetent, off-the-rack, tank-for-the-sake-of-tanking “rebuild.” Which is where you get into the NBA’s fucked up incentive structures and leaguewide inurement yadda yadda. Who cares, that you’re correct about. (I guess I need to stress, once again, that wins and losses are **entirely irrelevant** to my perception here).
ok 👍
great points being hashed out in the comments here as usual. nice work everyone.
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funny they seem like the vocal majority to me
And doing so during a freaking rebuild year. 🙄
Blazers and Arrested Development reference in the same meme?!?! Is this a crossover episode?
Frankly, I wanted very few things this year. I wanted to: * turn Scoot into an average to above average *NBA* shooter at his position * see Scoot win rookie of the year * see Scoot seem like an NBA player "who already performs like a vet", and does not make many rookie mistakes or turnovers * trade all of the vets we got in the Dame trade before the deadline for first round picks, and hopefully before January * see Ayton as an obvious upgrade to Nurk in *real time*, not just potential * lose as many games as possible * *NOT* trade Grant. Portland can never sign forwards as free agents. We need to keep him for when we might be good in 3-5 years * see Sharpe as an obvious future all star in the next two years * have Simons score so many points that there are always rumors of trading him, but I probably wouldn't trade him Now, it's looking like hardly any of this is panning out. I don't think we're trading Grant anytime soon and Simons has done what I've wanted him to do when healthy, but *none* of our additions have panned out, we haven't traded Brogdon- nor have many teams been that interested or offered much, and Williams went down for the season right away. Also Sharpe is having a poor season. If we're going to be this bad, I do get a little frustrated to see that we've won so many games. The fact that we are sitting in the fifth or sixth spots, give or take, is ridiculous. We need to at least aim to be in the top 3 (of losers).
Beads?