Bottom line…Rudy is a 6th Man typa guy. He is smart and can score in bunches. When Nate calls his number he can come in and be the difference maker that he is. Rudy Fernandez is a game changing player!

Starting 5
,
PG- Blake
SG- Roy
SF- Webster
PF- Aldridge
C- Oden

Closing 5

PG- Roy
SG- Fernandez
SF- Outlaw
PF- Aldridge
C- Oden

Good luck to the rest of the NBA Teams!!!

Is Sergio really this improved? If he plays like he did last night, we won’t be able to keep him off the floor, if that happens, what does KP do with Blake/Bayless/Sergio? One of them will have to go…that is a good problem to have I guess.

that Blake is going to be as good if not better than our current pg’s (S-rod and Bayless only). Remember, Blake has been working on developing a rapport with Oden, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a better performance than the other 2 guards.

I think what we saw yesterday from our pgs was due to the presence of our big guy, rather than because of the individual improvements of the players themselves. Sergio was always a great facilitator, and his main improvement was being able to knock down the 3. But it’s not fair to Blake when we prematurely say that he’s going to ride the pine to give these guys minutes, when he hasn’t even had a chance to show us what he’s capable of with Oden on the floor.

College football fans please don’t attack me for saying this, but our “predicament” seems eerily similar to USC football, in that they have a bunch of all americans at every position, and Carroll makes them compete for playing time. And honestly, I doubt any of us would have a problem with McMillan emulating Carroll’s success, would we?

seems designed to allow for just such a scenario. We’ll hear a lot about how Rudy and Roy can’t defend quick, little rascally PGs. But, the team can. It’s not like there’s going to be anywhere for them to go. Paul can burn Roy or Rudy, and still see Aldridge and Oden.

In our cases, a PG burning us would mean a J. That’s cool. Let em rain.

TiH was right. Roy and Rudy will play a lot together.

Still, one game shouldn’t make us ready to change our lineups. Let’s see what happens tonight. Two’s plenty.

Was that Rudy has vision, he has a capacity to make players better. We have other players that can do that but at the expense of their own game. It has been said that the team needs to speed the game up, more easy points. Rudy as a PG does that, not that Sergio doesn’t but lets face it, Even after Sergio’s performance last night he still is very weak on D. Rudy understands the defensive part of the game. I loved how he took away the ability of a player to beat him by attacking on D. Making the offensevie player react to Rudy’s D rather then Rudy waiting for the offensive player to make his move and Rudy having to respond to it. The Blazers don’t have a guard who can attack the rim as fast (key word FAST) as Rudy on the team. Esecially who can pass and shoot as well as Rudy. I go thru the league and can only find 4 PG’s that he would really have problems with (at least till draft picks develope) Those same four would really strugle against him too. Luckily the Blazers have a head coach that makes these decisions. I trust the coaching and talent and will have a blast this year.

As most of you have no doubt noticed, one of the best parts of Rudy’s game is his passing, and his ability to generate assists. Keep in mind, though, that not all assists are equal. Some players generate a lot of assists by penetrating and then passing the ball out to shooters on the perimeter. Rudy is a bit different: most of his assists come from either passing to a player who is cutting to the rim, or by passing to a big who has established good position near the basket. What’s good about this is that Rudy’s passes result in a lot of high-percentage shots(dunks), instead of somewhat lower-percentage jumpers. The bad part of rudy’s passing game is that his spectacular post entry passes can be very difficult to catch. I noticed a few of Rudy’s passes bouncing of the Gasols’ hands during the Olympics, and the first 2 times Rudy made his post entry passes in the game vs Sacramento Aldridge bobbled the passes and missed opportunities for easy dunks.

So Rudy can make some great post entry passes, but the players he is passing to must have good hands or they will miss some good opportunities and cause some turnovers. So the question you have to ask is: who do you want to be on the receiving end of Rudy’s spectacular post entry passes? Joel Przybilla or Greg Oden? The choice should be obvious.

Of course, passes flow in the other direction as well. Roy and Oden are excellent passers, and Roy, Oden, and LMA will all draw double teams pretty often. Ideally we would be able to pair them with some good spot-up shooters who can stretch out the defense and hit open shots if the opponents try to double team. Rudy is one of the best (likely the best) shooters on our team, so he should be effective at punishing any team that tries to double team the big 3.

If Rudy plays the point in the starting lineup, who will defend quick point guards? Rudy will of course. Rudy has the fastest time on our team on the Lane Agility Test (which measures lateral movement speed), and it’s not even close. Rudy does have a tendency to gamble on defense, but he also forces a ton of turnovers so I think we come out ahead on those gambles, especially when we have Greg Oden protecting the rim. I think those quick point guards will have a lot of trouble defending Rudy as well, given Rudy’s speed, shooting, and height advantage.

Rudy is not only one of our best players, he is also a great fit with our other top players. We should play him together with the starters as much as possible, especially with Greg Oden. Rudy and Greg will end up making each other a lot better.