Granted he plays like a wild @ss sometimes but he’s our wild @ss. Plus he’s a great team mate off the court. Go Blazers!

while frustrating at times is a pretty vital piece off the bench. Yeah I scream at him, get pissed and wish for a trade sometimes, but his scoring is really big. If / when we trade him I think the team will have to adjust a bit to not having him out there. I also somewhat disagree with your post. Yes he had a bad game tonight, but what would our record be right now without his 3’s raining down?

his defense is suspect, so that keeps him from being a big player right there.

With that said, he’s great at the other end. we might not like his shuck and jive turnaround jumpers, but he’s 43 percent on the year, including 50 from downtown, as aforementioned.

Three point shooters are a great commoditiy to have.

Don’t think of him like a Gerald Wallace, because he will never be that guy. Instead, think of him like a James Jones+

No dribbling allowed unless there are less than 5 seconds on the shot clock. The 2nd unit should have these players handle the ball in this order Sergio, Rudy………Outlaw…………..Frye, Przybilla. Outlaw’s off the ball defense is awful, his man D is pathetic, and his help defense is passable.

Outlaw is on borrowed time anyways. I’m done talking about him, he’ll be gone next year anyways.

Sergio, Rudy, Martell, Travis, Joel. That looked pretty good (especially on paper, Martell is still not really back). And I would rather take that lineup for a while on the second unit than put Frye back in and thus only have two real scorers. Eventually, Martell could move back in the first and Nic comes into that lineup. Still looks pretty good, and more dangerous with Travis in it than with Frye.

As for Travis himself, his scoring percentages this year are remarkably similar to Rudy’s (except for free throws). Sure, Rudy is a year younger and will only get better with more NBA experience. Still that’s a bit surprising if you see the many contested shots Travis takes, but it’s true. He does make a lot of these, while of course it would be better if he improved his shot selection (e.g. taking all the open threes).

I think he can work well as a power forward in this lineup, except maybe against the most bruising ones which are quite rare among bench players. His speed and athleticism is not amazing against a lot of small forwards, but it’s pretty good against power forwards. He could draw many fouls against slower guys. It would also bring him into a better position to rebound, which he can do with his elevation but often forgets a little and instead just stands and waits for the big guys to try and get it.

When Travis is either shooting open threes or attacking the rack, he’s an asset. He’s even a force at times. His stroke from outside looks great, and he seems to be making more of an effort to drive. Had one nice take in the second half today.

I wholeheartedly agree, though, that it’s strange that he’s still allowed to get away with chucking long twos (especially the fadeaways). He makes them at a terrible clip. There’s absolutely no reason he should have that much rope.

I would say Nate and company think the pros outweigh the cons. Nate’s a great developer of young talent, and Travis HAS made strides under him. I guess Nate doesn’t want to destroy Travis’s confidence by telling him he CAN’T take the long twos and fadeaways, because he’s worried that’ll affect the other areas of his game.

That being said, ever notice how teams like the Spurs don’t let their role players take those types of shots? I think part of the Blazers continued evolution will be figuring out how to make sure guys know their role.

Travis’s role should be threes and attacking the basket. That’s all.

Predators tend to have eyes facing forward, and good binocular vision. Animals that find themselves attracting the attention of those predators tend to have eyes facing to the side, so as to maximize the field of view. Horses have monocular vision.

So … a horse might make a good point guard because he’d be able to see most of the half-court area all at once. However, he would miss a lot of back door plays because of the blind spot directly in front of him. On the other hand, a horse would be nearly unstoppable on the fast break!

but he seems to me to be the only player on the roster getting significant minutes who doesn’t look for the pass first. We have been winning by playing team basketball and I think trout is the only one not realizing so.

is 5. There’s a reason he skipped high school.

no, some people just dont have good bball iq.

He is always trying to “take over the game” and he is not Kobe or Brandon.. He is not that type of player.

Sophia

Nah, he hasn’t regressed.

My opinion of him is unchanged. Love the guy, love his game and his attitude, but ultimately his skills are redundant and there are at least 25 teams who would love to have that guy on the roster, so he’ll probably end up being traded as part of a roster consolidation.

It’s not that Travis is worse this season—in fact, he’s shooting the 3 better than ever—but opposing teams have learned enough about him this season and he hasn’t developed any ways to combat their scheming.

Last season was TO’s “breakout” year. Scouting reports on Travis going into last season would advise teams to make him take the outside jumper. Once teams realized that didn’t work, they adjusted and now try to play him more closely on the outside. Travis hasn’t done anything to adjust to that.

When he catches the ball and puts his head down, you know he’s probably going to shoot it. He is not a threat to make plays for his teammates. That’s the new scouting report on Travis and since teams know he is so one dimensional, and somewhat of a perimeter “black hole” it is much easier to stop him from being effective.

Sure, he’s going to hit his wide open threes at a great clip, and he’s still going to make some one or two dribble difficult pull up shots, but he’s become less effective because he doesn’t do anything else well like slashing to the hoop or passing. To his credit, he’s tried slashing to the hoop more, but he’s not a great finisher and always puts himself in a position where he has to make incredibly tough shots. He’s talented enough to make enough of those tough shots to continue to get playing time and not be seen as a total failure, but it’s still not very effective team ball.

Trade, trade, trade Travis by next summer at the latest.

Even if KP doesn’t want to make a deal in the season, maybe he has identified someone he really wants in the draft (and we know how good KP is at targeting players in the draft—Roy, LMA, Batum, Rudy—and some of them can come in and contribute immediately. Thus, Travis may be a trading chip to help us move up again and snag the guy KP wants.

Outlaw will stay in Portland and will get a couple rings with this team.

The Blazers have three guys willing to step up and score, Roy, Rudy, and Outlaw. Teams have been good at sometimes getting in the way of Roy and Rudy, and then Travis was the only guy on the Blazers making shots during scoring droughts.

I’ve watched more than one game where the Blazers were playing hot potato because they couldn’t get the ball to Rudy or Roy and Outlaw has called for the ball and scored. Everyone else on the floor was afraid to shoot.