Yet if he plays with a true second unit rotation then he’s got Jerryd Bayless (scorer) on one side and Travis Outlaw (scorer) on the other.

Jerryd wants to be a PG, is at pains to say he’s a PG. Sure, he can score. But if he’s got a shooter/slasher/scorer like Rudy open, he’s going to want to find him.

And Rudy is not just a shooter. He’s a slasher, too. He’ll go just as hard to the hoop as Jerryd does, and draw fouls just like Jerryd. Offensively, Rudy brings everything Jerryd does, I believe, and is a better shooter from distance (though Jerryd is certainly a good shooter).

I do agree that Jerryd is more likely to get significant PT this year. The simple reason for that is that he is competing with Steve Blake and Sergio Rodriguez for playing time, while Rudy is competing with Brandon Roy. But there is the other factor that Rudy’s European experience and age advantage probably has him much more NBA-ready than Jerryd is after one season of NCAA ball.

I will not be surprised to see Rudy and Roy at guard to close out games this year. I’m not saying it will happen, but it won’t be any big surprise if Rudy earns that spot next to Roy in crunch time instead of Jerryd. Or it may simply be dictated by matchups, if they both bring the kind of offense I think they will. All three may play together at times.

Jerryd is likely, in the long term, to get more PT than Rudy, but I’m not certain about this year. In the long term, we may have such an embarrassment of riches at SG that we have to trade Rudy.

The only contrary opinion from the Blazers might be KP’s assertion that Rudy will be a starter this year. I don’t get that Coach Nate is onboard with that at all yet. But I do think there will be some teams who cannot deal with Rudy and Roy on the floor at the same time so Rudy’s competition might not be Roy or Bayless or Blake but the matchup presented.

I have listened to folks for several years say Mario Chalmers is a short SG. But he led a deep team in assists while being a primary scorer, The same is true of Rudy, He led his team in assists and his coach’s offense may have been designed to facilitate multi-dimensional players (as Rudy’s development would suggest). Mario did demonstrate at least in summer league that he is a natural PG and he may even start for Miami this year. Rudy’s challenge in the NBA is the same as most rookies except he has played against more mature players at a high level longer than any college players. By the end of the year I expect the player to be losing playing time is Blake. It will be fun to watch and your cautions are good.

Don’t you think Rudy will at least fill the rotation spot of James Jones? He will have to adjust to the 3 point line, but to me, he would seem to have that spot open for him for the taking. (not James’ role, just his minutes, rudy can do more than just hit the open 3)

It is so difficult to tell what happens in October. We can only speculate, as many times as I have heard Nate say who the starters are going to be at the beginning of the year. I’ve heard KP talk about Rudy having the capability to be a starter playing in the second toughest league in the world and how good Bayless was at Summer league.

Starting lineups can change from one game to the next. That is what happened last year. Jack was the starter. When the Blazers changed to Blake they took off. It is all going to depend on what happens during preseason. How players work together. I believe that you will need to have a facilitator on the floor at all times. From what I have seen from Roy, Blake and Bayless in summer league and AZ/OR games that the two facilitators are Roy and Blake. Rudy may or may not be. If Rudy is closer to Roy in his skills he may work with Bayless. I feel that if you start both Blake and Roy you diminish your second unit. Having the two guards coming into the league as new players will bring a huge learning curve. Allowing them to play with one or the other of the current guards will help. The success you will have with Roy playing with either Rudy or Bayless might make more sense. As you can then sub Blake in with either Rudy or Bayless and have the facilitator needed. I do think that Blake deserves to start. It just might not be what is best for the team. In all of this assuming, it’s amazing how easy it is to forget that Sergio is still on this team. Someone is going to sit.

Nothing to argue with. However, if you recall how KP and Roy talk about Bayless complementing Roy’s skills, you might also wonder if Fernandez may have some of those skills as well. Granted, defending points seems to be the key. Bringing the ball up the court, passing to Roy and going into motion while Roy sets up the play may also be something Fernandez can do. Certainly, I’ve never heard anyone critisizing his ball-handling. However, whether it’s first or second unit, it still comes down to who defends the point. Roy wants the guy who plays with him to do that – so he can take the 2 guard. All in all though, I like these 4 guards. Rudy may, for example, be the long range shooter we need at times – which he seemed to do well at in Europe. And that will offset the loss of Jones. To be candid, I like the two units we have. Granted, I still think they need the first 40 games to really gel. But if they can get a split or close in the first 1/2, then we should see them steadily improve into a strong unit. And, keep in mind, Rudy gave up a lot of money for peanuts in comparison, which says a lot about his desire. 20 million Euro’s net translates into $50 million US gross, which is interesting, in that, at least in Europe, they were willing to pay him the equivalent of $10 million US to stay.

I think the beauty of this debate is obvious, how many minutes through out a NBA season can B Roy get extra rest now …. maybe 5 mins extra in real games and probably up to 20 or more in blowouts or comfortable lead games. Bayless and or Rudy should find plenty of mins minus Jack , and any extra time that B Roy gets on the bench is just gravy. I have read many stories of how Bayless will fit with B Roy so well because he can D up on the point but play the shooting guard position letting Roy be the play make, this I think will fit Rudy perfectly also, from what Ive seen this guy is a play maker also. What a great problem to be stuck with….....an worst case scenario one or the other doesn’t work out and KP trades him for a 2012 lottery pick!

Rather than looking at who best fills Jack’s vacant spot, let’s look at the 96 guard minutes and how they might be best filled. Assuming Roy will play 36+ minutes a game, how do the other 60 get split up?

First, how many PG-like minutes will Roy play? If he has the ball in his hands for much of the 4th quarter and intermittently during the rest of the game, let’s say he’s PG about 16 minutes and SG about 20. That leaves about 28 SG minutes and 32 PG minutes to fill. Since none of our likely-to-play guards are “pure” PGs (leaving Sergio and Koponen out of the picture), what will be the most productive split among Blake, Bayless, and Fernandez? I don’t buy the argument that Roy should never have to defend PGs, but let’s say only 1/2 of the time he’s playing PG will he guard a PG (i.e., 8 minutes/game). Not every point guard is super-quick and almost no one can guard super quick PGs one-on-one, but I’ll readily concede B-Roy shouldn’t be chasing a PG the whole time he’s on the floor. Conversely, super-quick, short PGs will have to defend Roy when he’s in PG mode.

So we’re back to splitting up 40 minutes of PG time (including 8 minutes of PG defense) and 20 minutes of SG time. I see Blake and Bayless splitting the lion’s share of the PG minutes and Rudy picking up most of the SG minutes.

Matchups may determine the game-to-game splits, but I don’t think we should approach it by saying who between Bayless and Fernandez gets Jack’s minutes.

While I favor the “good-enough-point-guard-who-best-complements-Roys” approach to filling the PG position, I do think that Nate needs to better define Roy’s role so the best complement to him(Roy) and the rest of the team is found. In the Quick opus on Roy we learned that he’s working on his off-ball skills (better SG skills) and his dislike of guarding PGs (and his pleasure in seeing that Bayless may be able to guard PGs). While I want Roy to be a happy camper, it also seems reasonable to me that Roy be given clearer guidance/coaching on what he should be doing instead of just conforming to what he elects to do.

Sorry guys i havent had a chance to read the whole thread so i’ll just say what i know.

I’ve been lucky enough to see Rudy play for Spain both in Japan and the WC06 and also at Eurobasket in Madrid. Dont worry about his potential, the guy is special. There are plenty of Euro players that can catch and shoot and run the floor in the NBA. This guy is much more, that’s why he has big raps, they know it, it’s no myth.

Firstly, he’s ready for the NBA, dont worry about the strength of his body, a few years of high-level Euro bball is tough, it’s not like he’s coming from NCAA (no offense to NCAA). Having said that, we’re gonna see several years of improvement from him in all areas, he wont be a star right away.

IF the Blazers can gel offensively, he will be within a few years, one of the harder guards to defend in the league. Comparing him to Kevin Martin is good, but his shot is harder to defend (he needs less time to release and has a more pure action, though K-Mart still gets the job done:)), he is just as quick, and he has the unseen qualities to thrive and make a team better at both ends at the highest level, it’s proven.

Theoretically, his game fits the NBA more than Euro. He thrives on space. His fitness and pace afford him the luxury of chosing where to spend his energy. We should see this benefit him more in the NBA the way it is played.

My only concern is the obvious question of team structure. See what you think of this: To me, nothing is more obvious than PLAY ROY AT PG. The offense goes through him anyway, so why not? He will score 20+ in any event, setting up plays every other time, and taking the best defender. That’s the basis of this team. Before long, Rudy will drill any 2nd defender at SG. Then you have Oden at C with the luxury of going big or small with Aldridge switching at 3/4, and you use the other guys to fill in the gaps. This means the shortest guy is 6’6, which will exploit plenty of team defenses. I think this is worth a shot with guys they have. Bayless is young, he can still play 20+ mpg resting Roy and filling in the gaps elsewhere, as he finds his feet.

Looks like Rudy is bringing new bloggers in from Europe who’ve watched him for years, while we poor ground bound Americans are eagerly waiting to open the present to see just what pops out.

Let me add something I’m curious about, although it’s a little off topic. Picked up a piece on Hoopsworld which commented on Ike Diogu, the #9 first round 2005 pick that we got along with Bayless. They think he’s a real under the radar player who may surprise us, because injuries his first two years kept him from developing. Mac said a few things when he first saw him play, but then, the excitement over Bayless/Fernandez/Oden in combination with the idea that Ike was a throw-in kind of caused him to drop off the screen. However, a healthy Ike has had some pretty good ppg/rpg numbers on a minutes played basis.

Are we all maybe missing something here.? This kid is 24, starting his third year, was a second team all – american, and led the Pac-10 in scoring (22.8ppg), rebounding (9.8rpg), and blocks, 2.34/game. In his three year college career, he was never injured and played every game. There were certainly a lot of people high on him in 05. Mac thinks, that at 255, he can be a real inside old school in your face power forward. If so, will we see more of him than we think?

I was excited about Diogu when he came into the league and I always thought that he would make a decent backup PF, possibly a starter somewhere down the line. He´s been unfortunate with injuries and hopefully he will get some minutes and play himself into being a useful piece for us. He´s a banger, big body and I´m happy that we have him.

Thanks for the input. As I looked at what happened in Golden State (Nelson – he of the run, run, run school), and then Indy, (injured and meant to play behind O’Neal) I think I’ll pay a little more attention to Ike. Let’s face it, if he’s healthy, and if he can keep mpg performance statistics up, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to consider that if Oden stays healthy, and given Frye did a decent job at center last year, that Diogu’s muscle and Fryes finesses could make a pretty good 2nd team combo. Which could then give us another trading chip – as long as Diogu gets enough playing time to merit attention.

Good points. We get so focussed on the how to fit the talent together, that we tend to forget that just as it’s likely that the twin towers up front will cause a lot of headaches for a lot of teams, that it’s equally likely that the combo of Roy, Bayless the hard nosed terminator, and Rudy the long and lanky quick shot artist, may ultimately create similar problems for the guards. We may have 4 pretty good ones – and if they mature like we suspect and hope over the year – Mac will have every opportunity to create mismatches. I still like our line-up these days, young or not. Go thru the whole roster. Who has a 2nd center as good as Pryz? Who has a couple of backup PF’s like Frye and Diogu? I still like Outlaw in a lot of sets at SF as well. After all, he got a lot of pts at PF, so now that he’s moving to SF, who can defense him – if they couldn’t at PF? Playing time. That’s the key now. We have finesse players, and we have power players. Some were concerned about Frye’s board work. Well, a 255lb old school PF like Diogu along side a 285 lb Oden could surely change that scenerio.

Yeah definietly good to talk about the backup cast, as we just saw with the Celtics, depth can be a big help down the stretch. Having said that, if you build a good enough starting 5, there will always be veterans willing to jump ship and fill roles off the bench on a title contending teams, and a team is a living thing, it changes a little every game, but it’s good to know you have talent and energy to run riot while your stars are on the pine.

On the issue of defending a player like Chris Paul… as a pure gun PG, i think you actually need to worry more about guarding the other players on his team when he has the ball. The Hornets want you to focus as much as possible on Paul, because in reality they know he cannot be shutdown, and the more you focus on him the more it opens up the rest of the Hornets team. So i wouldnt worry about who plays on him.

Good points also on Ike. A hard working big man like that can alleviate pressure on the stars and free them up to do their thing more affectively, ie if the Blazers decide to go big, then play Ike at PF and watch LA tear up any 3-spot defenders. I can see plenty of flexibility in this team, they just have to Gel.

PS – has anyone seen Ricky Rubio from Spain? He took Sergio’s spot on their Olympic team, I havent seen him play but he has pretty big raps on the kid. There is speculation he could be a number 1 pick as early as next draft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Rubio
Anyone that can lead Euroleague with 3+ steals per game in under 20 mins at the age of 16/17 and drop a quadruple double at an international event is a freak. Sorry to change the subject btw.

They are definitiely homers!!

Rising:

Portland Trail Blazers: Despite all the rain and overcast weather, the future is bright out in the great Northwest…really bright. The Blazers are positioned to become a one of the league’s better teams over the next 10 years. Thanks to GM Kevin Pritchard, they have a roster overflowing with highly-touted youngsters. Every year it seems they add at least three quality draft picks to an already stacked roster. Last year they finished 41-41 and barely missed the playoffs. Now, studs Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge welcome former #1 overall pick Greg Oden into the mix. And the scary part is some analysts believe he’ll have to battle for this season’s Rookie of the Year award with Spanish import Rudy Fernandez. (Jerryd Bayless is an explosive scorer, as well.) Moreover, Portland is going to be far enough under the cap to be a major player in the free-agent market next summer, where there will be some special players up for grabs. Pritchard has done a terrific job assembling an up-and-coming roster, now he just needs to prove he can consolidate a few of those young, valuable pieces into an established veteran than can help lead the neophytes to the next level.

You’d think I could spell weighs(not weights), and definitely (not definitiely). Ah well. Back to school.