Most everything Sergio related recently can be taken two ways:

Talks for 2 hours in exit interview-
A. He needed a long time have want he needed to do drilled into his skull
B. He was genuinely trying to cover all bases on what he need to do during the summer

Appeared to get angry/sad when questioned by Spanish media about his playing time-
A. He hates Nate and feels he deserves time
B. He feels very passionately about basketball and at least he isn’t pulling a Jason Williams were he is glad to be bounced from the playoffs.

Didn’t come over for summer league-
A. Doesn’t want to do the little things to make it into the rotation
B. I find this perplexing. Why does he need to be at summer league? Does he have to fly halfway around the world from his home so he can be that practice dummy for Rex and Kopenen? Its not like he was going to get PT at the PG spot, and no one wants to see him play SG.

Didn’t make the Spanish national team:
A. He’s in the NBA, he should make it.
B. Spain’s team is really good, its no shame not to make it. And really, he isn’t the type of PG you want at the end of bench to play spot minutes. He needs run to get a rhythm (I think every one can agree with that), and in he didn’t play well last year and his confidence is shot, thats three strikes.

Potential, potential, potential. Sergio has it and Taurean Green doesn’t.

      He can run, and jump. Athletically speaking !

    COINCAST/DIRECTV/CHARTER = 3 MONKEYS
         BRING BACK OUR BLAZERS TO SO. OREGON !!!

and thus, Sergio gets minutes on my team. I love the other guys on this team, and I think they’ll be better overall players, but Sergio is the best pure point guard on this team. If he does the things you outlined Dave, he should be the one getting the extension not Blake (3 Million Less). The whole thing will come down to whether his shot can improve or not. We see Sergio’s potential every game with the Raptors. If Jose Calderon could come around, especially shooting the ball, theres no reason Sergio can’t. Sergio is leaps and bounds better than Calderon was at this point in his career. We all saw the articles about potentially getting Calderon last season, and partially this offseason. I honestly don’t think Nate is willing to give Sergio the kind of PT he’ll need to prove himself. That most likely means he’ll be among the next off the island, but I don’t think it’ll be his fault.

In another thread I did a break down of Sergio’s minutes, and how well over 90% of those minutes came with Jarrett Jack as the teams SG. In comparison, he was on the court with Roy for under 10% of his minutes. If that isn’t a recipe for failure, I don’t know what is.

The basics about why you keep him:
1. You want to run
2. He’s our best passer
3. He gets people in their groove (most unselfish player on the team)
4. Chemistry and kinship with Rudy
5. His ceiling is higher than Blake’s (by a lot)

http://www.blazersedge.com/2008/8/23/598720/could-the-love-come-back#8286853

that Sergio was going to come over in mid-August to start working, but I haven’t seen a word about it lately (and I cannot find the original post/news either.) It’s way past mid-August …

He needs some “Calderón-work” mentality due to improve his shot and his defense, but he needs to play more often to prove he can be a good PG in the league & his coach gotta believe in his possibilities too. If Nate don’t believe, the best Portland can do is trade him.
One of the more important thing to succeed in NBA he already got it, Talent.

I couldn’t agree more with your points Dave. Sergio has a much better opportunity this year than last, and not because any room was cleared at PG, but because of the new capabilities this team will have at other positions. As you said, no one can run the break like Sergio—and we should certainly be seeing more breaks with both of the two-towers on the floor. And I also believe of all our guards, he can run the pick and roll better than anyone. The problem till now is that we had no one ‘rolling’ on the pick and roll, only pick and poppers. But with Oden, Sergio’s ability to drive and dish to cutters going to the hoop will finally get some traction.

Imagine if in place of every Magloire Fumbled Pass we get a Two-Handed Oden Dunk—Sergio’s assists-per-minute will double.

All that said, it is up to Sergio. He has to bring it to training camp this year. He has to believe he can win those minutes and show everyone what he can do. Roy missing pre-season has the potential to really give him that extra opportunity to show it. We won’t have to wait too much longer to find out.

is can he finish at the basket. Of course outside shooting is a main concern, but his speed and quickness allow him to get to the hoop easily, but then he looks terrible trying to finish. If the kid can hit wide open shots AND finish in the half court, Sergio can get more PT. Bif ifs though.

On paper it sure does look like it’s going to be tough for Sergio. He struggled for playing time and opportunity last season and that was playing with Jarret Jack and the eventually traded Green. All we did was add Bayless and Fernandez, Nates already dreaming up ways of using Fernandez and watching Bayless you kind of get the feeling that unless Bayless spits in Nates milk he’s going to be the type of player Nate likes. So where does Sergio get his opportunity? Bayless, Rudy and Sergio all need development and as a team we are moving away from the “experimental-development” phase into the “let’s start winning now” phase.

Plain and simple barring injury It’s going to be tough. I just wonder if The Blazers handling of Sergio hasn’t technically been a mistake. What we heard the previous summer was that several teams had interest in Sergio. We signed Green and re-obtained Blake. Maybe last Summer was the time to let Sergio go? I have no idea what offers could of been developed or might of been made but Sergio is just in such a tough spot here. Or, if you have that much faith in Sergio, then perhaps you don’t give a contract to a Taurean Green or Obtain a Steve Blake. You create and opportunity and suffer or bask in the results. Now it’s too late. The Blazers went .500 for the season and expectations are high. 3-4 years ago we would of and could of give Sergio a little more experimental development time and freedom. I don’t see it existing anymore.

I was also a little disappointed and in Sergio’s reported post season comments about losing his love of the game and not having fun. Sounded too much like Darius Miles when faced with adversity, saying the game wasn’t fun anymore. Maybe something was lost in translation, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but if the game isn’t fun I say WORK AT IT. I’d be suprised if this season is much different for Sergio, either he’s going to suprise everyone and prove his rookie season moments weren’t flukes and it’s going to be a lot of fun for him, or I think Sergio fades into oblivion and in the future we get reports of him and Joe Freeland bagging groceries.

Every season usually has it’s share of suprises, some good, some bad. My money was secretly on Ike Diogu becoming a fan favorite but you could place a small wager on Sergio regaining some of his love of the game and once again stirring up the phrase “Spanish Chocolate”. Perhaps nobody on the entire roster has more to gain or lose in this upcoming season. I’d also have to say that if I think back to his rookie year Sergio demonstrated skills that clearly weren’t flukes, the guy does have skill. Now he has to expand and become a N.B.A. player. It’s an interesting side story to the upcoming season.

I never post because you always say what I think and then leave me nothing to argue with.

It comes down to Sergio. We need his choas off the bench but he’s going to have to force himself in there. I think he’s going to do it and thus we are just that much more scary. He showed it to me during last years season ender to PHX. He is going to get one season to prove himself while being Rudy’s inturpritor, Get yourself off the bench in the 2nd quarter and show that the offense soars when your in the game.

Sergio is, IMO, the biggest unknown on the Blazers. If he shows signs of living up to his ‘potential’ and shows improvement in his shooting and defensive performance (yes, Dave, I’ll mention defense even if you won’t), I could see KP use either Blake or Bayless as trade bait, combined with Webster at the trade deadline, looking for an immediate upgrade at SF – letting Sergio handle the backup PG duties.

If he continues to show nothing but potential, then I think that 2008-09 will be the last season we’ll see Sergio in a Blazer uniform.

sure, it’s good to be fair to him.

barring a miracle or an injury, he’s no better than the 10th man on a team that is supposed to make the playoffs. if he’s going to blossom in any meaningful way, it won’t be here.

so i’m going to go ahead and treat Sergio like taxes, and write him off.

if he proves me wrong, that will be a great feeling. in the meantime, im going to youtube jerryd bayless.

He’s a player on my favorite team. I like the players on my favorite team to do well so that the team does well.

Let me start by saying I did not follow Rodriguez closely enough in his first season to develop any defensive attitude to people criticizing the guy. In general I celebrate and seek out good criticism of the team, especially of the Walton and Drexler sacred cows, but people were mighty touchy over Rodriguez. In fact I was a little bewildered at all the hype. I figured, he’s a rookie, he has good per-minute stats, but let’s not get too excited; in the meantime, my friends were like, “They gotta play Sergio more than Jack. He’s way better,” and statistically they did have an argument.

Well, whenever I saw him, it was always in scrub minutes where — to take an example from a wonderful game against Memphis this year — he was throwing half-court alley-oops to Travis Outlaw. I wouldn’t call these “flashes of brilliance”; more like the “spoils of victory”. If your team is up big, and you are stealing the ball from, say, an indifferent Kyle Lowry and tossing alley-oops to Travis Outlaw, you are going to have great per-minute stats like the rookie Rodriguez. I’d wager that Danny Young would have demonstrated as many “flashes of brilliance” if he subbed in the fourth with the Blazers demolishing the Grizzlies.

What we forgot about Rodriguez’s second year is that, up through November, Rodriguez was actually playing more minutes per game than his first year average. In fact he was the first player off the bench to substitute for Brandon Roy. So much for the “McMillan hates Spaniards” argument. All right, then what happened? Well, just about everything fans have observed. His play was consistently mediocre throughout the season. His per-minute statistics were off, and he generally had a surly attitude about the game and his standing on the team. I saw him personally in the game at Chicago, and he sulked for the four minutes he was in, missing two shots and committing a stupid foul. At the time I wondered if he was getting that surly ex-pat attitude some people get after living and working overseas for a long period of time. I mean, it happened to me.

He is twenty-two years old, nearly a full year younger than our beloved Rodolfo Fernandez. I can’t say that he’d be putting up Fernandez-like numbers in the Euroleague, but they would have comparable win-scores and PER, I am guessing. Still, as I said, he is twenty-two. And as Kevin Pritchard has repeatedly emphasized, they are comfortable waiting on Rodriguez. If he had attended a four-year college, he would be entering the league this year. Whether playing two years of sloppy ball in the NBA have harmed his game, in comparison to the NCAA or Euroleague experience, well, I think the statistics explain themselves, as well as the hundreds of thoughtful BE posts on Rodriguez. It would have done him a world of good to stick it out in the D-League for the second half of last year.

My thought is that Bayless has been greatly overrated (based mostly on a few summer league games.) He has a long way to go to be a PG in the NBA. I’m not even sure he will fit in with the team. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see him traded sometime within the next year.

This following post done by Longviewdawg at O’Live yesterday sums up my thoughts quite well (I’m not sure about the college history though as I didn’t much follow Bayless there). The post was done in retaliation to an assertion that Bayless should start over Blake and therefore had nothing to do with Sergio. However it does relate ‘cuz if the shortcomings that Longviewdawg and I perceive in Bayless’ game are accurate, it would set the stage for Sergio to play a bigger role with the team this year than most are expecting..

posted by longviewdawg on 08/23/08 at 12:37PM
rdh123:

Blake is world’s better than Bayless at point guard. Bayless really has no clue how to play the position. You think Jack was bad with turnoverz, Bayless is much worse and is less skilled at this point that Jack. Bayless was 50% more likely to comit a turnover against NCAA competion than Jack against NBA competion. Blake is in elite company when it comes to initiating the offense without turning the ball over. Against, extremely weak summer league competion, Bayless has a negative turnover ratio exceeding 3:1. Blake had a positive turnover ratio of plus 3.5:1 against strong NBA competion.

You think Bayless will start at point. It’s ridiculous. When was the last time the top point guard in the PAC10 became a regular starter in the NBA? Bayless was a bad point guard last season and led his team to a horrible finish…losing 9 of the last 13 games…with 2 of the4 wins over Oregon State. He was 22nd in the PAC10 in assist to turnover ratio on a team that played at a rather slow pace. Three players on his own team had better ratios than Bayless.

Somehow you are ignoring his tryout at point in Summer League when he led the Blazer to exactly 2 points in 10 minutes and showed almost no passing skills through out. It was so bad, he had to be replaced in the middle of his supposed opportunity to prove himself even though it was only summer league.

After watching Bayless, Roy said: “Bayless IS NOT A POINT GUARD.” He’s an undersized shooting guard that can’t defend his position. At 6’ 1.75" and with short arms, he can’t guard most NBA shooting guards without leaving his feet…and you don’t want him leaving his feet on defense.


Bayless is a scorer… but he’s going to struggle trying to go the rack like he did in summer league. He’ll quickly be scouted and forced to his weak left hand where even the slightest bump causes him to lose control of the ball. (He lost control four times in a row in SL…regaining one by grabbing it with both hands. He also had the ball stolen 3 times (twice in a row) as he tried to transition from right to left hand. On most finishes on the left side of the basket he switched to his right, and on drives on the leftt side he would take one dribble with his left (looking down at the ball) and then switch to his right….even with defenders on his right.

You’ve let points scored obscure you objectivity. On many drives to the lane he had no prayer of scoring,but got bailed out by the usual overly exuberant whistles of SL refs. 95% of the time he failed to get the ball even close to the rim and I don’t believe he had more than 1 basket the entire summer league after being fouled.(no matter how lightly. Jack wasn’t a good finisher, Bayless is worse.

It seems to me that you are holding Surgio to a higher standard than, say Steve Blake, who you are willing to give a pass to because he’s STEADY. I’d love to see Blake do all of the aforementioned things that you are saying Sergio needs to do in order to get time on the floor.
It’s just one man’s observation, but do we hold Sergio to a higher standard because he has….let’s face it. A very special skill set that not many players have, and that’s the abillity to play at a fast pace, and make the great thread the needle pass. Not to mention, by all accounts, teamates love to have him on the court.

What about Jarrett Jack?