Final Grades for Your Portland Trailblazers...

how can someone get a B in the regular season, with a D in the post and end up with a D+??

This was a great season for Travis, he showed greater consistency and was a primary scorer for this team. Yes he didnt play well in the playoffs, but that was against two of the best defenders in the NBA. Not everyone can be Brandon Roy.

People forget how young Travis actually is and how much more he can learn before he hits his peak. He is only going to get better, rebounding and defensively.

My grade for Travis for the entire season and post season would be a B-

great asessment. I am so over the Travis Outlaw experiment. I hope Greg puts in a ton of work in the offseason, doing old school footwork like jumping rope, to gain some better footwork. Developing a jump hook wouldn’t kill him either. I’d also like to see more inside game from Aldridge all season long, not just the last month and a half of the season. Rudy’s the man. Channing’s gotta go, as does sergio. it’ll be interesting to see how Marty fits in next year, and if he helps at all.

one thing i love about blazer game is when they show a shot of the bench and bayless is intently watching studying the game. His offense sucked for sure. But he is definitely a baller. He will be an absolute lock-down defender the Pacific Northwest has not seen since Gary Payton

I think you over-rated Sergio for the season. I dreaded whenever he got time in any close game.

I think though, that what I’m gonna do is this:

This is a great blog, and you are all mostly great guys, but I don’t have the heart to hang around for the coming hate fest. Time to take a break. I’ll see ya all around draft time when things should be interesting. I’ll probably lack the will power to completely take a couple of months off, but the sidebar is already painful to read, I don’t want to see it when the real freaks get cranked up.

This team was fun to watch, they overachieved, and they will be better next year. Most of them will be back, some of them will be gone, the world will turn and the voice of the turtle will be heard throughout the land.

as passionate as you are about some players and hateful about others on our team…i thought this was pretty unbiased and accurate.

and D+ for the playoffs.

Blake Season C+
Blake playoff B
Blake B-

Playoff numbers
FG .512
3 Point .455
6 assists
4 reb
very few TOs

Take away game 1, in which everyone did poorly, he played AB fairly well.

Forget about the regular season. What matters is the playoffs, and the way to win is to have guys come through consistently. Brandon is obvious, and even though you have a couple of games this series when LMA wasn’t so great.. when we really needed him to have a big game LMA delivered. So both players performed according to expectations.

Joel gave us solid play each night. Houston was scared of Rudy, and he had some really good plays on both ends. Blake looked like Sergio out there at times with all the dribble, dribble, dribble, here and there for long periods of time. I cant figure out what happened to him? Oden had glimpses of brilliance just no consistency and mistakes here and there. Credit the Rockets for a good series.

The only solace I can take from this is we will no doubt be better next year. While the Rockets can only stay the same, along with most of the rest of the Western conference. Predict Western conf finals next year.

I love all of the blazers personally and the idea of trading them, even when they are Travis Outlaw, pains me greatly. I am just glad I don’t have to make these decisions.

What makes it harder with Trout is it looks like he has become REALLY good friends with Roy. Man, breaking up good friends is harsh…

Before he was plowed into Maggette, Oden was averaging 12 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks per game in ~25 minutes/game, and seemed to be getting into a rhythm. I also think that the reason for you low grades might be, at least in part, to unrealistic expectations for someone coming off of microfracture surgery.
Did Oden commit stupid fouls at times? Absolutely
Did he get whistled for fouls he didn’t commit? You bet

I think that as referees get more comfortable with him, you’ll see his fouls per game start to drop, as well as with getting more comfortable on the court.

I disagree with the Oden/Outlaw assessments (I would grade both out higher), but even there the analysis is sound. Nicely done

In the spirit of not starting a new fanpost for everytime someone wants to say something, I’ve done my own gradse. These are for the season and playoffs combined. Forgive me if they sound like an nbadraft.net scouting report.

Roy: A. Here, A is for All-Star. Will have an A+ when he becomes a consistent defensive stopper and follows up a 52 point game with more than 8 points.

LMA: A-. Loved his tenacity at the end of the season when he was trying to dunk everything near the rim. Serious strides in removing his ‘soft’ label, but we need more rebounds from out starting PF.

Joel: A+. Took the see-saw with G.O. in stride. All work, no glory. Had a few monster games. Just about every team in the league would like PRYZ on their team. Couldn’t have asked for more.

Blake: B. Consistent production but nothing spectacular. Had a reputation of being a decent defender but I think that was shed pretty definitively this year. Sharp touch from beyond the arc was exactly what we needed this year. Might push the ball pretty well, but is a poor fast-break guy.

Nic: A. A as in, Another great find by KP. Props to myself, as well, because I wanted to draft him too. Even if his offense only becomes as good as Battier, we’ve got a great contributor here. Gonna be great when his body catches up with his talent.

Rudy: A. First guy to win the dunk contest and a three point contest? Is that even allowed? For a rookie, he was great. Had a solid playoffs, but showed he needs to develop consistency and some offense that isn’t a dunk or a 3 pointer. Defense could use some work, but that will come.

Outlaw: C+. DISASTER in the playoffs. Pulled an Uncle Cliffy. Aside from that though, he did reasonably well in the season. Still, his ability to score (sometimes) doesn’t make up for the fact that his defense isn’t ready, he doesn’t rebound, and can’t be relied upon to be that 3rd scorer.

Frye: D. I really wanted Frye to be a part of this team. I love the way he embraces the city. Still, he sucked this year. Part of that was the hype around him coming in from the preseason. Mostly, he can’t defend and he doesn’t have much game outside of a jumper from the free throw line. I think he’s done in Portland.

Sergio: C. Played well for stretches. Did well when Blake was out. Still entertaining to watch, but at this point, I’m ready for more skill. Didn’t help his cause that the rest of the 2nd unit were weak defenders too.

Bayless: D. A bit harsh, but didn’t really contribute. Potential is there, but all of the sudden BEdgers seem to be down on him and his short little arms. Needs time to marinate.

Oden: D. Disclaimer: I have seen Oden play one NBA game. That was game 5 of this playoff series. He played well in the blazers run in that game, but before the run he was terrible. Lots of people say his per-minute-stats are great, which may be fine theoretically, but if he’s not in the game, then he’s not helping the team. People say he affects the game in ways that aren’t recognized in the box score, which I hope is true, because for a number 1 pick, his box score numbers are weak. I really hope he comes around, but I can’t say that I’m confident he will.

because I didn’t see any offense from Travis except in maybe one game.

My problems with Outlaw are because of his abilities; he’s athletic and has the ability to shoot over anyone, yet I can’t count how many shots he passed up only to drive into the teeth of Houston’s defense and then stop short before getting to the rim, lost the ball or missed the shot badly. I wouldn’t have minded the “aggressiveness” of his play if it had resulted in something worthwhile – such as a pass to a perimeter shooter. But to me the message to Outlaw about being aggressive didn’t compute apparently because it didn’t affect his thinking on shot selection or passing to an open man. Yeah, its nice to try and create something and to be aggressive but what Outlaw did was pretty much ineffectual because it was only half the equation.

My grade for Outlaw is a C overall.

Which leads me to the rest of the role players on the team not named Brandon, LaMarcus or Joel. I can’t say Outlaw’s performance was too far out of the norm when considering the rest of the team in this playoff series. To a man, they all were tentative on offense and defense. It was the classic dear in the headlights experience for all of them, so skewering Outlaw misses the point of what happened to this team over all: We simply didn’t match up against Houston mentally.

They adjusted their game to Houston, and didn’t force Houston to adjust their game to them. I heard an interesting take on why the L*kers have had their way with Houston all season and we haven’t been able to get a break through. LA focuses on outscoring Houston, not committing to defend Yao at all costs and hoping to contain whoever is hot for Houston that night. A more experienced team would have realized that and not depend on missed shots by Houston but force the tempo every moment in order to keep their defense from being a factor. That, however wouldn’t really even cross the mind of Nate McMillan the defensive specialist and that is why this matchup was the worst matchup Portland could have drawn.

That’s not to say the result of the series should be looked at like an indictment of McMillan, but rather just an assessment of the inexperience of the team in general to know how take advantage of the situation they found themselves in. I have no doubt that McMillan wanted them to push the tempo and limit Houston’s ability on the defensive end of the floor. it just didn’t happen because the only guys on the team that had the poise and wits about them were named Brandon, LaMarcus and Joel who get an A+, B- and A from me respectively.

As far as recommendations as to who should pack their bags and who should be coming back next fall I’m not at all ready to pass judgement. I’d have to think it over after the sting of today’s loss has passed…. It may be a month or two before I join that conversation.

That was funny. Did you come up with that?

I used to have a wet shot in HS….but when I was working out hard, my jumper went all over the place. Your arms are either too heavy or too strong(depending on what side of recovery you are playing).

Bayless had a much better shot in summer league. Did anyone notice how much bigger he got during the season? Most players get smaller from all the activity that goes alogn with playing the season. When lookign at Bayless’ shot while wide open, they looked nothing like nor showed the touch he had in summer league. Quite frankly he missed just like I did when I was working out.

I got a feeling he will figure this out and cut his 3 work-outs a day even on game-days down. It will do his jumper good!

Ultimate Fail!

Although I would lower M’Lady’s postseason grade. For a supposed second option he was really really lacking. And his defense quite frankly was awful.

is pretty hilarious. He got about 8 meaningful minutes in the 6 games. That’s not enough time to flounder even if you spend all 6 minutes doing poorly, which he did not. In fact, in his only stint of more than 3 minutes in non-garbage time, he played excellently (2nd q of game 5).

for Playoffs, Sergio gets an INC as far as i’m concerned.

and Nice an INC…

Once Aldridge turned into “Beast Mode” this team was extremely tough to beat, and I felt he keyed our 2nd half of the season.

And Nic gets an INC because this was just a terrible matchup for him. We all knew that Houston was probably the worst matchup for him and Portland because his offensive game is pretty limited. Although he might actually deserve some credit, because when he started Ron Ron never really got going…

Yeah the guy is limited offensively but he played every game through injuries and he did the dirty work all season long. Without Joel our team woulda got pushed off the court every night. I’m not sure Joel was capable of any more this season so he gets the max grade from me.

Thank you Joel.

He was the 7th leading scorer with defense that is a little “suspect”.

Roy: A- or A

How many C’s would you rather have them him? 15? 20?

Joel: B-

This pleases me.

I give it a solid B.