He has a SG’s game in a PG’s body. He might become a good PG if he learns to see the whole floor, He’s build like a smaller Jason Kidd, but he dribbles and attacks with his head down.

I don’t know how easy it is to teach the flow of the whole game. A lot of it comes naturally. Brandon has it, Rudy has it, and maybe Nic.

I think Jerryd is a work very much in progress and it might take another couple years to see where he’s going.

He is Bayle-rific at getting to the basket. His defense is Bayle-tastic. His ball handling = Baylicious. He’s already getting me excited about next season.

When I think about these 4 Blazer rookies… I like Batum’s smooth, Rudy’s big shots, Oden’s dominant power… but when I saw Bayless’ fire during Blake’s absence, I screamed at the TV in joy, I’d talk up Bayless to the person next to me… I’d giggle because he has the gifts the Blazers need.

They need the in your face perimeter defense, that guy who can dribble down the lane and then, instead of a lay up, BOOM SHAKA LAKA… he slams it with force.

This summer league, I’m looking for Bayless to do two things:
1) develop some confidence in his mid-range shot (it’s controlled and beautiful once he gets it going).
2) show that he doesn’t just have eyes for the rim (I know he can pass it, but he just acts like he has so much to prove on the court… he rushes)

If Sergio gets his wish, to play for another team, then Bayless will get the minutes to show he can run this offense successfully in 09-10.

I just hope he gets the minutes in a Blazer uniform to do it.

IF Travis and Sergio are gone as some expect then the second unit is going to need someone to pickup TO’s point production. Maybe he can go to the rim for that rather than need a lot of assist improvement next year.

what capacity remains to be seen. Great write-up as usual Dave. I hope to make the summer show in Vegas to see him up close.

   RoadBlazer

Yesterday, I started my comment on Nic, by saying I thought it made sense to discuss the team by position rather than by player. So I chipped in my two cents on all three SFs. Today, I will offer up my thoughts on all three PGs, although given my chronic Baylophilia, I will concentrate on JB.

PG is the position of greatest weakness on the team and greatest contention among the fans. The Blazers have three guys with skills, but each has significant holes in his game. Opinions vary about each of the three, and about what changes should be made for next season

BLAKE: Steve was the starter for a reason: the team played better with him at the controls. Particularly in the absence of Martell, Blake’s outside shooting became essential to the team’s success. When Steve shot well, the offense worked well, when he did not, opponents were often able to clog the middle and make things difficult for Brandon. Blake is a solid, low-risk distributor who generally makes good decisions and few turnovers.

Blake was essential to the teams success, but his limitations are pretty obvious: limited ability to create his own shot; very limited ability to drive and finish at the rim; lack of speed to push the ball up-court. Most importantly, Blake struggles in certain defensive match-ups. He is OK on defense against about half of the PGs in the league, however, he really struggles against uber-fast or uber-strong PGs. In order to try to stay in front of his man, Steve tends to back off of his opponent. This allows them to go were they want to go on the floor and gives them lots of angles for passes. On pick and rolls, Steve lack of strength and lateral quickness are a real problem: he is unable to fight through a lot of screens and lacks enough quickness to consistently recover when he goes below the pick. In general, Blake is unable to generate much on-the-ball pressure, and his struggle to stay in front of his man plays a major role in our bigs picking up fouls against penetrating PGs.

So there we have it, Blake is essential but limited. We need his shooting and steady hand, but his defense is a major reason the Blazers team defense is not at an elite level.

RODRIGUEZ: I am not going to spend a lot of time on Sergio. I think he is a player with a special flair for the game, and I think it is quite possible that in the right circumstances he could develop into a better PG than Blake, but I don’t think Sergio is a good fit for the Blazers. His game is not well suited to playing next to Roy. Sergio needs the ball in his hands and he is not very effective off the ball. He is not a particularly good shooter, nor a consistent threat to take it to the hole. When the ball is in Brandon’s hands it is too easy for Sergio’s man to sag off and help clog the middle. Sergio’s defense suffers from many of the same problems as Blake. Sergio lacks the strength to fight through picks, and he has trouble staying in front of his man.

I may be wrong about Sergio, or I may be wrong about the Blazers plans, but I would be surprised if Sergio is here in the fall. Sergio himself has said publicly that he expects to be traded.

BAYLESS: My concern about PG defense is what got me interested in JB. Unlike Steve and Sergio, JB has strength, speed, and athleticism in abundance. Based on his High School All-American status, and his one season at UA, it was clear from the start that this was a guy who was a threat to score, and a guy who had the physical skills to apply on-the-ball pressure. From the draft onward, the question with Bayless was whether or not he could, or would, play the role of distributor.

In general, I think Dave’s write-up is fairly on the money. Bayless did not earn consistent minutes because he did not consistently produce. Too often, he looked a little out of control, or looked like he did not have a clear idea of what he wanted to do with the ball. Bayless seemed to have two modes. He was either in scoring mode, where he would often be overly aggressive and just put his head down and try to drive to the basket, or in passing mode where he was trying too hard to show his willingness to pass and his ability to generate assists. If you watched Bayless closely, you could see the hesitation that crept into his game when he switched back and forth from one mode to the other.

To me, Bayless’ problem appears similar to Oden’s. He is an athlete with tremendous physical gifts who is trying too hard and thinking too much. The effort and the thought are causing hesitation; hesitation that gives opponents time to recover. What both guys need is time on the floor. Repetition leads to relaxation and quicker decision making. This season, with the incredible pressure to get to the playoffs, Nate was only able to tolerate so many rookie mistakes. Greg, Nic, and Rudy had to be in the rotation. Jerryd did not.

Where I do find fault with Dave’s write-up is in his use of “season” stats to evaluate Bayless’ play. I believe these stats are very misleading and lead to a faulty evaluation of Bayless’ play. I believe it is far more accurate to divide Bayless’ season into three parts:

1) Before Blake’s injury: Bayless played short stints, mostly in blowouts and compiled horrible stats. His shooting was lousy, his assists here almost nonexistent. When Blake went out, his PER for the season was below 5.

2) During Blake’s injury: Baylsess’ play was inconsistent but showed rapid overall improvement. For the last ten games of Blake’s absence Bayless shot 48% and averaged over 4 assists on 20 min of play per game. Bayless started to get comfortable in his sneakers. He started figuring out how to use the threat of his ability to drive to create opportunities for his teammates. He would take two steps causing the other team to collapse and then swing the ball to Brandon or Rudy for the open 3. He managed to drop the ball to open bigs off the drive and found Outlaw in the corner. In short, he started looking like a bouncing baby PG. By the time Blake came back, Bayless’ PER was up to about 12, meaning that it was above 15 for the month that Blake was out.

3) After Blake’s return: A lot of Bayless’ minutes after Blake’s return again came in short stints and frequently, Bayless was not really playing the point. Nate used him in three guard line-ups were the distribution duties were performed by Blake or Brandon or Sergio, or used him as a SG (after Rudy’s fall). Bayless, often played SF during these stints bringing up the ball, flipping it to Brandon, and then standing in the corner at the 3pt line. Obviously these stints depressed Bayless’ overall stats.

Where do we go from here? To me, the team really only has two choices. If they are confident that Bayless has what it takes to become the teams starting PG over the next year or two, they should trade Sergio, start Blake, give the back-up minutes to Bayless and gradually increase his minutes as his play warrants. Under this scenario, the team might bring in an older journeyman as insurance against injury. Hopefully, by the play-offs next season, Bayless will have progressed to the point where he can play significant minutes, particularly against some of the quicker PGs the team is likely to face in the play-offs.

The second choice, if the team is unsure about Bayless’ future development, they need to make bringing in a veteran point guard their highest priority for the off-season. We do not need any more rookie PGs. This franchise has had too many over the last decade. Heinrich would be an obvious choice. If Heinrich is too expensive, Sessions or Miller or Bibby are other obvious choices, although the latter two are both aging and all three have their own limitations. Of coarse, we can all fantasize about better, younger players (Parker, CP3, Arenas) but these are all unlikely scenarios. Quality PGs are rare and expensive.

Listen to KP in the last Courtside of the season, when asked about whom he has high expectations for improvement, he mentions two players: Webster and Bayless. I think it is a tell. I don’t think KP would have mentioned Bayless if he has a strong inclination to trade him. That doesn’t mean that Bayless is untouchable, if JB is the price of a really good, younger PG, then plans may change. But, I expect Sergio will be gone. I don’t think the team can afford to trade Blake unless they get a veteran PG in return, and I don’t think they can keep both young guys happy with a veteran in front of them.

I’m completely comfortable with the thought of JB as the back-up. I think he showed enough during Blake’s absence to warrant time on the court. We need to find out if he has what it takes to develop into a starter. IMHO, the team can not afford to go through the next couple of play-offs with Blake as our starting PG. Improved perimeter defense is one of the keys to the Blazers taking their place among the league’s elite teams and essential if we are to challenge for a title.

Since he has been able to beat people with his athleticism to this point, he hasn’t had to learn very many skills to score. If he were slower he would have had to figure out how to set up other people earlier in his career. Think of BRoy playing against his older brother. He couldn’t beat him straight up so he had to learn to finish with both hands, he had to become more crafty. Now that he is forced to, Bayless will start to learn some of the old man tricks that allow players to continue to compete when their physical gifts don’t do the entire job any more. Hopefully Jerryd is coachable and will discover how good it feels to set up other guys by drawing help defense and he’ll get his shot to improve. He’ll still get to use his athleticism on drive and kicks and on occasional forays to the rim, but the drives will be set up by the other good things he does to improve the team.

…and Martell coming back, how is he suppose to get the minutes to develop?

…and transplant Bayless’s personality into Greg’s body?

.next January or the January after that. Probably the latter cuz his role probably doesn’t change much the first half of next season. Sergio is probably gone but I don’t see Bayless going to 20+ minutes a game anytime soon. Nate will demand more results before he gives him that.

If Bayless goes the Monta Ellis that is the less attractive path. Ellis is way over-rated and way over-paid.

If he can be a Parker that would be a real boon.

I’d try to sneak minutes of Bayless with most of the starters more so than as the lead gun of a second unit. Scorer off the bench, that is Rudy’s role right now. Bayless-Roy (with JB emphasizing the role as facilitator and some wide open shooting / scoring) and Blake-Fernandez make more sense (by player pair data than Bayless-Fernandez. But of course the primary combo will be Blake-Roy.