Andre Miller: Who Benefits, Who Not So Much...

Lloyd.

That KP worshippers can’t seem to understand that saying KP dropped the ball at the trade deadline is different than saying KP is worthless and can’t get anything done.

He will learn how to run with a different style of PG. The idea of Roy needing to “dominate” the ball to be useful isn’t all that true. In the first few quarters he defers to the others player quite often. He picks and chooses the times he needs to dominate the ball. This shouldn’t change.

There’s no reason that Blake couldn’t hit Rudy and marty coming off screens, too…that’s one of Steve’s best skills

If the Blazer offense is a Roy iso with everyone else standing around, the biggest loser will be Miller.

Not if the defense comes over to double Brandon, then Miller could take the outlet and penetrate the defense from the weak side

and get enough transition buckets to make up for it. With Greg rebounding like he does, LMA and Batum can fly down court and await the lob from Miller.

You don’t say, “Hey Roy, you’ve played 30 minutes. It’s a tie game with 6 minutes left, but we want to rest you for the playoffs!”

There is plenty of reason for guys to play more than 30 minutes in all non blowout games.

“…runs the floor as well as…” should be “…runs the floor better than…”

;-)

The easy buckets that Miller creates are going to be of the layup/dunk variety. Sure, we will get some more fast breaks, but every team in the NBA plays more half court offense than fast breaking offense. Miller’s drive/dish in the half court should create loads of easy buckets.

I’m sure Webster won’t mind draining a few threes. 50-10 would be amazing but other teams have added bigger pieces than us. I would consider another 54 win season to be success enough.

Well, yes, sure that would be well, nice, but I care more about game 83+ than game 60. They will be learning new things together and a short term “we have to win this game” approach is detrimental if it means not developing the bench. If they want to have players ready and available to fill situation spots in the playoffs – they need to have them learn and do during the regular season. For example, I think Bayless needed to be allowed to play a bit more (3-5 minutes) over several games through the season, and he might then have been an option to attempt to slow Brooks. Pendergast will need some flow time, and some silly mistakes, to make progress and build his game. Same with Oden – he should have fouled out of 15 more games last year.

Embrace failure as the precursor to fulfillment.

As to Blake’s 3 pt shooting being missed, when I told my 8 year old son and Blazer analyst about the Miller signing I explained that Miller was good at going to the hoop but not a good three point shooter, he said:

                “Going to the basket is what the Blazers need and they have plenty of three point shooters in Rudy, Roy, Batum, Outlaw…”

yup.

10 DEEP!

Is he leaving the team?

I’m sorry to burst everyone’s bubble.

I can’t wait to see the Blazers against the Lakers with Miller playing PG if this is true!!

I have confidence that Nic Batum (.369) will shoot as good as Travis and Martell when standing still soon enough. Or at least so good that his additional prowess makes the difference to Martell (.388 in his last healthy season) in shooting not really matter. Let’s say the main SF next year plays 25-30 minutes and takes 4 threes which is what Martell did, and now there probably aren’t more minutes and opportunities with Roy, Miller, Greg, LMA, etc. all needing shots so that’s not too low. In Nic’s first year vs. Martell’s third year, the difference comes down to 1 more made three about every 15 games if both would take the same number of attempts/play the same minutes. Even if Martell takes and makes one more than Nic per game that doesn’t decide the game. Travis is still better at creating his own shots off the dribble, with Martell that’s completely unknown until he comes back full force. Last I heard from Ben’s reports Monty instructed him to take his shots with nothing fancy, just catch, stabilize and shoot, no crossovers, no unnecessary dribbles.

Just last week in EuroBasket qualifier test games, he hit 2/3, 4/5 and 1/3 for a combined 7 of 11 (slightly shorter distance of course). While mostly playing shooting guard, since the French national team coach who happens to be his old coach trusts his handles and because Parker missed some games with a minor injury so the backcourt was De Colo with Nic. The guy will go places, and can only profit from Miller giving him open looks and maybe hitting him on a fast break or drive more often.

Thanks, he’s quite the fan.He got my attention when he said it because, having read many of the fine comments hereabouts, he said it as clearly and directly as anybody else. Boiled down to essence. And said so matter of fact and serious…

oh yeah, he heard me scream at the TV/computer all last season “GO TO THE HOOP! THEY NEED TO ATTACK THE BASKET” so his analysis might be a little skewed toward my biases.

We began to see a few bits of Greg’s offensive potential moving to the rim at the end of last year – I expect to see a big improvement this year as he hits a comfort level and stride. One word: “Squats”.

Can the Blazers afford NOT to trade him while his value as a youngster is still evident?

Absolutely they can. What are the reasons Bayless has value? — he’s a great penetrator, a good ball-handler, is an athletic specimen, and seemingly has the physical and mental tools required to be an excellent defender. He doesn’t have value because of his on-the-court production, because frankly, it wasn’t much to write home about last year. Other GMs are going to continue to covet Bayless and make runs at him, because they (erroneously) seem to believe that because the Blazers aren’t playing Bay, they don’t value him. The Blazers are in an enviable position right now, because they can afford to let a blue-chip talent like Bayless mature while savvier point guards run the show in the meantime.

And if Bayless doesn’t work out? Eh. Dave wrote a great post about it and I agree with his take wholeheartedly. Bayless is a roll of the dice, and if he doesn’t develop into the player we’re hoping he will, well, eight point guards went in the first round of the 2009 draft. I’m pretty sure we can find somebody to fill the hypothetical void if Miller and Blake both move on in the next three years.

WHOA, didn’t we almost have Hinrich but Portland wouldn’t pull the trigger because Chicago wanted Bayless in the deal? How does THAT decision look now? Can’t we all agree that Hinrich is a better PG than Miller is, at this point?

How that decision looks now to me is brilliant. We landed a veteran point guard who will accelerate the development of our young bigs, including our franchise center, and one with a skill set wholly different than and complementary to Blake’s, for the cost of our cap space. You’re instead advocating that we should have pulled the trigger on a deal that brings in Blake version 1.5, whose contract is both more expensive and guaranteed longer than Miller’s, and one that ships out our heir apparent at point guard to boot? We simply don’t see eye to eye on that decision then.

Did his value go down and did Chicago realize it before the Miller signing? Was there another discussion post-summer league on KP’s side to try and bring Hinrich here with a change of heart on his ‘Bayless is off-limits’ policy?

Bayless’ value was and is not predicated on his summer league performance. The Blazers were bounced from the playoffs, what, nine weeks ago? What kind of five-on-five, NBA-level competition do you think Bayless has experienced in that time frame? Anybody who was expecting Bayless to show up to summer league flashing his brand-new point guard chops was expecting too much, and I strongly doubt that KP was among them.

The Blazers are no longer at a point where they can throw a lottery pick into the fire and say, “Go get ’em, kid.” They’re a 54-win team, top-four in the Western Conference, and every single one of their major competitors has made moves to get better. If Bayless shows that he deserves minutes in practice, then he’ll play. But in the meantime, I’m thrilled that our point guard rotation entering the season is Miller/Blake/Bayless and not Blake/Bayless/question mark.

Not according to Quick

the kid won’t be a distraction if he doesn’t play. He’s just not like that. He repeatedly told me last season that he has been on a team with an unhappy player before. The player became a cancer.

“I will never be like that,‘’ Bayless said. "I know how it can affect a team.’’

Does he want to play? Absolutely. Just as badly as anyone. But while he doesn’t lack in confidence, he isn’t an out-of-control egomaniac.

he’s percentage points behind Roy in clutch-time FG% and is actually *better at drawing clutch-time fouls than Roy is":http://www.82games.com/0809/CSORT9.HTM. If KP wanted another go-to scorer when the chips are on the table and that was part of the pursuit of Turkoglu — well, Miller’s a dang good consolation prize.

Miller/Rudy is definitely a much stronger combination than Blake/Rudy. But it’s hard to know now if Blake/Roy is stronger than Miller/Roy until we’ve seen how the latter works. A lot may depend on whether Batum or Webster starts, and whether GO or Joel starts. GO and Webster should be better with Miller than with Blake, and Blake’s outside shooting complements Batum and Joel.

Also keep in mind that Roy played about 6 minutes at PG to make more minutes at SG for Rudy. So Miller and Blake may only have about 42 minutes to split, and therefore I doubt Miller will be targeted at 32 minutes. It’s going to be very interesting sorting this all out in preseason. Whatever Nate does, I suspect it will be for reasons that we won’t entirely be able to predict.

maybe, after he gets acclimated with his teammates, Miller will start “lobbying” Nate/KP to utilize Travis “less” and perhaps that could hasten Outlaw’s departure?

the proof that KP could’ve done more to “harden” his playoff roster was the loss to Houston in the 6th game, when the series started with Portland owning the home court advantage

This is not hindsight, I was quite vocal about the roster needing a veteran banger in the weeks leading up to the trading deadline. I said that Outlaw and Frye weren’t going to be able to “cut it” in the post season and I was not happy to be proven “right”

unless Roy changes to #3

That would be refreshing. I’ve followed a lot of Blazer GMs over 35+ years and none of them were perfect, not even Stu Inman (who built the ’77 team) was immune from criticism (drafting Larue Martin, Bowie, etc)

Now that everyone can see that KP has “feet of clay” perhaps we can treat his decision-making with a little less reverence and more objectivity?

Here’s hoping, anyway…in KP we trust, but not blindly…always verify

the other “best thing” is to add a PG who adds veteran savvy and can be the “quarterback” for the team’s defensive rotations. Miller excels at this as well

Now to be fair, most of Brandon’s teammates improved as the Houston series went along (notice I said “most” not all…I’m looking at you, Travis and Steve)

While I’m sure Miller will help, Andre doesn’t have NBA final’s experience (like Billups, etc) so we can’t be sure he won’t be affect by the playoff pressure that increases as the finals draw nearer…we’re all going to have to find out “together” how well the team (and coach) will handle that magnifying glass

Who’s “we”?

I suspect would disagree with you that the team doesn’t “need” a player who can provide what Millsap does. Now I know you’re referring to “too much depth and not enough minutes” at the PF/C positions, but if you can have 3 PGs when there is only minutes for 2 why not have 4 quality big men, especially when injuries inevitably occur and foul trouble takes your starters off the court in a playoff series?

KP pursued Millsap not only to make Utah get off the schneid, but also because if the Jazz had “blinked” and decided to not match the offer the Blazers would’ve had “the beast” that Nate still thinks the team needs

Teams like the Grizzlies, T-Wolves, and Clippers are consistently bad because of bad management, not bad luck.

The exception to the rule is the Lakers. They are consistently good because they are always lucky. Latest example: Yao breaks his foot during the Lakers series, not against us.

Batum did in summer league EXACTLY what he did in the NBA. He played defense, and scored points when someone set him up. He never created he own shot in the NBA this year. He took open jumpers from teammates, or caught a pass and drove to the hoop when the opponents were out of position.

The reason that Batum didn’t score at all in Summer League was that he didn’t have anyone to create shots for him. Bayless was willing to drop 30 a game, but passing to that Frechman in the corner was not a viable option.

SL Batum = NBA Batum. He didn’t magically get better, he just got the opportunity to shoot the open shot.

and the 76’ers, thanks to Andre Miller’s 27 points in the RG

     right after the deal. Of course I headlined with “Bad Deal”,
but one response was " I guess you don’t want to win ? Jerk"
     I feel the same as you RB. It’s defense I was looking for, and
believed that with experience Bayless could become that athletic,
quick perimeter defender. Now he will be sitting on the sidelines
simmering (hopefully practice time will help, but there’s no substitute
for game time exp), while Blake & Miller get a ankle/neck workout watching
Parker/Brooks/Barrea/Paul/Westbrook/Conley, etc wizz by. GO will improve,
but this could be continued foul trouble agony for our bigs !

P.S. – I do like some things Miller Time brings to the team, so I’ll simmer. After
          all, he has killed us in past years !

Now if he averages 30 ppg on 60% shooting then I can overlook the pathetic state of the rest of his game

classic!

Did someone really use that as a knock against Bayless?

Yikes.

Opposing guards eyes light up when they see Steve Balke guarding them.