John Hollinger's Computer Wants To Make Out With Greg Oden

GO showed some improvement in the foul area last year. No reason to think it won’t improve with everything else.

A more realistic per game possibility, as suggested above.

that’d be sweet. I like Batum and Matthews locking people up on the perimeter and Oden/Camby stuffing everything in the paint. Hollinger’s computer is all about offense, but I think the Blazers will win their championship with tough D.

I was really high on Rudy, and was giving him some slack for coming back from injury, but when he plays like he did and then throws a fit, somethings got to give. Maybe someone should show him some game film. That should do it. Ya, that’s you Rudy, Disappearing when needed.

with 2.1 a game. The best PF was Josh Smith at 4.2, followed by Diaw at 4.0. A small handful of PF’s average over 3 APG.

The point is that criticizing LMA for being unable to find “…an open man to save his life..” is actually a misplaced criticism relative to his peers.

More to the point is that very rarely do you see a shot taken off the pass from the doubled post – that simply is not how the Blazer offense is ran.

Most to the point is that low assist totals from bigs is a system flaw rather than a player flaw (more so with LMA than Oden or Camby). With Oden and Camby – their job is not to shoot the mid range jumper after setting a pick. Not so for LMA. So you will see high post passing from Oden and Camby by design, whereas LMA won’t receive the ball unless he is supposed to be shooting.

All that said – he still racks up 2 apg – which ain’t bad. However, I do recall one game where Oden/LMA passing out of the high post decimated a good team. Gonna have to do some research to find that…

Predictable and simplistic offense:

1) Set a pick for Roy – defender goes under pick Roy shoots. Defender goes over pick, Roy drives and dishes if doubled or goes all the way to the rim if defense does not rotate. Direction Roy passes (pop/corner 3/post cut) depends on where the help defense comes from.

Rinse and repeat.

2) LMA takes the ball on the isolation post (much too far from the basket, typically). LMA drives middle for a hook or passes back out if doubled. Often waits for the double as if part of the game plan. If played one on one by someone that gives him a little space, shoots the fadeway.

3) Miller isolates on a smaller guard, posts or drives.

In favor of Portland – everyone knows its coming – but all of these options can be hard to stop depending on how hot the go-to scorers are. In favor of the defense – execution is brutally slow – with a lot of waiting for reads rather than executing early in the shot clock and taking what the defense gives.

It’s bread and butter offense that works if the players individually are excellent shooters and can take advantage of poor defensive matchups or lapses in defensive rotations.

At its worst, however, the defense is let off the hook by slow execution when the ball handler spends WAY too much time reading the defense. This is where I begin to lay the blame on the coaching staff. Far too often I see players waiting for the scouting report to materialize in front of them – over thinking their options and responsibilities. Fact is, these basketball plays require court awareness and focus – but decision-making should be reflex rather than calculated.

We haven’t seen enough development to date in the primary execution of the offense. Other than Roy or Miller, the execution is too methodical and with Roy lacks a primary component of the screen/pick offensive dynamic – the big man roll. I point the finger at McMillan for this hole in the offense.

However, I’m hopeful that another year of international exposure will help Nate incorporate off-the-ball player movement into the offensive repertoire. I actually don’t think it will take that much to make it happen. Other than that – it would be really nice to see Oden/LMA/Camby working the high post rather than the isolation post. Hate the isolation post – HATE it.

but mostly played PF for the Clips, but then mostly played C for the Nuggets and Knicks. He’s been a C for most of his career even though honestly I think he’s more of a natural PF.

I think Kelly’s been doing his ranking by projecting what position the player will be playing the upcoming year.

that people could think a 31 year old guy coming off one of the most serious possible knee injuries could crack a top ten list as a backup to another top 10 guy. It’s pretty clear that the list will include Oden, Bynum, Howard, Nene, Bogut, Splitter (since he already mentioned him in the Duncan PF entry), Noah, Horford, Gasol (Marc), and Kaman. I could see Bargs slipping in, depending on how much he wants to value scoring vs.defense, but there really is no way Przy even deserves to sniff that list this year given his situation.