2010-11 Portland Trail Blazers Roster Rundown: Patrick Mills

do we get a separate review for Pat Stacks?

We really need to improve our whole PG situation. Need a really good young pg to either start or take over for Miller in another year. Need better back ups too. Think I might like Armon Johnson a little better myself. He is a great guy though, and wouldn’t mind if he was 3rd pg. He might be better off though in Europe. He’d get more time.

we have a crawford already his name is patty… well poor mans crawford anyway

because if it is well then welcome to the latest journeyman, but as greenknight said, he does have that intangible quality of never say die, for his entire time at the Blazers he has done more than anyone could ask of him, and more than anyone thought possible. He is a square peg in a round hole though. I still cant work out if he is a fit for the blazers, and It would not surprise me if he was moved on, but that being said, it would not surprise me if he ended up at another club and we will look back going, maybe we should have held onto him for one more year.

Who knows.

Either way, I enjoyed watching him this season if only for the torching he gave Aaron Brooks

I’m not gonna lie I’m a big patty fan, so I am slightly bias
I do believe he will get better and can become a good player in this league
However it depends on how Portland aims for next year, if genuinely believe the can win the title next year then patty probaly isn’t going to be on team, were as if they are building for a few years down the track then there is no reason why patty can’t be there Barea

Portland needs to keep that roster spot open. I like patty!!! But I also want to WIN and I don’t think patty is part of that winning team. we need liget nba players not part time players (somebody that comes off the bench and put up 15 and 6 with two or three rebounds and ZERO turnovers every night)

Where’s the statistical breakdown on Fabricio Oberto’s season?

worse when Mills came in for Miller, except for the pressure he exerted on the ball from the midcourt to the three point line. Once the opposition was in their halfcourt set, Mills became a major liability on defense. He’s just not strong enough to deter any driver from the hoops, and got destroyed on high screens (the ones Miller does a good job fighting through). Mills is also undersized so bigger guards shoot over him and doesnt have great lateral quickness (excellent straight-line speed though).

I agree Dave: Mills has to up his Ast% drastically or start hitting 3’s at 40% consistency to see the floor much. Just look how Aaron Brooks became a near All-Star to part time player within a 2 year span after his statistics dropped modestly; of course the reason for that is he became a liability on the court if he wasn’t filling the hoop. Mills is similar to Brooks in that respect, although not as good.

I don’t get it… Mills was basically a rookie guard who broke into the rotation, made positive contributions and put up reasonable numbers.

Blazers should be thrilled that a rookie showed he could contribute and that at his age will only get better over the next few years.

If a first round drafted PG put up these numbers you would be singing their praises and looking forward to their next season.

1. People seem to look at Patty as this experienced Euro player for some reason, dont know why, he is not from Europe for a start.
2. People seemed to think he is more experienced than he actually is. He came to the NBA after his S/M year of which he sat over half the season with a broken hand. So we effectively added him in his Junior Year whilst getting him in the middle of his sophomore experience.
3. As we know he sat our the majority of his rookie season all bar 10 games of which he saw less than 3 minutes per game.

The reality is, due to only a few technical points, Patty Mills was a rookie, and one we picked up very late in the draft and quite literally expected nothing from, yet above we see a collection of numbers that nearly every other rookie point guard minus John Wall and Nick Collision would happily take in their debut year, and use them as a basis to improve on and hopefully launch into a 10 year career in the NBA.

Very unfair to come out and say that he didn’t statistically beat Miller. one of the most experienced players in the NBA to a kid in his NBA infancy.

There was the myth that Armon outplayed Patty in summerleague. Patty’s stats were better and he passed the eye test as being better at both the 1 and 2 guard position. But the jury came out and it was decided Armon was better. Fair enough, he looks like an NBA guard. But Patty quickly proved that his game is simply further along than Armon’s. I don’t think anyone know’s what Armon will be, good luck to the kid, but there’s no way he’s the basketball player Patty is right now. The debate about who is the backup is strange to me. Patty can bring a genuine role to that position; uptempo guard who can provide instant offence, and can spread the floor. Isn’t that exactly what you want from that role?

Secondly, everyone knows the story by now, broken foot first year, somehow got the 15th spot this season, cracked the rotation and become a contributor. He does everything right. Having seen him at St. Mary’s, he’s the kind of PG that benefits from a very high tempo offence which allows him a lot of freedom, like a Nash system. He was a very good passer in college, but took a lot of shots, probably too many. Comes to the blazers, brings the uptempo quality into the system in an inoffensive way, limits his TOs as the season goes on and plays out his deliberately limited role as well as anyone could in that situation. To achieve all that in such precarious opportunities and do it all perfectly, it’s pretty impressive.

I think he has a LOT of work to do on his game to get it up to standard though. He needs to continue to work on his ball handling – a guy that small and quick needs to be a wizard with the ball and get to any place on the floor. He needs to keep working on his one-on-one moves – he still doesn’t have a decent crossover or spin moves, and his finishing needs a ton of work. His midrange pullup game is tight, and his 3 point shot will come along. I think Patty’s the kind of guy that gives more the more minutes he plays, and the more freedom he’s given to play his style, rather than put him in an ‘uptempo system LITE’ of bringing the ball up quickly and then popping down to the short corner. I don’t think he’s the PGOTF, but I do think he would do really well in a developing backup role like Barea. Barea has had to fight for the playing freedoms he now has when he first cracked the Mavs rotation, it’s just fair, Patty’s in the process of doing that now. I think the coaching staff probably like him more than some of the critical fans though.