I assume he’s referring to Quick?

Last night was an emotional time for me and some of the quotes made to Chris Haynes were taken out of context by another reporter.

Say what? Now it’s Quick’s fault for what he said?

These were direct quotes from Haynes article.

"I know I’m struggling, but it’s hard to perform the way you know how when you know they don’t have confidence in you," Felton told CSNNW.com. "Never in my days playing basketball, have I felt like a coach wasn’t confident in my abilities. It’s hard to play knowing that."

How can Quick take a direct quote from Haynes article “out of context”?

This gets better and better.

What happened with Petteri Koponen? I seemed to remember that he was released or something this year…. because now would be a good time to bring him over if they still could.

just stick by the comments. backtracking makes it worse.

replacement articles.

Read between the lines..

“Look at Jeremy Lin,” Felton said. "Some people’s systems are for players. D’Antoni is one of those coaches where people excel in his offense. He’s a great offensive coach.

He’s basically saying McMillan’s system isn’t meant for players like him. He’s saying only certain players (iso) players excel in McMillan’s offense, and that he’s not a good offensive coach.

But I think everyone can agree that (as a team) this is one of the most undisciplined team’s to play in Portland. You need only point to the 15 point a game home/road disparity to recognize that there is a coaching problem.

I’d wager that 95% (made up statistic, no factual bearing) of all controversial quotes from athletes are taken out of context.

It’s to create buzz especially amidst the collective sentiments of the general population.

The whole Brandon Roy making “negative comments” to Andre Miller is a good example. Quick and Canzano ran off with it and ESPN picked it up with hopes of adding some drama. In reality, Roy’s teammates said they didn’t notice him saying anything offensive.

But anyway, it’s obvious Felton is frustrated with his situation. The signs of unhappiness is a combination of lack of control and lack of success.

It sucks he’s had a negative experience thus far in an otherwise hardcore basketball town.

“Some people’s systems are for players. D’Antoni is one of those coaches where people excel in his offense. He’s a great offensive coach.

“But I’m not going to sit here and knock anything Coach Nate has done. We’re all fighting together, trying to figure this thing out. Being his point guard, I’m with him.”

Seriously?

re: “I know I’m struggling, but it’s hard to perform the way you know how when you know they don’t have confidence in you.”

Name someone who’s seen the Blazers play more than twice this season who DOES have confidence in Raymond Felton at this point.

—Dave

I’m just gonna quote what I said in the previous thread since I don’t think many people read it and I’m not writing any more paragraphs on this.

His comments SOUND absolutely ridiculous.. I mean, Nate has given him quite a "long-leash" – he’s gotten lot’s of playing time for someone who’s been playing as terrible as he has – but I believe there’s more to the story. Raymond isn’t the first player to come to Portland and complain about Nate. To me, it look’s like "Sarge" is trying to get the players to conform to his idea of "good basketball". The problem is the personnel we have don’t fit the bill, and whether or not his idea of good basketball is actually good basketball is arguable.

Our personnel needs a coach that runs good, set plays, to get good, open shots. Gets out on the break. ISN’T afraid to try an offense that fits the team’s personnel even if it leads to a couple more turnovers as long as the end result is a more efficient offense. This coach isn’t Nate. Nate is a decent (not even gonna say GOOD) coach for excellent isolation players such as Brandon Roy. We don’t have B-Roy anymore. Nate doesn’t fit the bill.

To go back to what I was originally stating, I don’t think what Felton said specifically is necessarily true, but I do believe coach is having an effect on his play. I don’t think it’s that coach has a lack of confidence in him, I think it’s that he isn’t good at what coach is ramming down his throat and that’s causing Ray himself to "lose confidence" and state things such as this after tough games. I just can’t blame Ray here. I believe basketball is a very mental sport, and if coach is making players lose confidence because he’s trying to make them conform to his idea of an ‘efficient" offense rather then working on playing torwards the team’s strengths, I can’t blame that on Felton.

Felton isn’t as bad as he’s been playing. He may be as bad as he’s been playing in Nate’s system, but that’s because Nate isn’t the right fit for him. Nobody on the roster is besides Jamal (is it a coincidence that when Jamal signed here, there was instantly that story about Nate wanting to "get his name into the rafters"? Favoritism torwards iso players much?). Also, let’s get something straight – Ray isn’t the only one to call out Nate McMillan in the past few years PUBLICLY. That’s a big claim because most guy’s don’t have the balls to say something like this publicly. I believe that there’s other players on this roster who are probably sick of Nate but just don’t say anything to the media. I believe that Raymond would be playing BETTER if we had a different coach, along with most of the guys on our team.

If you disagree with me, fine. I just have absolutely no reason to continue supporting Nate McMillan. He has proven nothing other then he can run a terrible predictable offense that doesn’t work in the playoffs. He’s proven he’s gonna continue running this terrible system when the majority of the players on the team would benefit from a different one. If that’s cool with you, then OK.

reality is seldom that cut and dry.

I like arguments and not meaningless figures of speech. Him going elsewhere and playing better is the equivalent to us getting a new coach and playing better, unless you for some reason think that he doesn’t get along with the players or like Portland, and there’s nothing pointing torwards that. Not to mention an argument can easily be made that the majority of Portland’s roster would play better under a different coach who plays a system that maximizes the player’s on this team’s strengths

Nate should let Felton play even when he isn’t doing good things. These guys don’t need our support when everything is going well, they need it in times like this. When things aren’t going great. I think Felton will get better with this team but Nate has to keep trusting him.

Felton is the most self-conscious player on the floor. In New York he was in a situation where he didn’t need to think so much.

I have seen plenty of times where felton creates shots and makes shots to help this team. Everyone is hyper focusing on him and any faults he makes. He is not the only one to make mistakes in crunch time… I would say he has one of the best handles on this team and I hope Blazers fans don’t have a hand making his experience here negetive…

Felton’s been absolutely horrible this year and he can only blame himself. Nate’s had this problem with most of his guards, but if anything, Nate’s given him too much trust for how badly he’s played with the high amount of minutes he’s been given. Felton’s delusional.

As for people agreeing with Felton’s blame on Nate, I can see your point too, but Felton’s just not a good example for this argument. Nate wasn’t a great PG, but he didn’t make a lot of mistakes or try to do too much, and his defense was solid. I think this is what causes some of his issues with coaching point guards. He values not making mistakes and playing within a system too much, at the expense of allowing a talented PG freedom to be better than Nate could have ever been. This is not the case with Felton, obviously Felton’s just been horrible on his own, but I do believe it’s a problem in general with Nate. I forgot who said it, but it was some hall of famer, “Show me a guy who never turns it over and i’ll show you a guy who never does much of anything at all.”

He’s definitely one of those people that can’t accept responsibility for their own actions. They spin it in which way they can to avoid taking the blame.

Nate hasn’t been the best coach for this team for at least 3 years. The ONLY thing that kept Nate afloat was BROY. No BROY, no bueno. A monkey can see that.

Yes, Felton’s play is garbage. Yes, it’s Felton taking the shots and running the plays. Yes Felton leaves a LOT to be desired.

Does this mean that Coach is a good coach? Not in the slightest. A good coach wouldn’t let it get to this point. Nate’s never been good at making adjustments and this is just more of the same. He’s the coach, he could do something about it. He can’t make players he doesn’t have, but he shouldn’t allow his players to end up in this situation.

Does this mean I think that Felton had any right to throw Nate under the bus? NO. Does this mean I love Felton? NO. Does Felton’s bad play make Nate a good coach? NO. Would I rather have Dre back? YES. But, there again Coach Nate couldn’t deal with Dre and acted very immature when Dre was here in how he handled the situation with him.

Felton can suck at the same time Nate is a bad coach for this group. Nate has had adjustment issues for years now, it’s got nothing to do with Felton, but Nate’s issues do effect Felton. Felton’s issues are bad play and lack of confidence, which can ALL stem from lack of confidence. It’s Nate’s job to instill that sense of confidence and for that Nate is getting a bad grade here.

What about Crash’s on again off again performances? What about We$ley’s terrible slump? What about Crawford’s chucking? What about the lack of development of our bench? What about the inability of this team to win on the road? What about the meltdown in the last 3 weeks? Why did it take so long to get Nico in the starting lineup? He shined on the French National Team as a 2. Why does it seem like year after year, it’s Nate and this stubborn ways. Why is Nate so slow to react?

Not all the issues with this team are Felton’s issues. Keep a proper perspective on why the Blazer’s are playing this poorly. It’s not all Felton. Our guard play is some of the worst in the league. While Felton might be a huge part of the issue, so are the other guards as well. I sure don’t see them getting lumped in with Felton. Let’s be honest, Crawford and Matthews are not shining examples of what we need. Our bench is weak and it won’t get better if they never see floor time.

Why start Matthews instead of the Rhino or Thomas? Again, Nate is terrible at making adjustments. When Lee was eating up Crash in the low post, did Nate adjust? NO, good lord, he did not. Perhaps we can find a way to pin this on Felton and a cupcake from 4 months ago?

Yeah, I know you’re either in the Love Nate or Hate Nate camp around here lately, but I think Nate is a good coach who has serious flaws in his coaching style that are exacerbating this issue with the players.

When Felton said “I know I’m struggling, but it’s hard to perform the way you know how when you know they don’t have confidence in you. Never in my days playing basketball, have I felt like a coach wasn’t confident in my abilities. It’s hard to play knowing that.”.

What he actually meant was " I’m out of Chocolate Milk".

This isn’t about Nate. It’s about Felton and his throwing stones externally instead of dealing with his internal issues.

I find it very revealing and amusing that an article about misconstruing and/or misunderstanding a person’s comments should feature so many posts that completely twist or outright ignore the actual comments to which they are supposedly responding.