There's been on-again, off-again talk much of the season--most notably by Jason Quick--about whether Brandon Roy's natural position is shooting guard or off point guard. Right now the evidence could go either way:
--He handles the ball quite a bit when he's in the game
--He's flat-out taking the point guard role in crunch time
--He has shown nice passing and decision-making skills
But...
--The Blazers have talent waiting in the wings at that position, less so at shooting guard
--Roy hasn't handled a full game playing point yet
--He may be better when he just concentrates on scoring.
Assists are not a complete measure of passing ability, but it's fairly easy to notice that Brandon's assists have gone down as his scoring has gone up. This is both a general trend for the month and a specific phenomenon in his volume-scoring games. He's had 5 or more assists 20 times this year. He's scored 20+ points 12 times. He's only done both in 5 games and with a couple of exceptions those tend to be at the lower end of the assist scale. In general, especially recently, it seems the more he scores the less he passes. And we need him to score.
I know we broached the topic earlier in the year when Jason Quick first brought it up but we've seen a lot more of everybody now. Is Brandon a future point guard or is he a "2"?
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)