Welcome to a new series called "Compliments and Complaints"! The goal of this series is to dive into things that are worthy of a compliment and things that are worthy of a complaint. In other words, I'm going to be looking at the good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The peaks and the valleys. Here's an example: Dame's 37 foot shot -- that's a "compliment"! Robert Covington's two missed dunks in the postseason -- yeah, that's gonna get a "complaint" (I'm still mad about that). With all that being said, buckle up and enjoy the ride as this will be a weekly column.
The preseason has revealed a mixed bag of results for the Blazers. There have been more losses than wins; however, certain players have put in good performances that offer hope for the regular season. Let's jump into the good and the bad from the first 5 games of the preseason.
Compliments to:
Jerami Grant - The dude has looked extremely good so far. Grant is averaging 13.3 ppg in only 24 minutes per game! This is a great sign for Portland because Grant's minutes will increase to over 30 mpg in the regular season. Grant is averaging about .55 point per minute, which is admittedly down from the 0.63 points per minute he averaged in Detroit over two seasons. Let's provide some context for this stat though: in Portland, Grant is only taking 9.5 shots per game while in Detroit he took almost 18 shots per game as the number 1 option. In other words, Grant is almost averaging the same output in points per minute as he did in Detroit while only taking half the shots -- this screams efficiency. And this is what we need from Grant. We need him to knock the ball efficiently because he will not have as many opportunities as he did in Detroit. In Portland, he is probably the number 3 option behind Dame and Ant.
I also love how Grant has been decisive with the ball in his hands. He makes quick decisions whether it results in a shot or a pass. The past 5 years of Portland's offense has been iso-heavy and this made the team one dimensional. Isolation basketball can be beautiful or really ugly. When Dame and CJ had it going, there was nothing more aesthetically pleasing, but when CJ was off, it was tough to watch him go 5-22 from the floor. With Grant in the fold now, I am expecting more ball movement and quicker decisions. The Blazers need to make the opposing defense work harder, and I fully expect Grant to play a role in this. I am loving what I'm seeing so far.
Shaedon Sharpe - Man, how one game can change things. I'm not going to sugarcoat it: Sharpe looked rough in the preseason opener in Seattle against the Clippers. But since then, he has looked fantastic. Against Maccabi, he played 23 minutes and put up 27 points! I get the competition wasn't at the NBA level, but it's still promising. Against the Warriors, he scored 17 points and played a whopping 38 minutes. I love the fact that Sharpe is not afraid to look for his own shot and is confident in his ability. Remember, this is a guy who did not play a meaningful basketball game in a long time -- he sat out the whole year at Kentucky. Sharpe has the potential to be a spark plug bench scorer off the bench, which would be vital for this team. This is the way the bench is projecting to look like: a plucky group that brings energy and defense to the floor, but one that has a cap on offensive potential. Sharpe can be the remedy for this. If Sharpe gets regular season minutes, he could be that missing piece on the bench -- one that provides microwave scoring. He is averaging 11.8 ppg through 5 games (buoyed by his 27 point outburst against Maccabi). Regardless, Sharpe looks confident and athletic -- the dude can jump (just ask Gary Payton II). Sharpe has brought energy and prime athleticism to the floor whenever he has gotten minutes this preseason, so he gets a compliment in this week's edition.
Alright, it's time for the complaints. Of course I don't like writing about the bad things, but there some things to talk about so here we go.
Complaints to:
Perimeter Defense - The same old song unfortunately. The Blazers' perimeter defense has been pretty atrocious so far as teams have been able to jack up uncontested three pointers at will. Against the Kings, Sacramento attempted 45 three pointers and made 46% of them. Against the Warriors, they took 42 threes and made 41% of them. Seeing a pattern here? Portland's perimeter defense must improve for them to be mediocre on that side of the ball. Yes, mediocre. I'm not even asking for the defense to be good. We've been at the bottom of the league in defensive rating or team defense for 3 years in a row. It sounds crazy, but if this team can be ranked 20th on defense, it would improve this team tremendously.
Here's where I get confused about our defense: why is the defensive strategy to live and die by the three? In the past decade, the NBA has moved to positionless basketball where all 5 players can shoot the rock. So why are we letting teams shoot at will? Back in 2018-2019 when we went to the Western Conference Finals, our defense was respectable because we forced teams to take tough mid range jumpers. It is no coincidence that Jusuf Nurkic had his best defensive season that year. Nurkic led the entire league in defensive RAPTOR that year, which measures the number of points a player contributes to team offense and team defense per 100 possessions relative to the league average player. Nurkic had a +5.4 rating on defense in 2018-2019, which was better than Rudy Gobert, Joel Embiid, and all the other household defensive names. He made our team 5.4 point better when he was on the floor. The Blazers need to employ this defensive strategy again: run teams off the three point line and force them into contested jumpers. We've seen it work before. But, if they keep rolling into games and let opponents jack up threes, that will get a "complaint" every day of the week.
Backup center - Drew Eubanks needs to show me something. We signed him in the offseason to come off the bench as our backup center. But he has looked terrible in the preseason. He played 6 minutes against Golden State and had a plus/minus of -23. That is bad. In the 6 minutes Drew Eubanks was on the floor, the Warriors outscored the Blazers by 23 points. A plus/minus of -23 is bad in general, but in 6 minutes? Yeah that's awful. Eubanks simply has to be better because this frontcourt is thin. The media and fans questioned GM Joe Cronin about this in the offseason and asked if he thought there was enough front court depth. As of now, absolutely not. The other guy that has gotten minutes this preseason is Olivier Sarr. Obviously, expectations were low for him, but he has played well enough to earn a two-way contract. However, he will miss time with a wrist injury. Right now, the backup center spot belongs to Eubanks, and he will need to drastically improve his level of play.
That will do it for the first edition of Compliments and Complaints: Preseason Edition! The Blazers have officially wrapped up their preseason, and while the results were not ideal, I know Blazer fans everywhere are pumped up for the season opener against the Kings. Let's hope the season opener goes better than the preseason. As always, let me know in the comments what you are thinking about the team.
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