Wizenheimer wrote:DC_Melo wrote: One thing that was brought up at media day, was that his best career stretch came when Dame sat out those couple months and he was the feature guy. I don’t have the stats to verify this, just repeating what was said by a reporter.
there's quite a bit of context involved in that. To start with, for about 5 weeks, CJ, Powell, RoCo, & Nance were still Blazers. Ant's numbers did jump because he was taking Dame's usage, at least the usage CJ wasn't taking. He only played in 9 games after CJ/Nance were traded and the Blazers shut him down. Blazers lost a lot of games after Dame went out
this '
Ant does better without Dame' narrative is the exact narrative CJ fans spouted for years. The
doing better is mostly about higher usage, thus higher numbers. Efficiency often dropped. And as we've seen, CJ is the same player in N.O, he was in Portland
empty calorie numbers for volume scorers are fairly common when they become the main volume scorer and don't have to share the ball with a better player
I expect Ant's numbers to increase this season. He's going to get more shots and have the ball more. I don't expect that to generate many wins
I appreciate the context!
Couldn’t agree more that if Simons is going to become a player that truly impacts winning, his efficiency will need to suffer less at the hands of volume.
That said, I don’t really see him getting a ton more usage than he was already getting. I’d expect some increase to be sure, but I think there’s going to be enough hungry mouths on offense to share the workload.
Scoot will be a very high usage player, as will Ayton who I anticipate will be used heavily in the pick and roll (and don’t be surprised to see a lot of pop too! Blazers are all but certain to test his 3 point range), plus Grant will need his touches.
One thing we haven’t had in a long time is a PG with a true creator skillset. That’s no knock on Dame, but if u watch his tape, his assists typically came from within a set on offense where he passed out of a P/R or swung the ball from the perimeter, and the occasional drive kick out. (Edit: He was efficient in transition too, but not a high volume of assists there due to him not pushing tempo a lot and his love of jacking the pull-up 30+ footer on the break) He executed efficiently, but he created very little offense for others outside of designed sets. Dame NEVER probed, and nearly 100% of the time that he drove, the drive ended with a shot or a kick out.
If you haven’t watched a ton of Scoot, this kid plays the position very differently. 1- He pushes tempo at every chance to find the easy transition bucket, even off made FG. 2- Scoot loooooves to probe defenses when initiating a half court set. He’ll often test a couple of spots in the perimeter before calling out the set he see fits. He may not get that full freedom as a rookie, but u will see it eventually. 3- Scoot nashes the ball very well. If he doesn’t like his options on the drive, he maintains jumping discipline and keeps his dribble alive. This tactic causes defenses to have a delayed collapse and has a very high chance of generating an open look for a teammate.
All that is an entirely too long winded way of saying that Scoot could actually be better at creating open looks for his teammates then Dame was, even as a rookie. Simon’s efficiency might actually see an uptick if Scoot can help him get cleaner looks.
Also, I need this season to start… I’m sick of watching scouting tape and game film
