generally - that is, from watching how he plays - I'd agree. But you picked a pretty bad 1 game to use as an example. The guy pulled in 5 boards in under 20 minutes of action....which makes him a worse rebounder than the Oden/Pryzbillas of the world, who did dominate the boards, but pretty much the next best rebounder that played last night. Also consider he got fouled twice on potential defensive rebounds. As great as Chuck is, he still is only 6'6, he had 2 defensive rebounds in 24 minutes...not good.
One more note on Ariza... He looks really thin out there... much thinner than what you think you see on TV. He has broad shoulders, runs extremely well, and has lots of other good attributes, but posting up will have to be a very selective undertaking because he simply cannot establish position. There were several times last night when he quickly got pushed way out. Regarding JayZ750's comment, I agree with what you said, except there were a couple of times Chase took it to another level. Again, twice in the first half he rotated to places on the floor where there were no Blazers. It's like he thought, "hey, we're in college running this zone and I better cover the empty space along the weakside baseline." He played mush better in the second half, but I would easily give him primary responsibility for 8 and maybe as many as 12 Blazer points during their first half run. Note: I'm not slamming Chase... I'm excited about watching his progress during the season, but he is still a rookie and that was evident. He'll get better soon enough.
It's true. He definitely had deer in the headlights rookie look for a while there...franky until he hit that fast break layup...which Lowry really had to coax him into doing by lobbing it up there (on tv it did NOT look like Chase wanted that pass to come). Remembering back to Yao's first game though, Chase was Jordan by comparison. I think he'll definitely get better. What is really hard to figure out is his upside. How good can he eventually be?
can't agree more with op. The youngsters could benefit a lot this season with tons of minutes, and when Mac and Yao come back, this rox team is gonna kick some serious a$$
