After watching last nights game I walked away thinking this season is over. Denver clearly looks better than us. Lamarcus Aldridge and Marcus Camby made Luis and Hill look like D-Leaguers. Our sensational point guards just look average. KMartin is our premier scoring threat but he can be guarded one on one and kept to 20 Shane Battier is worthless if he is not shooting 50% from behind the arc. We do not have one All-Star on our roster. We have youth but none of our youth will become superstars. The New York swap of first round picks this year is officially worthless. We will continue to play 500 basketball the rest of the year. We are the 14th worst team in the league which gives us the worst lottery pick again this year. After looking at the lottery picks there is no superstar at the 14th spot to be found. With this current team we are destined to mediocrity for years to come. Seriously these group of guys play with their hearts every year. IMO they have been overachieving every year. But maybe that's a bad thing. We will never suck enough to get our next superstar. ANd we will never be good enough to compete for a real championship. If we make the playoffs again I see an early exit. I didn't feel like this in the beginning of the season. ANd even lately I felt we were just gelling as a team and that Brooks would get better and I had hopes that Patterson would improve and contribute before the season end. But that is happening early and Bud is playing better and still Portland kicks our butts and looks so much better than us. I don't if this is just me feeling a little depressed that we started off the New Year with a loss. But I think what I see from here on out is a team but will beat the teams that it is supposed but can't compete with the elite teams. And that is a sad outlook on 2011 going forward. I had hoped for more... so much more. Of course it could all just be a knee jerk reaction to last night's loss. What do you think?
How many teams in the league have better prospects than us? Terrence Williams Jordan Hill Patrick Patterson Kyle Lowry Courtney Lee Ish Smith I doubt you can find many lottery teams with more prospects that us.
The bright side is, this year may be a terrible year to tank anyway (even if you are in the pro-tank camp, which I am not). Draft may be weak due to the lockout.
That loss last night really hurt. So much that i had began to let those ideas creep into my head. Then just at that moment when i was about to give in, they let Terrence Williams play. :grin: :grin: Last night was full of mistakes that ended up turning into fast breaks. Even Martin was getting caught with head fakes. At one point in the 4th, neither team could hit a lake. Yet still, if we play hard and make some significant moves, the playoffs we will make.
I feel your pain OMR and I think a lot of what you say is the painful truth. I was in the "develop our youth" camp last year, and I still think that is the way we should have gone. At worst you end up with some seasoned young guys and a possible shot at cousins or john wall. A lot of people frowned on this and said no super star would want to join us if we did this. Either way, i don't see why we can't do the same thing this year. We have a very exciting young core and I would rather watch them and have us lose, then see them waste away on the bench.
Let's hope they come out on fire tonight and tomorrow's knee jerk will be back to who should be starting... LOL.... Lower your expectations, this team is going nowhere as constructed....if Morey can't pull off a 3 for 1 trade, there are major chemistry issues ahead..... DD
I think it's just a Knee-Jerk reaction, Old Man Rock. We had a terrible game. But it was one game. We've already known that our defense is pretty terrible, especially without Chuck in there. So the only way we're going to win games is if we're hitting shots. You know that we usually hit them, but last night we were missing every open jumper that came to us in the second half. It wasn't Portland's defense because these were open shots. It's just bad luck. Fortunately, that game was a fluke. I predict we'll beat Portland at Houston. We're a lot better than we looked last night. That was a trainwreck.
More or less. A night where Martin and Scola miss four open shots from less then 15 feet away in a row, you just kind of have to say it wasn't their night, really.
Even with Roy out, Portland is a good team. Maybe the best out of those fighting for the 7th and 8th playoff spots. Martin and Brooks are slowed down by injuries and their shots are off. The starters are adjusting to playing with Hill instead of Hayes. Scola, especially, has changed to play more of a passer with Hayes out. The combination of that with Martin not shooting well is fatal for the starting lineup. We're still far from being a contending team, but we're better than last night's performance. Things will improve with better health.
You guys, you know this is just going to get more ugly with the upcoming schedule. The truth(even if you don't want to face it) is that we NEED to rebuild. And in order to do that we MUST trade Scola, Martin and Brooks while they still have HIGH VALUE... Its that plain and simple...
You have 10 games you are going to win automatically and 10 games that you have no shot of winning... last night = 1 of those losses.
Agree for once... I think the 3 for 1 trade is long overdue. The Rockets are one or two players away from being ahead of Portland/ New Orleans/ and Denver as far as talent, coaching, management, etc. The major problem here is that there just isnt anyone available at the moment. Last year would have been the year to have all these assets when over half the teams were in salary dump/ Lebron sweepstakes mode. Right now teams are pretty much just stuck with what they got till the July 1st comes around and the new CBA is set in motion. Id say its probably a 50/50 gamble that Morey gets a key player out of it. About 5% chance its a superstar. If the Rockets dont get an upgrade and cannot do a 3 for 1 trade, then assets will be wasted and I agree that the chemistry will suffer till the summer when there is a major overhaul of the roster.
Not a lotto team, but I'd certainly put the Thunder's "prospects" over ours. Ish is undersized, can't shoot, and isn't playing. Lee is playing about to his potential. Lowry is developing nicely, but he needs a consistent shot. Patterson looks good, but still hasn't played against starters. Hill has nice physical tools, but looks like a backup 4/5. Williams has skill, but let's see if he can grow up. Just trying to play Debbie Downer here
Thunder, Bulls, Clippers, only really the teams with top 2 picks are ahead of us in terms sheer talent of intriguing prospects.
