Trail Blazer Fans Hopeful For New Rising Stars
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Thursday, July 09, 2015
Hank Stern, GolocalPDX Contributor
Now that Portland Trail Blazers fans have said their tearful goodbyes, what are the takeaways from a week’s worth of dismal free agent news?
Heading into the Summer League schedule starting Saturday, here are a few things to be thinking about entering this brief burst of July hoops followed by what should be a sub.-500 regular season.
TERRY STOTTS: One day, you’re the coach of a rising young team with great chemistry at the start of the 2014-15 season. The next, you’re being introduced before the 2015-16 season to a roster largely comprised of “never-weres,” “maybe -they-will-be’s” and “who-the-hell-is-he’s.”
If owner Paul Allen and general manager Neil Olshey are fair and decent human beings, they will at least silently acknowledge they have handed Stotts a pile of guano and give him a couple years to make something out of it. In a strange way, this scenario – by lowering expectations – could actually enhance Stotts’ job security after last season’s first round playoff debacle raised questions about his capabilities.
However, If Allen and Olshey are typical NBA executives looking to cover their own behinds for this grease fire, Stotts sure makes a convenient scapegoat at some point.
DAMIAN LILLARD: The Trail Blazers did what they had to do here. Since big-name free agents seemingly will never come here (more on that below), Portland had to open the vault to lock up Lillard before he decided to leave.
That’s OK. Lillard’s quiet intensity and competitive fire make him much more suited to be the face of a franchise than LaMarcus Aldridge. And for all of Aldridge’s praiseworthy improvement as a player over nine seasons in Portland, fact is that as he approaches his 30th birthday next week, he has never played in a Western Conference Finals.
And while Lillard, who turns 25 next week, gets huge blame for last season’s first-round loss to Memphis, let’s not forget he got the Trail Blazers into the second round for the first time in more than a decade the previous season.
Two more quick points before we leave the subject of Lillard: His “reach out” to Aldridge to stay in Portland was nothing more than a chance for he and the franchise to say they did “everything they could” to keep Aldridge here. And Stotts better keep Lillard happy because his job security depends on it.
C.J. MCCOLLUM and MEYERS LEONARD: Portland fans are putting way too much stock into what McCollum and Leonard showed in the playoff loss to Memphis.
While it’s neat that McCollum asserted himself by scoring 17 points a game and Leonard averaged 7.8 points and 6.6 rebounds off the bench, it’s a huge leap to believe they can make similar contributions over an 82-game season. While it could happen, it’s nowhere near a sure thing when teams don’t have to worry about accounting for Aldridge.
ROBIN LOPEZ, WESLEY MATTHEWS AND NICOLAS BATUM: All should be greeted with polite cheers when they return to Portland, according to the guidelines that were laid out last week in this space. Same goes for Aldridge.
Batum obviously had no choice in his departure. And while his inconsistent play proved endlessly maddening in Portland, he did nothing that would merit boos upon his return. Matthews and Lopez go down as two of the more beloved Blazers in recent years and cannot be blamed for seeking more money. And Aldridge wanted to go home to Texas and earn his pay in a place with no state income tax, so be it.
SAN ANTONIO: Yes, the Spurs play in a state that has no income tax and has warmer weather for sun-seeking and money-seeking free agents.
But it gets a little embarrassing to realize that the Spurs’ reputation for winning and consistency attracts free agents – even to the point of being willing to take less money like David West – when Portland can’t land anybody even with salary cap space.
SUMMER LEAGUE: Watch the games and root for wins, even as meaningless as they are. Portland victories will be in short supply come November.
A native Oregonian, Hank Stern had a 24-year career in journalism, working for more than a decade as a reporter with The Associated Press in Oregon, New Jersey and Washington, DC. He worked seven years for The Oregonian as a reporter in east Multnomah County, Washington County and Portland’s City Hall. In 2005, he became Willamette Week’s managing news editor and worked there until 2011.
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