Portland Trail Blazers vs Denver Nuggets Recap | Blazers Uprise Postgame Show
For got the got all for what’s going on everybody Welcome in to the Blazers uprise post game show here on a Friday night the Blazers lose in Mile High by a final score of 120 to 108 but there are some good things to talk about tonight including a dominant
Dominant scoot Henderson performance he finishes with 30 points and Anthony Simons pours in 29 and has a massive second half and this team today Eric was kind of like two separate teams to me and we’re going to get into why and we’re going to get into why we needed to
See more of what the Blazers flashed today earlier in the season because there were some impressive runs runs going up against the defending Champion Denver Nuggets the blers going into this game were heavy heavy underdogs uh and they kept it relatively competitive for the most part of the game some defensive
Struggles end up dooming them but we we got some good things to talk about man Eric how’s it going oh pretty good uh yeah I was uh unlike a lot of games this year where uh it seemed like it was getting out of control um early on and
Uh Scoot and the bench came in and rallied us back into this game and I I thought it was a lot of fun to watch for the most part yeah yeah so I’m looking forward to to talking about that first off this stream is brought to you by bet
Online our sports book sponsor for the entire season Super Bowl right around oh yikes that’s not good bet us my bad my bad you can bet online with bet us shout out to Eric for catching me there um use our Link in the description box below we got Super Bowl odds later
On in the Stream that we are going to talk about I’m looking forward to that looking forward to that and uh looking forward to braking down this game Eric let’s just jump straight into it where do you want to start you want to start with scoot you want to start with ant
Who also had a good game you want to start with the struggles uh cuz there are multiple positives and multiple negatives to talk about from this game so I’m curious where you want start with this I’ll start start with scoot because I I thought um at least offensively uh
He was fantastic tonight and uh I think it deserves the top spot yeah so the apologies better be as loud as the disrespect that some people gave him earlier this year Eric I mean this is another great game for him this is another efficient game from him he has
30 points on 15 shots against a really good team in elevation as well uh phenomenal phenomenal offensive game and he’s finally getting confidence and Chanty actually plays him more than 22 minutes and I love it look at that he can actually play more than 22 minutes yeah 37 minutes in elevation it’sit a
Three late even it’s a three late I mean scoot is turning a corner this is what we expected from scoot man he got to the foul line a ton I think he’s going to start getting a little bit more of the benefit of out with whistles uh we saw
That in this game where pretty much every Drive I think he did get fouled uh he was putting the pressure on the defense attacking the ri I mean he was phenomenal so I want to hear your thoughts you know um you’ve voiced some concerns earlier in the season is he
Kind of massaging those concerns away like is this what you were hoping for um I mean honestly I didn’t really expect him to score like this um much at all like I I kind of wanted him to be more of uh the playmaking type but um but yeah I mean he’s he’s
Becoming it it’s an elite skill to get to the free throw line pretty much every star player um hands down has an ability to get to the foul line and not only do that but to make uh your free throws too at a high rate um I that is um a quality
Of a really good player and that’s been most impressive to me with this um with his good games lately is he’s finding ways to uh get contact play through that contact and draw fouls and he’s been hitting his free throws and uh it’s really nice to see that uh jump in just
Free throw rate in a short period of time it is rookie season sorry sorry I was muted two assists in this game for him two turnovers yeah you know playmaking would like to see a little bit more but defenses are going to have to learn to
Respect them and it’s going to be on him to teach defenses to respect him and that will open up his playmaking long term in in this game man eight for 15 3 for seven from three he’s five for eight inside the ark and gets to the line 12
Times I mean that’s super efficient basketball and that was one of the biggest critiques in some games where he’d so show some flashes is at the end of the day you’d still look at his shooting and it wasn’t efficient this is three straight games where he shot at
Least 50% or better from the field so all of a sudden he’s found some level of efficiency and he’s just getting better and better at picking his spots he’s shooting the three ball confidently his form looks a little smoother he’s shooting um 35.6% from three since coming back from
Injury earlier in the season when he started Dawning the goggles right that’s a legitimate shooter and there was some comments about how it’s hard to play him at the end of the games because because defenses don’t respect his three-point shot and I said man he’s shooting well
Enough that okay we’ll just give him the ball every time and tell him to shoot every time he’s open because he’s shooting the ball well enough and he’s he’s getting to the point where he is a respectable NBA three-point shooter at least as of late you know of course he
Could go through a slump and maybe this is just a hot streak by his standards but if he can keep this up something that was a major major worry at the start of his career coming into this season and then he starts two for 24 from behind the arc to start his NBA
Career his three-point shot was such a worry of ours earlier in the season I’m not really worried about it anymore um he he may go through a slump at the end of the season his percentage still isn’t going to look too pretty but I think it’s going to look good enough that
Going into next year some continued Improvement especially with how much his shot I I think has improved this year it’s not something to even really worry about and then everything else comes from Defenders having to respect that three-point shot it makes everything else easier for him and I don’t think
It’s a coincidence that as he’s started to shoot the three ball better and better he’s starting to be able to turn the corner more and more he’s starting to be able to get to the rim more and more he’s putting defenses and compromise positions getting into the
Free throw line out of it I mean the scoring package is developing rapidly before our eyes and this is all the more reason all the more reason we’re going to have to get into this again today cuz there’s another report this is all the more reason why I think he needs to be
Starting after the All-Star break starting after the trade deadline and all the more reason why I think balol Brogden should and needs to get traded because there was talk the last couple of days about how and people phrased it like this I saw multiple people phrase it like scoot
Isn’t ready to have the training wheels taken off yet he’s not ready he’s not ready it’s funny how people were saying that to excuse him playing only 22 minutes against the Bucks where we went on the postgame show and lamented that he didn’t play more cuz I wanted to see
If he could follow up a good first half with a good second half and build off that confidence and then the very next game what happens he has a good first half 17 points in the first half and then he actually plays a legitimate amount of minutes in the second half
Chanty keeps them in and he builds off it even more playing with a ton of confidence and ends up with 30 points on eight for 15 shooting on 30 points on 15 shots phenomenal stuff and this is exactly why I lamented we need to have a
Good first half as of late him only playing like 22 minutes the first the first chance he gets to follow up a good first half with legitimate playing time the second half it looks great and he made a couple mistakes today on the offensive end and you know missed a
Couple of shots but I think you just got to let him keep playing through that because every Star caliber player will end up making mistakes and missing shots at some point in the game guess what they’re Stars though they play 36 minutes a game they’re allowed to play
Through it obviously scoot’s not there yet but that’s the hope and I think at this point in the season he’s playing well enough to give him the chance to play through his mistakes because he is doing a lot of good things on the court right now and it is absolutely awesome
To see because he’s the most important player this year his development is so crucial and it looked so rough early on but lately this is exactly what I was hoping for from him yeah uh after the show or tomorrow whatever go check out Scorch and trails if you haven’t already Tori and Steven
Vaugh dropped a podcast today um but man I really wanted to argue with Stephen A couple of times just watching that show um so again the narrative um and Stephen said this many times on your show uh that well scoot didn’t play the second half last game because the Blazers
Really wanted that one right they really wanted a win they that was their Super Bowl he said right um and again the point is it wasn’t just one game that has been happening multiple games for months during the season right like it’s it’s been happening more than one time and that is
The problem that it it’s not just the one game against Milwaukee it’s that this amount of leeway this amount of of scoot time is what we’ve been wanting from the beginning of the Season like why not just we’re we don’t have a great record throw it out there and let scoot
Like if he been playing this amount of minutes ever since he came back from injury who knows how good he’d be right now right cuz he’s he’s doing fine even with the limited minutes but maybe he’s like even better right now because of that and that’s all we want is to get to
The point where we’re not questioning whether we can even play scoot in the second half of games like that question is ridiculous for a rebuilding team he should be getting all the minutes that he needs and is able to to handle in the second half of games yeah and I
Understand coming back from injury you know you want to try and build his confidence cuz his confidence was was in the ground right yeah let him come off the bened still playing yeah 100% you know that like that’s my that’s my thing is continue to try and build towards him
Being the full-time starting point guard right build towards his future stardom and after he comes back from injury with him lacking confidence I understand bringing him off the bench to not just throw him to the Wolves throw him to starters and maybe cut his minutes a
Little bit shorter and try and build his confidence that way I I I wasn’t arguing with their decision to bring him off the bench after he came back from injury um but but he’s been playing well enough lately that his minutes should have risen and they didn’t and that was my
Biggest problem is this whole season is about building him up and developing him as well as developing sharp developing Etc you know there’s other things that the season is about but I think his development is the number one priority for this organization right now development implies progress and when a
Dude is making progress when a dude is playing better it never made sense for me not to give him more responsibility when his development reigned Paramount over the entire season so that was always my problem and now you see a game like this man I mean he’s been arguably
The Blazer’s best guard the last three games better than Brogden better than ant like he he’s legitimately making a case recently that he’s playing the best out of any Blazers guard which is impressive you know and that’s saying a lot considering brogen and Simons are very
Talented players at the end of the day he has to play 30 minutes a game at least if he’s playing like this at the end of the day what they have to do at the end of this game they had to play Brogden ant scoot which that lineup is going to get
Absolutely killed defensively we’re going to talk about the defense but they’re being forced to play three guard lineups in order to get scoot enough minutes because they have Brockton and that’s without Shaden sharp in the picture so this game as much as any shows exactly why the Blazers need
To trade Malcolm Brockton exactly why CU Sharp’s going to come back scoot keeps playing like this scoot deserves 30 to 35 minutes a game Sharp’s going to deserve 30 to 35 minutes a game Simon’s going to deserve 35 minutes a game you got thall out there probably Jeremy
Still with the it just does not work at the end of the day minutes wise and I don’t want Chanty to cap scoot Henderson in any sort of way for the rest of the season because the way he’s tur the corner right now I think even if he goes through a little
Bit of a rough patch I think you should still be playing him 30 minutes a game because he’s building confidence and I think he’s going to bounce back from his struggles quicker and quicker as the season and his career progresses because that’s what stars do right they they
Have a hiccup struggle they bounce back you know they then go make a play it’s a next play mentality and I feel like scoot is starting to to get to the point where he can make a couple mistakes and bounce back from them whereas earlier in
The season his play would fall off a cliff in a way so at the end of the day this dude needs to be playing at least 30 minutes a game and I think this game was an exact example of what we’ve been talking about yeah absolutely uh um I mean I
Think the season’s been an example of that um but uh yeah um I think you put it best when you said uh or made fun of the people who said that he’s not ready to have the training wheels taken off I mean how is he not ready to have the training wheels
Taken off right like how was that they took the TR legitimately they said that and then today was the perfect example of taking the training wheels off cuz he’s playing elevation for maybe the first time ever against the defending champs on the road and plays 37 minutes
I mean how do you take the training wheels off more than that it’s almost like they turned his bicycle into a unicycle and he still rode it yeah and uh that’s another thing uh you guys talked about in Scorch and trails uh Stephen this one of the few
Things I agreed with him well he actually wants to trade brocken too so I agreed with him on that as well but uh he he mentioned something that uh we have really talked about during the season much uh but we did talk about it a lot during the offseason and that’s I
I do think scoot needs to live up to close to his potential and be a star in order for this uh version of the rebuild now we could get lucky with a future draft pick and hit on a pick that we weren’t expecting to be as good as scoot
Ends up being better whatever it it’s still possible to maximize the rebuild and get lucky with a good pick um but I I do think we need scoot to be a star and he showing glimpses of it let him show as many glimpses as possible let him get all the
Time and stuff get all his learning curve like like just get a lot of that out of the way this season so next year we can hit the ground running he’s fully confident knows his job in the NBA knows how to play play and and we’re we’re
Ready to go mhm 100% 100% man I’m I’m feeling good about scoot right now this game was great from him um and the other thing that I think goes hand inand with scoop playing well and I teased this in the intro talking about a tale of two
Teams the pace with him in the game was impressive and we’ve lamented It All season how this team doesn’t play with enough Pace because they are not a good half court team they should be trying to get out and run every single chance they get especially with scoot in the game
But I think you know it’s it’s lately been up to scoot to push that pace and he’s effectively doing it you know he tried to do it a little earlier in the year but was completely out of control as a 19-year-old rookie fresh into the league at the point guard spot right now
He’s starting to push the pace under control and make things happen happen out of it um and it’s resulted in some good runs against good teams the Bucks the Nuggets where he’s been in charge of that um and the the offense even if it’s not a scoot bucket or a scoot assist the
Offense is able to generate good shots by pushing the ball up instead of walking it and I think he’s been the Catalyst behind that it’s something the Blazers should have done a lot more at the beginning of the year it didn’t really make sense to me why they are so
Um slow bringing the ball up I honestly this is another reason why I want to trade Malcolm Brogden because I feel like he is a guy that likes to walk the ball up um a little bit too much and Veteran guys you know like he’s more of
A half court slow paced player I would rather trade him maybe even trade Jeremy because Jeremy’s like a half court guy walk the ball up and get guys that can get out and run and just see what this team looks like like with these young guards with this nucleus playing at a
Top five Pace in the league because I feel like every time this team ratches up the pace they’re good like legitimately able to get quality shots out of it they don’t struggle to get quality shots when they push the pace they just don’t push the pace enough so you know
I execution is e execution statistically like I don’t think they’re an impressive transition offense statistically you know some of it comes down to execution and maybe this is more recent but in order to size too yeah small sample size in order to be good at pushing the pace
You need to do it like you need to get comfortable doing it and the problem is this team for whatever reason all season long has been uncomfortable pushing the pace and I think it shows up maybe if you look at you know points per transition possession whatever but when
They start to get in a rhythm where they are consistently pushing the pace then they start to get good shots then they start to make things happen and Scoot is the type of guy where he is going to excel in transition during his NBA career and we’ve seen it against
Milwaukee and against Denver tonight you know Milwaukee’s defense kind of questionable Denver they’re the defending champs and they were able to get going just by pushing the pace and playing fast and scoop being able to get the ball out and transition and put pressure on the defense so I want to see
More of that and I think the the pace looks has looked completely different with him in the game compared to on the bench the last couple of games yeah maybe a little bit I I kind of disagree I think I don’t think it’s necessarily brogen that’s the problem
With pushing the ball up I I think that’s even sco he’s not the only problem it’s not like there’s one problem yeah I I just think pushing it up um is more of a mindset and like a team like you have to the coaches have
To drill that into the team to push push push go go go and um they have to like ask questions when we’re not pushing the ball when we’re slowing it up why are you doing that why are you doing that until they start every time not thinking
About it and just push it up naturally um so I I think um I I just think the coaches need to do a better job we’ve seen it for what 12 years now um of kind of slowing the ball up a lot more way more than they should
Um I I think it’s got to be a team-wide thing where everyone is getting out and running and is on the same page there and not just like one person coming in and kind of doing it sometimes yeah but I mean how does how do Transition possessions start if there’s a shot and
A rebound it’s how quickly can you as a big man or whoever rebounds the ball get the ball out of your hands to an outlet and then once the outlet catches the ball are they catching it and slowly jogging up the sideline with it or are they catching it in you know sprinting
Up the sideline or quickly pushing the pace up the sideline maybe bringing it back middle getting a Defender to collapse to him kicking sparking some ball movement and then you’re in something the defense never had a chance to set up so that’s the thing with scoot
As of late like he catches an outlet pass and he goes um Brogden and even ant and Dame was even this way those guys all have a I feel like to catch the ball as an outlet and start to kind of walk the ball up the floor and try and set
Something up and the thing is we barely set anything up in the half court anyway like our half court offense is so uncreative there is no reason for us not to try and push the pace and then we can fall back on running a freaking pick and roll or running whatever basic action
Cuz we legitimately and I was in the Bucks game I commented on this there is a couple times where I’m just watching the shot clock and I’m watching them set up and it takes us 12 13 14 seconds of shot clock to set up a pick and roll and
That’s all we’re running I’d rather spend those 12 seconds trying to push the pace maybe making a couple swing passes then we can run into a pick and roll and maybe the defense isn’t set so I think the biggest thing with our with whoever we Outlet it to is are they
Actually pushing the pace up the sideline because you can spark good things out of that and I feel like for the longest time and this is probably an older veteran kind of thing like guys will just slowly jog up the sideline with the ball to set up some sort of half court
Yeah well I mean to be fair tonight too I mean when we did get turnovers or rebounds we did run a little bit but the problem is we only had 24 defensive rebounds the entire game gave up 16 offensive rebounds uh that’s um we did a pretty good job on the offensive
Rebounds ourselves but if you’re trying to push the pace and um what is that uh 40% or so of the rebounds are not going to your team on the defensive end um it’s really hard to get out and run too much if that’s the problem so I think
Tonight uh rebounding was was one of the issues why they had a had trouble running yeah yeah there’s somebody in chat saying like what did broen do to deserve the SL blah blah blah this is nothing even to be critical of Brogden if we had a good half court offense it
Wouldn’t really be that much of a problem it’s more so we’re a young team that’s our direction right in terms of our roster but a young team I think with athletes should also try and get out and run a little bit more and Brogden my opinion doesn’t really fit that as much
As a li a guard lineup of scoot and sharp does so you know and then and then there’s conversations in chat like brog wants to be here right and there’s another comment that says always chasing out guys out of town that want to be here my whole thing is okay so if we
Have a bad roster and every player on the roster wants to be here does that mean that we should just accept that and be bad for the next 10 years we got to become better okay it’s not just about oh this player wants to be here so we should
Keep them it’s about what’s best for the team right and Brogden I think if you trade him to a playoff team would be happy playing for a playoff team too it’s not like you’re trading him to somewhere where he’s not even going to want to play basketball
Anymore and he’s going to want to retire okay at the end of the day the Blazers need to become the best possible team and that involves some tough decisions trading guys away that want to be here so yeah well I mean what do you think
Broden’s gonna say no I hate it here I want to be traded like he’s not that kind of guy right like he’s a nice guy like he’s not going to he’s not going to say that crap and he can be fine with staying here and he can be fine with
Being traded like it doesn’t have to be one or the other I’m sure if he gets traded to a good situation he’s fine with that I’m sure if he’s kept here past the deadline he’s also okay with that um he probably didn’t want to get traded from Boston this past off season
Yeah and that’s fine I mean now that he did get traded from Boston or after the failed trade uh to the Clippers he did now now he’s saying like oh it’s so nice to be in Portland a place that wants me to be there it’s the West Matthews thing
It’s it’s it’s kind of it’s kind of annoying to me but um but like I mean a lot of players have to have that edge that’s like it’s like LeBron is always talking about I’m not supposed to be here I’m just a kid from akaran like dude you’re like the most physically
Gifted athlete of all time in the history of sports yes you are supposed to be here you have chosen one tattooed across your freaking chest for all for Pete’s sake man but like it it’s just like that those kind of athletes have to like they have
To uh have that kind of grind and that edge to them and and there’s nothing wrong with that it’s good good to have that but I don’t think like bronen’s like oh I want to spend the rest of my career if you really gave him true serum
Um but yeah U I like that he’s he feels valued here and I mean why wouldn’t he feel valued here we’re like playing him a ton and uh we traded for him and all that like I mean of course but I guarantee you the minute he gets traded
To another team he’ll tell he’ll say that he’s happy to be there and wants to be there too that’s just who he is yeah yeah I mean at the end of the day it only makes sense to trade Brogden K now now let’s just talk about this report
And then we’re going to talk about ant and now JP Savvy thank you for your donor I’ll read it off when we talk about about ant um but first I just want to talk about there was a latest report I think it was from Shams that said that there’s growing skeptic
Skepticism amongst rival Executives that Portland is going to keep malcol brogon I’m paraphrasing but essentially something like that and Jeremy Grant was included Jeremy Grant Jeremy Grant I believe Eric I don’t let me word it this way and I can’t believe I’m saying this either I don’t think Joe Cronin is dumb enough
To be that desperate to hang on to Malcolm Brockton I don’t I I legitimately I don’t I legitimately I’m not gonna say that because I I’m it’s it’s possible that he is okay it’s possible but if I had to guess this is Just Smokes screen because Who Loved scoot so much that he
Was afraid to trade the third pick it was Joe Crona scoot has a game like this scoot has a couple of games like he had leading up to this Sharp’s coming back that’s another Joe Cronin draft pick right he it’s not that he doesn’t value Scoot and
Sharp and I do think he sees the riding on the wall because if he doesn’t then oh my goodness he’s horrible like I I legitimately don’t think I don’t think he’s a good GM but I think anything regarding the Blazers keeping Brogden is a smok screen because it makes zero logical sense and
I don’t think it makes any logical sense to Joe Cronin to keep Malcolm Brogden what if they truly believe brogen’s the reason why scoot’s now playing well they could believe a bunch of things I don’t think they’re that dumb Tori I already know what’s going to happen okay we’ve been saying
This for months so it’s not some spur the- moment thing but just like anytime I freaking tweet I’m just I’m not going to Tweet anymore because I I’m so sick of it it’s like the same 20 people that are like this dude’s just looking for stuff to be angry about
Welome I know it’s just it’s so don’t let them ruin your will to tweet listen that’s what it’s going to be we’re going to go off I already know what’s going to happen we’re going to have this angry rant and everyone’s going to call us you
Know names and crap and and all this stuff for um like how could you be like cron is so good you’re just looking for reasons to hate him for no reason um why are you guys complaining that’s all they do they’re so negative here’s the thing Eric I think
Most people still want brog traded like I don’t know man I I saw um go ahead well I saw uh um uh someone who’s in our GC I think posted a thing um like how Brogden still on the team after the trade deadline how how are we feeling and it was like
Mostly like great that awesome yeah let’s go he’s still on the team even know this I’m like oh my goodness yeah I mean I did a Twitter poll like 90% of our community wants broaden traded right but so Rip City Reddit has a Discord okay and in those and in that
Discord they occasionally do chat polls or like Discord polls okay and one of the polls they did earlier today was do you want the Blazers to trade Malcolm brogen in the trade deadline okay what percentage of people do you think wanted malum brogon traded at the trade deadline according to rip city Reddit
Discord uh well if you’re bringing it up I’m guessing that it was pretty high that people wanted to trade it but pry high if you didn’t if you didn’t say anything I would say like 50/50 yeah I would say no 87% of people wanted him said said they want him trade
Okay all right I I feel like maybe and I’m included in this like we’ve over exaggerated like the amount of people that don’t want them traded or want to keep them I don’t know but here’s the thing with any polls though is results will vary depending on where the poll is yeah
But I don’t know because it’s it’s not like a vocal minority like I I know I I’m assuming most people like a majority of people still want Broad and traded but it’s like all the media is now putting out this stuff like oh we’re going to keep him and like I don’t
Know it’s just yeah at this point though like I am not going to worry about them potentially keeping them or if they keep them people saying we’re negative people are always going to say we’re negative Eric people are always going to say that if they trade Brogden and we’re super positive people will
Still say we’re negative like last season the whole two-thirds of the season I was insanely positive about the team I still get called negative I’ve been defending scoot from Scoot doubters and haters and you know I’m not I’m not saying you CU I know we’ve disagreed a
Little bit you’re not one of those people like you have had reasonable concern there’s a difference between reasonable concern and like some of the hate he’s gotten right like he’s a b he yeah right like but but I’ve been sitting here on the positive side of things with scoot saying like I’m not
Worried about him he’ll figure it out he’s a great like I’ve been positive on on various things and everything I’m negative towards most of the time I set the standard before it even happens saying like this is why I think they should do this right and then they do
The opposite and then I’m mad because of it right like I set the standard I still get called super super negative and blah blah blah right and and uh so at the end of the day I don’t I don’t care if people think we’re negative for potentially critic in Joe
Cronin keeping Malcolm Brogden because most people anywhere you ask say that Malcolm Brogan should be traded okay so it’s not a minority opinion in the first place and like 99% of the fan base before the season agreed that Malcolm brogon should be traded by the trade
Deadline okay and it’s a very easy case to make scoots playing great you got ant and then shanon Sharp’s going to come back right so it’s putting value in those guys so if we’re negative for wanting to Value those guys in a rebuild then that’s ridiculous yeah I like what you always
Say is like when we’re trying to win last year we trade our start our starter for for a first round pick and now we’re trying to um build this thing back up the right way and now we’re going to keep a 31y old for uh for what like I
Don’t I understand the argument but um but yeah uh here’s the thing though every thing I’ve heard about Brogden it’s always multiple teams have called the Blazers about Malcolm brogon and jemy Grant multiple Executives have said that they believe that Portland’s not trading them multiple multiple which
Means there is a high level of interest in those guys we’re having m multiple teams call okay I do not go ahead well I’m going to say if you were GM with the same reports be coming out because of the way that you’d handle it to try and drive up the
Price I mean yeah I might do that but I have no faith in Cronin to like manipulate the media like that you know like yeah yeah no and I fully understand that I fully understand that but like I think about like if it was a good GM
This is what we’d be hearing right so at the end of the day maybe he’s being smart and I don’t I don’t trust that he is just like you I don’t trust it but when we’re going to find out on Thursday at this point I’ll just wait and see if
He’s actually handling this smartly or not and then we’ll just react you know like so smart thing would be this is a smoke screen so maybe I’m being a little optimistic but that’s just kind of where I’m at yeah well the thing is that so I I just I think there’s a point
Where teams might stop calling if he’s asking too much you know what I mean and being too like stubborn about it and or like too smokees screeny about it you know like there’s a point where maybe is it becomes like a UI situation where teams just like give up because they
Think we’re being ridiculous when Cronin thinks he’s just upping the price on it or or whatever um but uh I’ll go I mean Randy Randy’s setting me up for this glad you guys know what each team is offering for brogon to be so convinced of what Brogden is
Fetching all right there is no way to sugarcoat this if Cronin does not trade malcol Brockton it’s a terrible decision if Cronin cannot get at least a first round pick value for Malcolm Brockton he is a horrible GM and does not deserve to be our GM there is no possible way you
Can just ify him sitting up there saying oh we want the best offer was second rounds what are we supposed to do like there were no good teams offering anything for him that is a bunch of hogwash if he does not trade him he is choosing to keep Malcolm brogon if he is
Not good enough to be a GM to maximize Malcolm brogen’s value right now that is 100% an indictment on Joe Cronin not that other teams aren’t offering anything how many times does he get the excuse of oh well no other team was doing anything the third freaking pick
Scoot Henderson no team was offering anything good for him are you kidding me like I don’t care what you think you heard or whatever you think what if you want to believe that Joe Cronin just sits there and gets no good offer for any of his players especially a veteran
Point guard who was six man of the year last year and is having a really good year is nothing but positive vibes around him right now there’s no like negative injury connotations there’s no negative attitude connotations with him and and Eric a team tried to trade a
First round pick for him it was the 30th pick but a first round pick for him last off season when there was negative inj injury connotations around him so now his value if you just think logically for a second could only have gone up from that so how is he not getting
Offered a first and if he gets offered a first the trade should happen because part of the value of trading Brogden is that you’re clearing minutes for Scoot and sharp and Simons but that’s the problem is like we can sit here and think logically and people be like you don’t know what any
Other team is offering just stop and think logically for two seconds I don’t I Eric I don’t want I don’t I don’t want I don’t I don’t want to keep going I don’t want to keep going with this dude cuz this dude doesn’t listen he just is a terrible listener
And always tries to to think of some smartass response instead of actually thinking logically and listening cuz that’s just not what he likes to do I guess which is fine whatever um but that was the whole thing with the trade right when we got Brogden like oh well add
Another first round pick to our stockpile of picks for Dame because we’re going to get one for him and now these people are like oh well he’s such a good Mentor for Bron like and what if Joe can’t get a first round pick now what what made his value change like I I
Don’t understand yeah yeah basically basically it all comes back to we can never know enough to ever judge the GM on anything so we should never talk about anything regarding the GM it’s basically what the conversation is basically like Randy and his logic okay okay but that’s that’s the problem
Is like we can’t analyze the coach cuz we don’t know what’s going on in the locker room and you know the roster if they ever don’t do something it’s always the roster never the coach so we can’t analyze the coach or talk about the job
That he’s doing okay and we can’t do the same with the GM either because you guys don’t hear trade negotiations right so how could you ever basically we are not allowed to talk about anything regarding the coach or the gym okay let’s read donations yeah it’s just it’s just legitimately you can put
Logical thinking to the test with these situations bro yeah I mean I don’t know how else to explain it shout out to J P Savvy to Euro Dono says Dono for ant kept them in the game and still gets hate yeah we had a ant hater at the
Start of the stream uh we’re going to talk about ant next I’m looking forward to that because ant was on fire the second half uh Thor lein $2 donation says trade Brogan for the goat Pat Bev oh man Brandon Romero $2 donation maybe maybe Pat Bev can teach SC how to get
Back on defense yeah I mean that would be cool that would be cool Pat Bev see that’s the type of Mentor where like you probably don’t have to play him a whole bunch and you would play scoot ahead of him right and it’s like okay go get a
Vet Mentor like that right in a in a trade or whatever um and then Brandon Romero a $2 donation says what’s your per perfect scenario after the deadline cerio and then he had another $2 donation to correct the spelling with scenario so awesome I love that you had that typo
And then donated again to fix it we appreciate it thanks fellas um perfect scenario after the deadline since we’re on the topic of trading then we’ll get into JP Savvy you know his Dono was about an and uh I want to talk about a but first perfect scenario after the deadline I think
Honestly like the perfect scenario is trading in my opinion Brogden thol and Grant for Value but at this point I would be happy with just trading Brogden and then after the deadline you got scoot ant sharp all three starting just to see how that looks the expectation
Might be that it’s you know bad on the defensive end and struggles but I want to see a legitimate sample size of those guys starting together against other St ERS because I think it will help us make more educated decisions on which two we
Can keep or if we you know need to trade one in the future so that’s what I want to see after the deadline yep I want to see uh the Focus Shift to the three young players and then or multiple young players more than third the three um if we get a another
Young player back in any type type a deal then you play him like I mean the best case scenario would be to get like a jerus walker or someone like that in a trade um that you could just plug in and Jeremy spot the rest of the season and
Let him see what he can do with the uh the minutes and stuff um I mean you look around the league like this rookie class is killing it Tori like there’s so many good players um and it’s there’s there’s also like really good players in the g-
League right now that can’t even get minutes on their regular team because they’re they play their players ahead of them are playing well and all that kind of stuff so uh I would love to see just like maybe a one more forward or a big or something that could get some minutes
On this roster the rest of the season too but I just I just want it to be purely about getting as much information as possible with scoot Anthony and sharp and seeing where those three can take us if they’re given you know 30 plus minutes a game to play with each other
Yep all righty let’s talk about ant what are your thoughts on Ant today Eric um I thought uh obviously he struggled to shoot the ball early on um and then really just got hot was an inferno there for a while um I thought uh I I think he’s doing I
Mean only two turnovers tonight um four assists you’d like to see that number be a little bigger but I’m I’m guessing if you looked at the potential assists from this game um he’d have um at least double digits for that um I felt like early on in this game he was being very
Passive like trying to set up the offense and Lamar and uh collabor were even talking about how uh when we got down uh like 10 to two or whatever that an’s just going to have to learn when he needs to take over games and and give a scoring punch because the passing wasn’t
Working because we’re were missing all our shots um and so uh that’s still a learning Pro process for him and I feel like he’s doing about as good of a job as someone who is for this season seeing double teams and the pressure and the defensive coverages that he’s seeing I
Feel like he’s really Advanced for how little uh time he’s had to learn that I mean it took Dame even a couple Seasons to uh to to learn uh how to deal with pressure like go back to the the Pelican series I mean what Dame that was Dame’s
What sixth season in the NBA the Pelican series you know know like and he had to transform his game after that and this is ant’s six six season as well but um it it’s it’s more I mean with ant his first few don’t count in my opinion because he wasn’t he didn’t have
Anywhere near this kind of role so to me when I look at how much attention he’s receiving and how well he’s handling that how quick he’s getting the ball to Aon um on the role how quick he’s dribbling around it or finding ways to not turn the ball over or get trapped um
I I think he’s doing a really good job of it and I I think it’s going the the critics of anony are vastly underrating how important it is to have someone like Anthony Simons attracting the attention he’s attracting and how that allow someone like scoot Henderson to explode like he did tonight because
Denver was not ready for scoot to be like this tonight right and they didn’t game plan for him to score 30 points they did for Anthony though and they did probably for Grant and Grant wasn’t was a late scratch so that ended up being
For not but I feel like anony is a big reason why a lot of these other players are having career years and really good Seasons yeah I mean the the ant criticism has always been kind of unhinged to me like we had somebody at the start of the stream complaining
About ant shooting a a uh 30-footer in transition with teammates open under the hoop and I’ve watched every single three that a has missed nothing even close nothing even close to that and it’s frustrating when people make up scenarios to hate ant on and he had to
Take like three three shots with 3 seconds or less on the shot clock that were insanely contested a couple of which like I think it’s unfair for him to have that go against his you know shooting percentages he goes 11 for 24 he struggled to start the game was on
Fire second half 11 for 24 two or three of those shots were just kind of BS shots that he had to shoot at the very very end of a shot clock because the offense for large stretches of this game did get pretty stagnant and he has to
Try and bail it out right that’s a tough situation tough situation and he still almost shoots 50% from the field still has a decently efficient night like I don’t understand that sort of criticism and when he gets the ball man it’s frustrating to me because when he gets
The ball everybody else just stands around and does nothing does nothing and it forces him to have to go one-on-one And when everybody else is standing around doing nothing it allows the defense to set up some sort of help to like bother ant and make things as tough
As possible on Ant but because other guys don’t move there’s not really a good option out of a double team or out of help-side defense and the defense is able to rotate well because they’re set up because nobody is moving like legitimately for people to say ant is a
Selfish player I think is absolutely ludicrous to me ant doesn’t go out there and play like he’s just trying to hunt numbers he doesn’t go out there and play Like Jordan Pole ant doesn’t play for Flash like the criticism of him being selfish is just truly truly ridiculous to me and
A lot of times it’s he has to try and bail out the offense so he tries to bail out the offense and then he gets called Selfish for it it it doesn’t make sense you NBA needs you need players that can do that too like that’s that’s the silly
Part you need players that can create he’s really the only one on this team outside of Grant being able to get his jumper up over people he’s he the only one that does that now maybe Scoot and sharp eventually become Dependable on that but up until now there’s th those
Guys aren’t necessarily consistent with that so um that’s also an important skill uh but the thing that drives me crazy this guy anony this is why I’ll always go to bat for him because I have to sit here and read comments about how he’s selfish and
How he doesn’t pass and he takes bad shots and all this stuff if you guys were paying attention ant is going out of his freaking way he’s done it now this the reason why Aon has been successful this last couple weeks why aon’s been playing much better it’s because Anthony Simons has been
Setting him up and making a concerted effort to get him the ball multiple multiple times a game at the beginning of games all throughout the game Anthony is trying he’s he’s forgoing taking shots early in games to get uh DeAndre Aon going and aon’s been responding with
Some pretty good games I we only take six Shots tonight so it’s kind of a weird game but before that um I mean almost all of his success lately has been because Anthony has has been the guy who has started getting him the ball and his teammates have kind of followed after that
Um and uh I I just think um it’s just like people just want to believe that he’s just some six-man scorer that doesn’t do anything else and and ah man and I hear this argument you guys once again I’ll bring up Scorch and trails step brings up that he’s not he’s
Not a number one option well it doesn’t mean he has to be our number one option we don’t have to have him be our best player moving forward that’s why we’re accumulating draft picks that’s what a rebuild is you want to get really good players right like it doesn’t mean the
Players you have right now have to be your best players or you’re screwed or whatever right uh so there’s still lots of things we can do and um I mean I I just see we get this comment and it doesn’t even look to pass the ball he
Doesn’t set anyone up like he did it like go look at the first like six possessions of this game like that’s all he did was try to set up teammates like what are you even talking about crazy crazy I mean and then you got this dude arguing about ants 30f
Footer when initially I believe he said it was in transition the only 30 foot or ant shot was with like two on the shot clock according to nba.com okay I just I don’t understand why we always got to deal with make believe I don’t understand it
Anyway but okay so Kyle says Steve is Stephen is trying to say if ant is our number one choice that’s not a good outlook but people use that to knock him so he said he’d be the third option on any Contender right that’s what he told
On the show right yeah okay so and I don’t really disagree with the premise but it’s not criticism you can AR like you argued with them maybe second or whatever like that doesn’t even matter right but that’s that’s our whole point right is Malcolm Brogden the number one
Option no on a championship team no he loves himself some Brogden okay um and where we’re hoping scooter sharp is right we’re hoping uh like that’s still that’s still yet to be determined we have no idea yet yeah I mean if scoot plays like this like we’re going to be
All thinking he can be right um but okay like I just I don’t understand the premise of well he’d be a third option on a good team okay well so we have our third option on a championship team that’s great that’s why we need to trade
Brockton to get as many draft picks as possible so we have as many shots of getting the one and two options right even if we already have that on our roster if ANS like our fourth or fifth option then were’re even better right yeah that’s the whole point of the
Rebuild you got to identify the core pieces Brogden is not a core piece in three years he’ll be like 34 and like so we want to find that one or two option no one is saying that Anthony has to be our best player because he’s our best
Player right now he has to be our best player for the next 10 years or whatever like it it just it makes no sense to me how is that a knock on him that he’s our best player right now but probably isn’t our best player on a championship team
He’d still be really freaking good I like I just I don’t get it he either has to be our best player or a six man and sucks yeah it’s just hilarious to me Eric until two minutes left in the second quarter a only took four shots so that means he probably played like
Roughly 18 minutes in the first half right he plays like 36 minutes a game in this game he played 37 so like 18 minutes in the first half for the first 16 minutes he took four shots but we got people saying he never looks to pass he only looks to shoot and
He had the ball every possession that pretty much yeah he literally didn’t shoot the first four and a half minutes of the game the first shot he shot was a like semi open three with like five on the shot clock okay not a selfish shot not a selfish shot at
All you like you want him taking that shot with five on the shot clock okay second play wasn’t even a shot he tried to drive and then tried to pass the ball and it got tipped and nba.com at least according to their highlights has it listed as he got blocked by kcp
It wasn’t even a shot he was trying to pass it was actually a miscalculated stat okay his third shot of the game he shoots a runner with one on the shot clock that he had to the fourth play was when he pushed ahead in transition and tried to beat
The defense down and it got blocked by jic out of bounds and it was still Blazer ball those those are the only shots he shot in like his first six 16 minutes of play but we got people in here that say he never looks to pass like rewatch the
First half of this game then please frustrating man frustrating an’s not selfish like we got to stop just making we got to stop chasing narratives just to chase them also if we when we have sharp back I’m I’m excited to see um cuz Anthony and sharp didn’t get a lot of
Time since an SP seeing this kind of double team almost by every team right so um I’m I’m excited to see if sharp can take advantage of that um go back to last season where he was cutting a lot more um and maybe ant can throw some
Lobs up there um yeah it’s uh I’m uh I’m excited to see those guys play with each other again okay I’m start press this this Preston dude in chat is really getting on my bad side he says uh y’all don’t see reality bro don’t get mad at me for
Being real I literally just rewatched his first four shots and I’m literally looking at the shot tracker and I’m literally telling you exactly what happened but because it doesn’t fit with your narrative I’m not seeing reality okay bro okay man I wish we could show clips on stream
Because I swear sometimes we get people that I just I I think they watched a different game and are talking about like they watch the Wizards game and they think Jordan p is Anthony Simons you know what I mean like I I just don’t understand how we watch the
Same game I the other thing is I don’t understand why people focus on like one person because the ball movement wasn’t great outside of uh the second quarter I thought it was pretty good but the ball movement overall wasn’t great um and our our team had what 14 assists as a whole
Team yeah um but like Preston for example was going off about how scoot plays the right way and stuff I mean he only had two assists yeah like like what and I’m not saying it’s good or bad I’m just saying like why why do why does scoot not get your
Oh he took scoot hardly passed it all this game like like and that’s not a bad thing like scoot I felt like took shots that he needed to take um like sometimes you have to do that right yeah um and and so um yeah oh my God you just you just can’t
Have a conversation with some people Eric um it’s it’s whatever bro it’s whatever I mean okay buddy Taylor it’s it’s not about what you’re there in it’s if one about what’s happening in the course of game if two players score 30 points which basically happened tonight 30 and 29 and one
Player is getting criticized for ball hogging and the other player isn’t when both of them took a lot of shots uh like I mean scoot didn’t take a lot of shots technically field goal attempts but you know he when you drive and get to the line that’s not passing um so they were
Both good in this game I thought um and both took mostly shots that you have to take sometimes anery has to take bad shots because I mean there’s a lot of times especially without Grant he doesn’t have players that can do anything um yeah I just don’t I just
Don’t understand why people don’t realize that ant has to take tough shots because of the offense and every good player in the NBA takes B takes tough shots yeah every single one like there’s a comment that says a plays a lot like Dame and I don’t think teams can win longterm with that
Type of player which is just a ridiculous comment because we only won longterm because of Dame um but also when you have a stagnant offense and the ball gets the ball stuck on the perimeter and nobody knows what to do guess what they do they give it to the
Most talented scorer guess who that is it’s ant okay they so the ball gets to Ant and then everybody stands waiting for him to do something and he has to do something so then he tries to do something and gets called Selfish for it I don’t understand why people can’t realize that
This offense more than anything contributes to that and I don’t understand how this dude can shoot four times in his first 16 minutes of play and people can come in here here that’s a fact by the way that’s a freaking fact that’s like an inarguable fact but I’m
Delusional for stating facts okay that’s an inarguable fact he literally only shot four times until two minutes left in the second quarter okay but yet people say oh he he didn’t try and set anyone up he never looks to pass it’s just BS statements oh Preston’s a Blazer fan
You’re just a Dame fan Tor okay well Preston just get out of here bro just just get out of here then um if that’s R if you going to be like that bro I don’t want to have a conversation with you because I can’t obviously um next he’s going to play the victim
Because you went through and proved that his wasn’t true I don’t want to get too caught up on this it’s just at the end of the day like the ant criticism has to me has never been based on what’s actually happening I don’t really understand it
Like I will go back and try and look at what’s actually happening um and and for Gregory who wanted to trade Dame and thought we could never win with Dame um Dame played with LaMarcus Aldridge for three seasons and then Aldridge left and ever since then the best player he
Played with was CJ McCollum or Jeremy Grant like what who what NBA player outside of maybe joic um is winning LeBron maybe in his prime is is contending with that kind of roster with with that kind of help I just I just it it drives me crazy that the narrative is
Oh Dame’s not a winner and a can’t be a winner because he plays like Dame it’s like get these guys some freaking help it it’s just it’s dumb yeah um why do I why do I change my voice because because man um that that don’t don’t even I want
Here if you get the ball think about it from a player standpoint okay if you get the ball and your four teammates are standing around staring at you guarded what do you do legitimate question okay what do you do in order to not be selfish like I feel like people don’t
Actually think of it from the perspective of like being stuck in a stagnant offense anyway that is a lie anyway Eric who else do you want to talk about on this team um do op I don’t know yeah so du up breath in this game three for four two for two from three
Continues to shoot it efficiently 10 points four rebounds 21 minutes he actually almost played as much as Aon and Aon wasn’t in foul trouble I was a little surprising to see that cuz reath minutes have been around 12 to 15 um plus six I mean the the bench was
Positive actually in this game scoot was plus seven wath plus six Chris Murray was a plus eight he didn’t really do anything right you look at the starters the starters were were negative major negatives Jabari Walker minus 25 DeAndre minus 16 tamat Kamar – 11 Anthony minus
20 brog minus 10 the starting unit as a whole struggled struggled and I think the starting lineup it didn’t it’s tough when Jeremy’s out because both Jabari and tman are people that you can kind of leave open at the three-point line and Aon doesn’t shoot threes okay so the
Spacing was already screwed tanii Jabari and DeAndre Aon none of them are going to create their own shots from the perimeter right and that’s why a lot of the responsibility in the end does ultimately fall back to Anthony Simons where he has to try and make something happen
Okay starter struggled I think part of it was due to a little bit of a lack of spacing because you had Kamar Jabari and Aon out there I don’t think that works because unfortunately that’s three non- three-point Shooters tamman and Jabari they’ll shoot threes but they won’t make
Them to me that makes them basically non-shooters from the three-point line defenses will leave them open um and I do think that contributed to some of the spacing problems and then you but then you bring in a bench you got D bre he can shoot three
And it makes a little easier to have like a tman next to a wreath compared to like a tman next to Anon not that wath is better thanon simply because when you have like tamman and Aon or Jabari and Aon that’s two non-shooters where you have like tamman or Jabari with wreath
At least you have one of those front Court spots being a guy that can shoot threes and space the floor and drag that Center away from the rim I think it makes it easier on everyone so wreath today two for two from three I mean that three-point shooting in a backup big
He’s a legitimate stretch five Eric yeah I thought um I think the big reason why they played him I mean I don’t know why Aon doesn’t shoot threes I still I still am just baffled by that because I think he could space the floor similar
To what wath is doing but reath played a lot simply because um it it brings yic out or they have to adjust their defense when he’s in and uh um it definitely opens up the offense now wreath was not good on defense except for one play out of
Nowhere blocked someone at The Rim I forgot who it was but uh uh it was it was a really amazing block um but one of the big reasons we lost this game was uh reath and Aon uh just did not control the the defensive glass and uh they’re
They’re Aon usually isn’t a problem on that end um but wreath wreath rebounding has been pretty tough most of the season um so he has some good things and good and some bad things but I I do think at least offensively he really helps um clear the
Paint a little more than than aon’s doing right now yep um let’s talk about Tani and Jabari because they start together just kind of brought that up I mean those two kind of rough and Jabari is if Jabari could just shoot threes Eric he’d be such a good role
Player I just think with his inability to shoot threes it causes some problems on the offensive end if he had four Shooters around him then I think it’d be fine but it’s more so just a combination of some of these guys like the combination of Kamar and Walker and I’m just a little
Disa pointed in the fact that like neither of those guys have seemed to figure it out from three yeah so what are your thoughts on on just either one of those guys or whatever well like Jabari was one for four at one point in this game um and he seemed to uh it’s
Just this isn’t jabari’s fault fault necessarily cuz he’s not like out there running to the ball or anything but I mean I I think there’s a reason why so many times early in this game he ended up with the ball um and was wide open or um you know
Didn’t like they were trying to stop other players and uh it’s just when he’s struggling it’s kind of frustrating to watch uh you know Jabari shoot four or five times before ant does and uh uh all that kind of stuff so um yeah but I do think he makes up
For it a lot in the second half he caught the ball didn’t even hesitate drove right in on the defense caught him off guard and got an and one um I do think there’s some things he can do I I think you are right though eventually
He’s go to he’s got to at least hit like 35% from three um like it’s the mo harkless thing right like the years he shot above 35% were uh pretty good the years he didn’t uh we kind of struggled with that so I think
Um I think we just got to find a way to either not Camp him out in the corners or um I don’t I don’t know what the solution is but with with him starting with Aon um aon’s usually around the middle of the key uh so you can’t really play him in
The paint or anywhere near the post position or anything like that so I I don’t know what the solution is it’s just I I do think he’s been fine but um he’s like I don’t know uh I don’t know if it’s the right fit with the
Starters but he has had some good games with the starters so I I don’t I don’t know if that’s necessarily true either I don’t I’m toring Tor yeah yeah if you can’t tell yeah I’m yeah I’m torn on both these guys man like I’m especially torn on tomani
Though like it’s he was so good defensively to start the season he had some good defensive moments against Milwaukee I know he’s just a rookie I mean he goes three for six from the field four for four from the free throw line has 10 points right so like that’s solid I
Just I just feel like he’s regressed all season from three like instead of improving and that’s the part that kind bugs me is in preseason and at the start of the Season like there were some games where he’d hit a couple threes and his last 10 games he’s shooting 12% from
Three Eric he’s out 28% from the season his three-point shot for whatever reason just keeps regressing and regressing and that’s the part where it’s like man one of those guys he’s athletic I think he could get better maybe attacking The Rim finishing just like Jabari has this past season right
But at the end of the day it’s hard to attack when you can’t shoot the three because Defenders can just give a gap give a cushion and use that cushion to stay in front of you and not let you get by them and not let you beat them off
The dribble and they’re not going to close out hard where you can blow by them and that’s the thing with tamani is it legitimately just comes down to can he make threes because if he can make threes I think he can be a good offensive player you know he had that
Had that dunk um that lob like I think he can cut a little bit I think he was cutting a little bit more to start the season so want to see him get back to that but um he can kind of contort most of the time the Finish isn’t there but
You know I think that can be tapped into a little bit it’s just the three-point shot for both these guys that is really really they look okay too I know that’s the other thing that drives me crazy both of them look okay and and Jabari was a shooter in college
Jabari had a game in college where I fell in love with them because he hit like five or six threes against I believe it was Arizona and like a one or two of them were pull-ups off the dribble and it was like you love Jabari as a prospect that was with the thought
That he would come in and like knock down threes if he came in and knock down threes I mean that would have been so spot on like he would be such a great role player especially for where he was drafted if he could knock down threes on
Top all little things he does I’m not saying he shouldn’t play I’m not saying you know like I’m trying not to be too negative on Jabari because he does do a lot of good things he’s finishing better he’s learned how to dribble drive a little bit he gets rebounds he plays uh
With a lot of energy plays with a lot of hustle good attitude like there’s so many good things to say about Jabari where that’s why it just kind of sucks man like if he could only just consistently hit threes y yeah I thought I thought his three-point shot would be a little more
Locked in yep 29.9% on the season I mean he’s been shooting better last 10 I guess 36% according to ESPN it’s just teams still don’t respect it though and that’s the problem that’s the problem um other players you want to talk about um who have we not talked about
Brogden I guess five for 13 0 for two from three had eight rebounds six assists 11 points my hope is Eric that he’s played his last game as a Blazer already my hope is that he sits next game next game is the last game before the trade
Deadline My Hope Is that they sit him start scoot next game try and build off this performance and go into the deadline looking to trade Brogden that way you’re not risking injuring him in the final game before the trade deadline we’ll see what happens with that but that’s my
Hope who did you say thel no brogon BR sorry my hope is that yeah uh My Hope Is that brog play I heard everything you said I just didn’t hear the name yeah brogy um yeah I mean they’re gonna play him next game for some reason they’re gonna play
Him next game um yeah I think they want to win so yeah um but yeah I I hope it’s just one more game I told you a couple games ago after that uh game he had like 29 Points I would not play him again as a Blazer
Um but yeah they obviously don’t care about that yep um other players I he was fine but like at the he ends up with six assists but at the beginning of the game he was shooting every time he he missed his first three shots at least and was
Just as I mean he he tried to take over the beginning of this game but no one says anything about that yeah I feel like an’s just held to a to a higher standard regarding his shot selection than a guy like Brogden when ant has to take the toughest shots on the team
Because of how much our offense stagnates and the ball rotates back to him low in a shot clock with everybody just standing around expecting him to shoot because there’s six on the shot clock and he has to make something happen he has to get a shot off so I I felt like
CJ was held to a little bit of an unfair standard I now feel like Anthony Simons is held to a little bit of an unfair standard and guess what if we trade ant in the next year and a half there’s a good chance that Shaden sharp will be
Held to the same unfair standard or or Shaden sharp doesn’t play with enough confidence and never becomes what we hope he can become but then maybe he wouldn’t be criticized the same way you know what I mean yeah so shout out to Traer Traer yeah shout out to Trader
Bogs we should change that to Trader brogs get it Trader bogs with a $5 donations say thoughts on th his trade valueing and his garbage statline I don’t see us needing him on Sharp his back and love y’all’s Channel thank you man um yeah so tho in this game plays 23
Minutes is 1 for five 1 for four from three his three point percentage is slowly declining it’s still in a decent spot above 36% But Eric I just he just isn’t worth $1 million to me I I don’t know like we’re we’re going to be butting up against the tax as it
Stands going into next season if we use our picks right now we’re actually projected to be in the tax okay even if we weren’t that also prevents us from using the tpes or using yeah mle mid-level exception stuff like that that also hinders that we can’t use anything right and even if we
Were a little bit below the tax we still wouldn’t use them because like this team ain’t paying the tax and the tax has been something that hurts flexibility even when we’re under it okay so this is exactly why we haven’t really talked about this much during the season but
This is exactly why I didn’t want the Blazers to match matis thel’s offer sheet from the Dallas Mavericks this is exactly why because I mean you look at a game like this 23 minutes one for five he has three points one rebound no assists he gets one steel one block okay when he
Doesn’t get steals or blocks his defense isn’t good so so one steel one block and one bucket and one rebound and that’s it in 23 minutes of play that’s basically all he provides I I I just it’s not it’s not worth 11 million I’d rather have that extra little bit of
Flexibility going forward especially with a rebuilding team well I think it was worth matching if willing to trade him yes cuz if they get a second round pick I mean we can argue that they shouldn’t have traded for him in the beginning but that’s another conversation you have to get
Back an expiring contract with them though because if you get back a second round pick an $1 million contract you still have the same salary issues going into the off season yeah or I mean maybe you pick up like uh maybe you have to take on like I
Don’t think this is going to happen but let’s just say we got like Like Pat conon who still got a couple years left on his deal and we got Maron yeah in a trade there like a trade like that I’m not saying the Bucks would do that or we
Do that or whatever but like if you got if you if you took on some salary but you potentially got another young player that could be like a Kamar or better than Kamar um as like a throwin to that trade then maybe you could justify it um
But as of right now yeah I just I think think they need to do it and this whole broen thing about keeping him it has me thinking that they’re just going to do that with iel instead they’ll just trade him for a an expiring salary and maybe
Like a second round pick and uh that’s how they’ll uh dump salary instead of uh with Bron yeah if they want to keep brog and I fully expect them to trade viable and clear up minutes for Sharp by getting rid of thyo and clearing that money by getting rid of thy like
Legitimately there’s no way to get enough minutes for all six of scoot sharp Simons Brogden thol and Jeremy Grant if you’re still starting Jeremy Grant at the small Fort spot if you remove thy it’s still iffy because of how many minutes the other five Dem but at least it’s slightly more workable
And that Pro if they keep rognant that will probably the way they be the way they justify it it’s just I don’t know I don’t know we’ll have to wait and see I don’t think TH or Brogden are part of the you know core when this team fights finally starts seriously
Winning but we’ll see we’ll see B still young I just never been the biggest fan of his game and he’s a Washington guy too and he’s a YouTuber he’s the type of guy that you know if it wasn’t for basketball like I love that type of dude
You know what I mean like I can relate to him on the YouTube stuff he did a sick video with duop ree highly recommended watch played at Washington I’m a Washington fan like I have no personality-wise cool dude like no reasons to hate bable just especially
On this team not a fan of his game 27 in a month by the way not yeah a little older a little older than I thought but still you know y it up where you yeah yeah make the case yeah you can justify either way yeah
Yeah man I wish so badly we could be traded to the Mavericks this year because I think they would give us something for him but um yeah yeah I don’t know we find out in less than a week the trade deadline is right around the corner Ryan Johnson says F the Huskies
You are entitled to hate the Huskies I understand as a Portland Trailblazer YouTuber that a lot of you will hate the huskys and that’s okay that’s okay I see it all the time on Twitter I don’t like the Ducks so that’s fine um anyway Mike says I checked it’s a side
Note of it it seems TP isn’t affected by being a tax team Eric I don’t know that means yeah um what what’s his point he’s trying to make I I’m not he said sorry TP isn’t affected by being in the tax like you don’t you can still use the TP
Or what do you I think that’s what he’s saying yeah if you’re you you can’t or you don’t get trade exceptions or you can’t use them so in the new if you’re a tax team you can still use a tpe correct if you’re if you’re in the second tax though you can’t you’re
The second taex apron like Randy says also I I believe it’s starting this summer it wasn’t last summer because they wanted to give teams a year to adjust to the new rule but um in the future you’re going to be able to use tpes for uh signing free agents as well
Um but just it let me let me let me respond real quick um when we say that if we’re close to the tax or in the tax we can’t can’t use tpes we mean it from the standpoint of jod Allen doesn’t want to pay the tax so we’re not going to use
It to take on even more salary that’s that’s what I was going to say is yeah for all intense purposes we’re we’re not going to be a tax team next year so we’re not going to use a TP just like this year we have like a disabled player
Exception or whatever uh for Robert Williams um and we have multiple tpes um so the Blazers aren’t going to use those or like even if they could use the mle on um and go into the tax next year they’re not going to do that so um
In my opinion we have to kind of think of everything as the luxury tax line for this particular roster yeah basically basically we think of the luxury tax line as a bit of a hard cap because Jody Allen doesn’t want to pay it yeah now they could be in the tax
Entering the season and then duck it so obviously that wouldn’t be like a true hard cap but right I mean does Jody even want to risk that the last time we were in the tax we took back cents on the dollar in a norm pal trade six days
Before the trade deadline in order to duck it so even and end up would have ducking it anyway in a CJ yeah so at the end of the day yeah at the end of the day like tax is just a nogo so um obviously if we had a winning team
With an owner that wanted to pay the tax then yeah it definitely changes the calculation of everything I wish T Tyler uh to to be clear we’re not a luxury tax currently we are projected if we kept everyone to be a luxury Tex team next year with adding two Lottery teams so
It’s not we’re not a 15 and 34 team in the Tex right now yeah without the picks were projected to be like $8 to9 million under the luxury tax the salary cap is a million do lower and I believe the calculation was $9 million so now it’s probably like $8 million under but
That’s not counting draft picks draft first round draft picks get automatic rookie contracts right so if we draft somebody say say we end up with like our pick moves down a spot to six then we get the Warriors pick of like 11th that’s still like $6 million for the
Sixth pick and like I think like three and a half for the 11th pick somewhere in that range that’s going to be like 9 and half million so that puts us into the tax and that’s without trading for any extra salary using a tpe using an mle uh so we’re projected currently
Given where our picks are and how much those rookie contracts would cost we are currently projected to be in the tax so we have to shed salary by getting rid of something whether it’s salary whether it’s trading the 10th pick for future picks if we get it from Golden State
Like they have to do something to duck it and they will if they really want to keep Brogden and Grant then it becomes a situation of okay what exactly do they do to duck it who exactly do they trade to duck it the answer might be
Thel yep and then uh so just to give a brief history uh since Jody took over she took over the team because Paul died right before the season started in uh 2018 2019 so he died in in 2018 um and that team would go on to make the Western Conference
Finals um we the three seed she basically let uh Neil run the show didn’t really interfere much let him trade for Rodney Hood and sign NIS caner um after the deadline and um was willing to do that I think the first year was kind of like uh
Oh let’s do this for Paul type of thing and we’re it would have been really hard to duct attacks and it also would have been really hard to justify uh a team that’s fighting for homec court advantage in the playoffs all of a sudden like trading everyone
Away and ducking the tax like that wasn’t going to happen in her first year so that was back in 2018 2019 then we have all the Feelgood stories you can see jod in the locker room after the game seven win in Denver she is just as
Stoked as anyone else in there um and she was at like every game um all that kind of stuff so uh but that next year she she allowed us to trade for hisan wh side um and all that kind of stuff we were I believe we had the highest payroll in the league
That year if I’m not mistaken um but we still made a cost cutting move at the deadline trading scalla away for cash um and we got uh but we end up keeping his on Whit side um and didn’t trade him and I think there’s two ways you can look at that one
They didn’t want to take salary on for future years and this was that was the first sign of that um and two uh Whiteside was expiring so it made it look like they were keeping him because he was good but it could have just Ben they didn’t want to take on that salary
And were cheap and knew he they were going to let him go that following off season and uh wanted that 27 million or whatever off the book um so ever since then at every trade deadline we have made Moves not only to clear cap space the current season but to clear it for
The future season and that was with Damen Lillard with Joe Cronin and Neil o both saying they wanted to win with Dame and we’re going to build it and they’re super committed and Jody’s going to do willing to do anything it takes including going to the tax all their
Actions prove otherwise they have been very concerned not only about the tax in the current season but in future years and have made it a point to get expiring contracts so they were not in the tax or going to be in the tax and so um it just
It would not make sense to me if all of a sudden this season now that we’ve traded Dame and our 15 and 34 or whatever our record is and all that kind of stuff if now we’re not concerned about being in the tax next year and or
We’ll figure it out later they’ that’s never been their mantra they’ve always wanted to duck it first and then if we need to make trades to go into it or do something if we’re really good maybe you you can discuss or Justify going into it but I seriously doubt they’re going to
Go into this off season projected to be a tax team and try to figure out how to get out of it yep 100% so that’s the situation that we’re in uh the Blazers play the Nuggets again on Sunday obviously we have another post game show
For that and we can talk even more trade stuff um but the Blazers have 3 days off before trade deadline morning right so they don’t play the fifth the 6th the 7th then on the morning of the 8th is the trade deadline we’re going to have a
Live stream for that going live at approximately like 8:30 in the morning then the deadline is going to be at noon and we we will have like live Twitter feeds and special graphics for that it’s like a big event each year so hopefully you can make it for that stream and
That’s where you can come hang out with with other Blazer fans and react live to any move that goes down it’s a ton of fun um and you can see the Twitter feeds and not have to worry about scrolling through Twitter and having notifications on all that stuff so it’s a great
Experience for the viewer for the viewer I’m very jealous of you guys on trade deadline days because you get to watch the streams right we got to put them on which is fun in our our own way but man like I would love to sit back relax you
Know kick my feet up and listen to the deadline stream enjoy some food you know what I mean like it’s a hopefully it’s a really fun enjoyable experience that trade deadline stream we we do our best to make that a very viewer friendly experience um so that stream will go
Live not exactly sure but like in the morning 8:30 maybe 8 a.m. if there’s a trade for the Blazers we’ll go live too so if they make a trade at 7: a.m. I guess that stream starts at 7 a.m. if they make a trade on you know at 100 p.m
On Tuesday February 6th I’m going live at 1: p.m. on Tuesday J uh February 6 so if there’s a Brogden trade or a meaningful trade for the Blazers we’ll go live as soon as we possibly can so any sort of trade check back here um and
Check on Twitter and and that sort of thing follow us on Twitter links in description box below and that way you can stay up to date you can also join our Discord which is where our community meets to discuss all things Blazers and we tag everyone in our Discord whenever
We drop anything whether it’s an article whether it’s a new episode of scorch and Trail check it out on our second Channel Linked In the description box below whether it’s you know a postgame show or whatever we always tag people on our Discord whenever we go live and you can
Hang out with other Blazer fans there so there’s also a link in the description literally click on everything in the description uh and that’s basically what we got on to we’ll probably do like a trade deadline preview stream maybe Wednesday night the 7th if nothing’s
Happened yet um I don’t know we got some days off so we might have a couple impromptu streams even if there’s not a trade because I don’t have recck League this week I’m not playing basketball on Tuesday night maybe I do a Tuesday night stream you know what I mean like we’re
Going to have we’re going to have content so stay tuned we’re going to have you covered um leading up to the trade deadline on Thursday February 8th Noah Hood Eric says no tank ofon which silly question because of course we got tank we lost I don’t know why the no
Sound effect played played when I loaded up Ton it should have been the let’s the let’s go but we got ton we always got ton in a loss always we will never avoid the tank ofon Eric so here we go the odds all right are the same as they’ve
Been Blazers oh we’re we’re locked into the fist locked in no chance we move at all apparently even though we got like 33 games left yeah uh if you know you know what that’s a reference to man uh but yeah so this is where we sit right
Now same odds as last year and then the Golden State pick is 10th it’s tied 10th and 11th with Chicago which means that with like 35 games left it’s locked into 10th I’m just kidding um they’re one and a half games uh better than Atlanta who beat the Suns today
Which is good because if this could move up to ninth that’s that’s great you know what I mean I would be bummed if this pick moves into the top four though so maybe we don’t want it Rising ericm but it’s not as bad as the New Orleans one
Though it’s still not as bad but it yeah I mean I I feel like at 10 there’s a legitimate chance that you can get salon uh I mean if you’re if you’re correct then I will be super bummed we trade it just like um when we traded for roko and gave
Up to first um but like yeah I I don’t know man CU let’s just say we got the Dallas pick from New York what’s that out right now the Dallas pick from New York is at 18 so like yeah let’s just say we get like
Five and 18 or something um I would I would be disappointed obviously but I think pushing one of our picks back a year isn’t the worst thing and it’s got better odds next year so we could the dream all season of getting both Ace Bailey and Cooper
Flag yeah I’m just I’m just joking but like yeah yeah yeah but but but the only yeah the only problem is if golden state gets a top four pick they’re probably going to be better next year and yeah well it didn’t help with wisan even though they won a championship but yeah
But that was wisan like if they draft the right player right like if they got star that would make a huge difference right um there’s a couple other guys you know like Cody Williams I think would be phenomenal in that system Ray just as a 6 foot n shooter like would definitely
Help them and Jonathan kaminga is starting to to look like a star he’s been breaking out the last like seven or eight games so if he continues that breakout next year he could make them better simply because of his own development right I know they got some
Other guys that might decline but like kaminga coming into his own is huge for them potentially being a better team next year and if they also get a top four pick I feel like if they keep the court together and then maybe make smart moves to add a couple other good veteran
Role players they could be back to being um you know a a six seed or something like that so it could so shop kaminga and the pick this year for a star and maybe that on him I don’t know yeah I mean that could make them that would
Probably make them better if it’s a if it’s the right Star right I don’t know if they if they end up with a top four pick it’s I think it’s unlikely for their pick to be top 10 next year yeah I mean which is why itd be
Bummed if their went from 10 to top four we both thought it wouldn’t be in the lottery this year we probably weren’t getting it this year though right yeah but I mean top four pick is we’re getting we’re getting it I mean but like we were yeah I thought they would be
Better in year yeah but a top four pick is a major asset even in this year’s draft all right so let’s just say hypothetically let me before I before I ask you this question let me just look one thing up real quick oh boy but this
This will be a good question okay let me just figure out what where this would be okay um all right so the Warriors are three and a half games out of the eight seed right now or you know if they make if they make it to like the even just the 10th
Seed they could potentially be the e seed right yep me their pick would be 15 mhm if they were the last team in depending on who the last team in the East was maybe it’s 16 let’s just say for the senka argument it’s the 17th pick okay
Okay would you rather have Golden State go on a run this year and our pick be in the late teens like 17 or stay where they’re at and move into the top four and we get their pick next year I mean I don’t think their pick is going
To be much lower than like 20th to 23rd next year in a deeper draft so that being the worst case scenario in a draft that’s better the worst case scenario is similar to if their pick was 17 right so i’ like if it was 17 this year
Or their pick mov top four and we get their pick next year I mean probably take their pick next year right but if they have the capability of playing the 17 then I mean maybe they could be even better next year with that asset you know it’s kind of hard to
Compare those two things because they’re like you know separate because they can’t move up but at the end of the day I think that if they are 9th 10th 11th it’s not the end of the world if they move up to top four but I do think that
Is not as good as not as likely to be better than if their pick is 9 10 or 11 this year is how wor yeah so that’s how I feel like there’s I think there’s a legitimate chance that you could take a flyer on a Abu zalis at 10 I know he hasn’t
Had the greatest year in the G league but I mean for that to be your second pick in the draft and take a flyer on him I mean I I do it right um I think you could get your starting center of the future maybe that’s kingan like that
Dude I think will be a really good rim protector in the league and you know kind of Walker kerish right um if Dillingham goes top 10 and you can maybe take a chance on I mean I still think there’s a world where Ron Holland might fall to 9 or 10 can’t
Even roll that out and at that point I take a chance on that I don’t think it happens but there’s going to be somebody there at 10 worth taking that’s going to be a really really good NBA player can we identify the right guy I don’t know I
Don’t know but we broughten Mike mids they’re going to have to draft well anyway I want them to have that chance with that 10th pick to take a guy who becomes legitimate and and if we’re sitting there with like six and 10 and we want Cody Williams and we
Know we got to trade up to four to get them then that’s possible Right like it’s just I would rather have that asset convey sooner okay so if we were at 10 on lottery day the Warriors pick was at 10 would you want it to move up into the top
Four um it sounds like you would no I’m not rooting for it too I’m just saying it’s not the end of the world in my mind if it does like I don’t think it’s the end of the world either it’s just not I’d be a little
Disappointed so yeah I mean if it’s top 10 I’m yeah but my question was if it if they went on a little bit of a run here before the season it wasn’t 10 yeah I mean if it if it goes lower then obviously it conveys so I don’t really
Understand I mean I think even if it’s like 15 16 there’s going to be somebody intriguing like that’s where if dton connect measures well enough like I would take him 15 16 like a guy with that scoring ability um there’s maybe a you know chance that I mean like
Missy I wouldn’t mind taking him there draw Holmes I wouldn’t mind taking him in that range even though he’s like projected far lower than that that’s a good spot for your guy chamchi Eric right yeah he’s going to be Lottery well that’s why we need that 10
Pick then or that 11th pick so uh yeah anyway right now salad on take thought is 13th I’ve seen some big boards have him top 10 though I think he will be a top 10 pick like I think it’d be unlikely for him to fall to this Warriors pick
MH okay let’s simulate it um I’m going to scroll up from the bottom like Always at 14 Lakers to to New Orleans at 13 Utah to OKC at 12 Houston to OKC at 11 Chicago Moment of Truth at 10 is Golden State Warriors to Portland so we get the pick at nine is Atlanta at eight is Toronto to San Antonio at seven is
Charlotte which means three teams have moved up already Eric including your Portland Trailblazers including your Portland Trailblazers let’s let’s go sorry Detroit yeah it’s not going to be Detroit really um I don’t know I don’t know I’m just I’m just saying I’m I’m guessing that Detroit got screwed again um so the teams
Are Brooklyn uh pick going to Houston and Memphis interesting interesting interesting so Memphis Houston and US Detroit Washington San Antonio are are the top six no that six is Washington moving down for spots which means Detroit also moves down four spots because all four teams have been confirmed then you got San
Antonio top four you got Portland you got brooklynin you got uh Detroit’s back in their rightful place in fifth there it is Detroit at five all right yep they belong there even at six and 42 at four we got the Memphis Grizzlies at three we got the Houston Rockets via the Brooklyn
Nets so it’s down to Portland and of course San Antonio at two is your Portland Trailblazers and at one is San Antonio oh man what a crazy mock Eric two and 10 is intriguing though I like that Eric look at this San Antonio what do they need they need
Their guard of the future well I guess they got the eighth pick damn but I was going to say two and 10 for one and then we can take SAR and they can take topit I dude I think they might just take him anyway one they they
Might dude oh my goodness that would be a fun draft with at one bro I don’t I don’t know if they’re taking S I mean they might but dude imagine yeah going into going into draft day we’re not worrying about like the Dame situation right we can just focus on the draft and
We’re just sitting there we’re the number two pick in San Antonio we don’t know what they’re going to do and we really want SAR and then at one San Antonio drafts top hitch that would be lit that would be fun and then at two the Portland Trailblazers draft B
If they passed on SAR at two here bro there’s a question earlier in the Stream um about and I wanted to answer I just forgot to read it about like does it matter how Portland even bills if they don’t get a big man to defend Chad
And wemi I mean maybe because those guys are real problematic matchups they’re just complete matchup advantages for both their teams long term but SAR is kind of in that class and you would in my opinion want SAR because he can maybe better than any other player in the league guard chett and
Webby hopefully yeah yeah yeah because he can slide his feet he has a lot of length he gets off the ground quickly he can block shots right like I I am desperate for Alexa and in this draft because I think a he’s the best player in the draft and B in the Western
Conference especially he would be very beneficial as a guy that you could throw up against wemi and Chad yeah so I mean like dream draft here you get SAR at two and you get salon at 10 oh man I’m speaking your language huh I
Mean no matter where we end up we if we come out of this draft and Cronin somehow pulls off sa and Salon man I’m yeah but okay let’s say let’s say Eric let’s say Jeremy Grant’s still on the roster DeAndre Aon is still on the roster right we finally pull off a
Brogden trade K right but that’s like the only guy we trade what’s your starting lineup going into opening night with everybody healthy well and what do you think there’s be I actually I mean I I know what the starting lineup’s going to be it’s going
To be it’s going to be like scoot anony thel Grant and eight in the same starting lineup we had at the beginning of this year you think they wouldn’t start SAR I don’t think they’d start no they would no no no they wouldn’t start tho at three they would go Grant at three
And SAR at the four and Aon at the five no I think they would I think they would bring SAR in and Salon Off the Bench and really play him slow I don’t know cuz they started scoot at the start of the season I mean SAR can’t even start on
His team he’s playing for right now in I know he’s politics yeah yeah I know I know I’m just joking like Well here here’s my thing if they didn’t try Grant at the three then maybe but like it seems like they kind of like the idea of
Grant the three starting him next to Jabar you know he had some good games I could definitely see them being like let’s start let’s start SAR Aon Grant front court and just see how we can defend you know with that Trio and just finally be super sized that would be fascinating
Um also do you really think of that situation they start thy about thy but uh I could definitely see that have sharp SAR and Salon Off the Bench what lineup would you go with if you got to choose see I would be okay with them kind of Grooming Salon slowly
I mean obviously I want to trade Grant and Aon right now I would want to trade them even more if that happened but I I don’t know I would would be if we had the right pieces in place that I believe were the right pieces and we weren’t
Necessarily needing that still to happen in order for a rebuild to be successful I wouldn’t be as concerned about like why are we trying to win games with Grant and and stuff as long as it looked like they were giving Sara and Salon a chance to play meaningful minutes and
Get developed uh but I mean it would still be kind of annoying because I I would want them to just turn the lineup over to the young guys and let them all go play together and stuff yeah but yeah dude we’re we’re so set that like that’s
Our power forward and center of the future man like we we got it locked and loaded then yeah and we could still potentially be bad enough to maybe win the lottery the next year if we got lucky you know yeah I don’t know actually I mean scoot takes you might
Just be a year away like yeah I don’t know I think I think we’d I think we’d be like ninth 10th pick rage I think we’d be like borderline playing if we added SAR and Salon because you think about that lineup man like I I’m actually very intrigued by a potential
Lineup of scoot ant Grant SAR and Dayton and I’m intrigued with it if the game plan is you let an and Scoot defend guards go over screens chase them off the three-point line and then you just protect the hell out of the rim with Grant sard aen mhm and you
Use all that length on the backside and you run teams off the three-point line like the way they have this year but then you hope that you can defend the rim much better next next year than they have the past few seasons because of that front Court Trio because if they
Could protect the rim better they would actually be a solid defense maybe even a good defense and offensively that’s if scoot takes a jump an still what he is grant that team might lowkey be like a seven seed which I don’t know if I’m like I I
Don’t know like maybe that’s a little too early but if you get SAR and salon and you have scoot you have sharp you have ant that Court does have a chance of contending someday and then you get those assets down the line it’d be ahead of schedule it’ take some luck in the
Draft lottery and then Salon falling in my opinion because you know me and you were both high on him but that would be like the best case scenario to be ahead of schedule but still have the up enough upside later on to potentially contend right yeah it’ just be
Interesting to see how it’ shake out with Grant because I don’t think they contend next year the year after after I still think it’d probably be a stretch but I I don’t know it depends on how good scoot gets the thing is in this scenario right we’re talking about that
Starting lineup we’re not even talking about sharp yeah you’d have sharp Off the Bench I mean I would love if the three guards worked with SAR and Aon I think that would be the two players it might be able to work with yeah yeah you’d have sharp Off the Bench if Robert
Williams I third came back like you got him off the bench but if he gets injured again you can slide s to you can stagger him with Aon let him Place some back up center right you bring back wath like fill in I think wath next to SAR is actually
Interesting I think SAR could help mask some of um rath’s defensive weaknesses maybe not his rck year but like long term I don’t know I don’t know how long reath around but you know it’s an intriguing fit and that’s that’s a team man that’s a squad that’s a squad and
Then I don’t know you throw Kamar in his is some backup three four Salon in at backup four like you got some you got some pieces yeah Neil Armstrong ask can SAR shoot threes because two bakes I don’t shoot threes is rough um SAR does shoot threes he’s shooting 29 a half% on
Threes which is pretty close to what did wemi shoot last year like 32% or something um I thought it was something similar I don’t know yeah um I want to say it was somewhere between 29 32 uh but like so he’s projected to eventually be a decent three-point shooter his shot
Looks decent he’s over seven feet tall so it you never know uh but he does he has shown a willingness to shoot him I think his form looks really good it’s maybe uh he can maybe use a little bit more arc on a shot uh but outside of
That I I do like a shooting form I think he’ll be fine um but yeah it’s hard to it’s hard to know man cuz um like lamelo shot terrible in the NBL as well and that’s one of the reasons why we were so low on him because like he was
Like we thought he wouldn’t be able to shoot in the NBA and he comes out and shoots fine as rookie you know and those kind of questions all went behind him yeah I mean SAR immediately makes next season very interesting from a competitiveness standpoint in my opinion
They still struggle but man like it’s just man dude I want a big like that where you can go like small quick and skilled with like having like a 71 dude that can protect the rim at Center but then like play in transition right but
Then you can go big you have like a lot of lineup versatility um I mean switchable lineups like you can switch them the front Court even if you have like Grant SAR Aon um I think Grant against some centers would definitely struggle you know he’s not the most physical guy but against
Some other centers might be able to hold his own you can switch sa on to small forwards like you got you got some intriguing versatility that the Blazers haven’t had since I can remember and that would be fun to talk about I so I just I
Really really want SAR uh that’s the guy want in this year’s draft he would make next year a lot of fun and like that team you know shooting might be a question mark but that team should live in transition because SAR can run SAR can
Run Aon can run those guys are bigs but they can run that team should absolutely thrive in transition you got two legitimate Rim Runners there like lob targets scoot starting that team should run but that team would live at The Rim Yeah they would live at The Rim
Eric olon says the SAR the Walmart wemi I think he’s more he plays more like Chad than WBY in my opinion yeah I mean the hope with I think the hope with SAR is that he’s maybe the next ad yeah I could see that CU he you know
Will shoot from the mid-range has some touch can kind of handle the ball and then like rim protector that can switch I think there’s some ad there all right so now we’ve talked about this scenario let’s talk about the other scenario and that’s if San Antonio
Takes S one and won’t trade us what do you do oh man um I clicked off the The Sim so I guess we don’t have to bring it up but we can talk about it for sure um I just I don’t man that would be like taking Cody
Williams at two I like Cody Williams but like s ver going to him is a buzz kill going from sard to him what if you man in that scenario San’s eight I’m trying to think of a scenario where We like what if they were willing to give us eight and like two future first for two depends on the future first I would love to get like an UNP unprotected I would love what if one of them is an unprotected first I would
Love to trade down to like 6 to8 and get at least one unprotected first that we can feel good about because an unprotected San Antonio first and like three to four years doesn’t have much value to me but you know what they do have what do they have um protected
Atlanta first yes because it Dante Murray trade yes now we are cooking so what years do they have Atlanta’s if they have a 2029 give me that 2029 first man 2029 is gonna be the year of Our Lives bro they have uh let’s see oh wait um oh yeah uh 2025 yeah
Um they had another one right that’s pretty good uh they have the pick swap in 2026 so you could do like the best of San Antonio ours and theirs or something that might be intriguing and then they have 27 so which one of those what do you
Want 25 or 27 20 2025 but the option to defer it to 2026 and then that to 202 seven that’ be cool yeah yeah just do like do the most favorable out of those three years between San Antonio and Atlanta that year right in 2025
Yeah yeah I mean if you could trade two for eight in the most favorable unprotected of San Antonio Atlanta in yeah San Antonio and Atlanta in 2025 you do that in a heartbeat you you like no I don’t think San Antonio would do that but if that was on the table for two
Well well if they love like Dillingham or something and then they could get Dillingham and SAR can you imagine that though they get Dillingham and have the Twin Towers that’s insane dude you know what it’ have to be though they’d have to be like okay if SARS there at two
Portland’s taking them okay we have eight so maybe we can take our card there and if we talk about this trade okay so we take s at one so Portland knows they can’t get him and then Portland’s willing to trade two for eight and that
And then we can get top itch even if we would have taken top itch at one so there’s a gamesmanship aspect there that’s intriguing like if they take SAR one and then they really want topit two then maybe maybe they’d be willing to do that and I dude like you you’d
Have you’d have an increased chance at Cooper flag and a Bailey and there’s people that say like Ace Bailey belongs in the conversation with Cooper flag like it’s it sounds like the way people talk about Ace Bailey he would be the consensus number one pick in this year’s
Draft so if you could get eight plus potentially that good of a pick for number two then you you take that and you run to the hills and you’re happy with it I mean there is some precedence for this that the um Trey young uh Luca dona’s trade right was was three for
Five and a and a unprotected first right was it unprotected I’m pretty sure it was unprotected let me look it up ended up being 10th and they took cam reddish cam reddish strikes again Max Max cam reddish can chat figure it out for us I’m pretty sure it was unprotected I don’t
Know but that was 5 to three and I know obviously it was Luca but I mean Luca did fall to three it’s like he was a consensus number one pick obviously he should have been but yeah um yeah so and that was the following draft I
Think they got the first in which would be this exact scenario right yeah San Antonio could justify it like they still would have have a first round pick that year I mean I would even I would even think about doing two for the better of Atlanta in San Antonio unprotected next year straight
Up that’s pretty risky to do too though yeah but the reward yeah but like like I would hesitate I would hesitate you probably need something else but I mean there’s a really good chance that one of those teams is pretty damn bad next year right oh Trev says it was top five protected
Yeah I mean I’d still even consider that if it was the protection and then like if one of the picks was top five then it’d be the worst out of those two right yeah so we’d still get eight plus something um where it’s like okay if s
It’s top five protected in terms of like okay so if San Antonio gets their pick and it’s number one then we get the Atlanta pick even if the Atlanta pick’s number two right it’s just if if if the best pick is top five we get the worst no matter where that
Pick is what if it’s like what if we give them what if it’s two and 10 for eight in that pick that’s interesting two and 10 10 for eight in that pick it basically two for that pick but moving up from 10 to eight to get that unprotected like we could still
Give them do they have another pick in this year’s draft um not in the first round okay they do not have another pick in the first round unfortunately I mean there’s maybe some little filler that you can do to like shift the balance of the trade
To make it work I mean I mean I would be trying to get if if we end up at two and and SAR isn’t there then I would definitely try and trade that for a future unprotected bit Yeah so fun hypotheticals man I love talking about this stuff it’s enjoyable it’s entertaining
To me yeah all right let’s say we don’t tredit who you you just going to take Cody Williams or what I guess who are you taking Salon it too I mean a lot still has to happen I mean if he’s still projected to possibly be available
Um with our second the 10th pick um I’m probably not taking him that high hoping he falls but yeah yep anyway this is what we talk about during the offseason the offseason never you know the content doesn’t stop we talk about fun hypotheticals we enjoy it
We hang out with chat we have videos more videos we still stream twice a week uh and we talk about yeah tank ofon scenarios that’s why it’s fun to do tank ofon Sims like this to bring up you know fun hypotheticals to think about yeah
Anyway what was that beep I think it was Eric’s phone right yeah yeah anyway uh we’re two hours 15 minutes in man our stream’s been going long lately anything else you want to say for this postgame show ER yeah I did actually want to say something um I we
Didn’t talk about the Nuggets much but man Payton Watson killed us dude like that guy had such a good game and he was freaking annoying pointing at our bench the three-point sign and um said get that effing crap out of here when he blocked
A shot uh man yeah but he’s a nuisance I thought he was the difference in in this game other than yic obviously yic dominated but um I thought he he was he was amazing in that second half yeah yeah two for two from three six for eight yeah pton Watson was great they
Just find these rookies and they reach on them and then it ends up not being a reach and we look stupid for thinking they reached on him pton Watson is one of those guys so he’s been panning out um I think Julian stur like next year could could catapult into the rotation
And be a problem too man um you know I’m a strawther fan so they always are able to replace their bench pieces with young guys that were able to have an impact and pyton Watson is that next guy he was huge for them um the other thing I
Didn’t really talk about um that I wanted to get to but didn’t and it’s a negative is our transition our transition defense has to get better bro we got to defend better in transition our transition defense during this game and during the entire season for the most part has been horrific
Like and it’s it’s bothering me and it’s not getting better yeah so I think that’s what really killed us was some guys jogging back in transition maybe you give them the excuse of it being an altitude but like just two guys getting ball or no guys getting ball
Like getting crossmatched when we didn’t need to like just every little thing in transition we did poorly I feel like today and they were able to get a ton of buckets in transition position that we shouldn’t have G given up and I think that was ultimately you
Know at times caed our downfall uh in transition isn’t necessarily fast break right um MH they only had 11 fast break points I feel like all 11 was mostly because we played really bad defense it just felt like there was times where we struggled getting back and then we were in compromised position
And they were able to get a good bucket out of it that probably didn’t count as fast break points because I remember pretty much all game long just thinking man what is our transition defense doing did you have that same feeling uh yeah actually uh as hyped as
I was for scoot in this game um offensively I I actually was disgusted with him um I noticed this happen six times probably happened much more than that but uh he is uh he has issues with laziness getting back on defense yeah there uh where several times he didn’t even make it
Past half court on a defensive possession six times I saw um and only came back down past half court once uh the nugget scored and um he had to come get the ball to bring it up um but yeah he turned and just uh several of those
Times he walked uh or slowly jogged back didn’t hustle at all and the Nuggets got some fast breaks because of it and one time uh Brogden turned to him and started yelling at him uh like why aren’t you getting back you could tell he was he was screaming something like
That at him um so uh yeah that’s I don’t know why uh because i’ I’ve been talking about him doing that thing where he goes for the ball but he doesn’t really go for the ball like he kind of gets stuck uh just in no man’s land but tonight it was just
Flat out he was turning around and walking down the court and not getting back on defense and your point guard has to be the guy who hustles to get back there first yep and so I think that’s stuff like that’s a big problem and uh I mean
Wath isn’t the fastest guy but he wasn’t really hustling back as much either um anony and Brockton were uh but yeah it’s it’s kind of frustrating watching them knowing that transition defense has been a problem all season and just their lack of effort and at least trying to get back and
Especially when I mean it’s one thing if you if a guy’s like on a one on zero fast break and he’s going to dunk it but if if you have a guy back there’s a chance that a rebound could come off if you hustle back you
Could get that rebound and uh it it just seems to me like they’re giving up on plays way too often and um it’s just kind of an indictment on the coaching staff once again I think yeah yeah no excuse from scoot other than you know maybe this is first time playing an
Elevation you know like yeah it’s did you see it though yeah oh I definitely saw it yeah yeah I didn’t I I think I missed a couple of possessions but like I saw like three you know and there was some where I like wasn’t paying attention to him that I
Definitely believe you on because there was a few times I did pay attention to him in transition and it was really bad uh so yeah I agree in the second half like towards the end of the game it was it was better but they were also scoring
A lot so or we were scoring uh or like matching them scoring and it was easier to get back but they did push the tempo on some made baskets and got some easy baskets as well um but yeah just uh yeah just just a little frustrating because defense is a lot
Of of it can be made up for with effort and and just hustling and um just flying around and trying to make plays and stuff if you’re not even putting yourself in position to make plays um I was I was pretty frustrated with that uh with the Blazers tonight
Yep anyway any final words Eric uh thanks everyone for watching hope to see you all on Sunday if not before then because hopefully at some point we have a trade stream to talk about if we do not have any trade stream or don’t get to react to a Blazers trade on Thursday
Or have a stream before then specifically for a trade uh man Tori and I are gonna have to go off again and then all these people are going to say we’re just angry people and have no life and all this kind of stuff and I don’t want that to happen I’m telling I’m
Telling you guys right now I am not I am not hoping for that I do not want that please I just want to talk about how okay good we got a first round pick for Malcolm Brogden that’s fine like we’ll accept it good job Cronin you did what
You had to do um like that we’ll we’ll what I just want a stream where we’re like okay this is good now we can focus on what matters yeah instead of a stream where I have to say we don’t got no assets we don’t got no assets anyway I
Accidentally looped the the audio clip I need to figure out a way to to play the audio clips where you can hear them um yeah deadlines on Thursday we’ll be live like 8:30 in the morning approximately if there’s a big trade if there’s a Brogden trade even a th trade we’ll go
Live as soon as possible we’ll have content leading up to the trade deadline so stay tuned for that and we can talk more about the latest rumors Sunday night on the postgame show after the Blazers take on the Nuggets once again on in the second game in a row we’ll see
If they can make that game just as competitive as they made this one a lot of good things in this one scoot Henderson 30 points I think it was the best game of the season for him at least statistically eight for 15 shooting got to the line 12 times made 11 free throws
He starting to live at free throw line you love to see that especially have a rookie cuz he’ll learn how to get to the line even better and I think at some point he will more consistently get the benefit of the doubt from the refs he
Did tonight paid off he was great plus seven in his 37 minutes the Blazers got outscored by 19 in the 11 minutes scoot Henderson was off the floor so uh the bench played well starter struggled ant got it going in the second half kept us
In this game got hot he had 29 point points in the loss joic dominated 2722 and 12 phenomenal stat line for him and the Blazers lose fall to 15 and 34 on the year and that wraps up this edition of the Blazers uprise postgame show see you
Again for Denver Nuggets round two on Sunday and until then as always peace out go Blazers
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3 Comments
You also need steals and rebounds for transition & fast pace. Having Jabari starting & Ayton back helps woth rebounding. Thybulle & Camara help with steals. Sometimes scoot and simons. Even Ayton getting steals and transition buckets today.
Ayton never touched the ball in the 4th quarter. It's fun to watch the Blazer guards have big scoring nights, but icing out the big man is not team basketball. Portland's offense looked clumsy.
Thybulle played like his agent told him he's about to get traded. Matisse was almost completely disengaged tonight.