SB Nation User Blog: danielfarrell

Europe vs the NBA ~ Relates to Rudy and Sergio

danielfarrell — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:23:14 -0000

I can't but feel like there is a big difference in the games between Europe and the NBA that is getting overlooked in all the discussion that is going on about Rudy and Sergio. The thing that stands out to me as the elephant in the room is the length of the seasons. We have spanish fans who are upset that our offensive is stagnant and players aren't being used to the best of their abilities and we have American fans saying "the season just started" and no effort being made to explain why this isn't clicking.

So, here is why it isn't clicking. In Europe the seasons are a lot shorter and your team needs to be on it's game right away. Not to mention you are playing a couple different leagues/tournaments that matter. The beginning of the NBA season is a warmup. You don't want to fall way behind in the standings but unless you are 0-5(Washington, I'm looking at you) no one is too worried about it.

The difference between the best teams playing 60 games in Europe(in 2 leagues and a couple tournaments) vs the best teams playing over 100 games in a single league with 1 tournament in the NBA is huge. The NBA season is a marathon, maybe even an ironman competition. This is just the first couple miles of the race, your guys aren't out of it at all at this point.

The deal to get Devin Harris

danielfarrell — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 17:58:07 -0000

Devin Harris always comes up in the PG talk and for good reason. He's pretty much a perfect fit for us. Here is the best deal I could come up with in the trade machine that worked:

The PG Trade

We give up Bayless, Outlaw and RLEC. We get back Harris and garbage. Swift is expiring at the end of the year and Hassell has 1 more year after that. Ager was added to make the salaries work and is on his rookie contract.

I guess the question is if NJ thinks Bayless, Outlaw and some cap relief is worth Harris. I doubt they do, at least if they are still thinking they have a shot at making LeBron their SF. But if they realize that Brooklyn isn't going to happen and so LeBron isn't going to happen when I think they may go for this.

Any Nets fans on here who have an opinion.

Article - Best Young Teams

danielfarrell — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:26:58 -0000

Don't know if anyone has seen this article over on The Bleacher Report yet but it has high praise for our blazers

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/33553-cheap-seats-the-12-best-young-teams-in-the-nba

What’s Needed: Nothing. If there’s anything wrong at all it’s that they have too much talent, too many weapons, too many guys who can score and/or play defense. Unless something crazy happens, I don’t see how this team won’t obliterate the league in a historic way. If all goes well, they should end up with at least five titles. It’s my belief that this team could end up as the greatest to ever be assembled. Ever.

Audio and Video from the press conference

danielfarrell — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:32:35 -0000

Oregon Live has audio up from today's press conference. It's pretty good quality although one answer got cut off in the recording.

Here is the link:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/blazers/2008/07/audio_from_todays_presser.html

And thanks to Sabonis4Ever here is the video link:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/blazers/2008/07/video_kevin_pritchard_introduc.html

Word filer: Nothing major announced. Jerryd says he's a PG. Some idiot asked Jerryd and Ike if they had played with BRoy. You know, because Jerryd would have during his one year in college... when BRoy was where? Lovely. KP at the ends gives a shoutout to the Bayless family which I assume means his parents. That's nice but also shows just how young he is that his parents came with him.

Media Markets and the NBA

danielfarrell — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:59:42 -0000

Let's take a look at the NBA and the biggest US media markets. With Seattle opening up the picture changes. It will be the only top 20 media market without a team. Here are the biggest media markets without NBA teams:

14. Seattle/Tacoma
21. St Louis
22. Pittsburgh
24. Baltimore
27. San Diego

And here are the smallest market NBA teams:

34. Milwaukee
35. Salt Lake City
37. San Antonio
45. Oklahoma City
47. Memphis
53. New Orleans

My commentary would be that New Orleans will rebound as a city some and looks like it will hold on. Memphis is a good candidate to move. OKC will become one of the smallest market NBA teams. San Antonio and Utah seem to be holding on okay mostly because they have good teams. You don't really hear as much about Milwaukee possibly moving as you do Memphis, but they seem to be next in line as far as weak media markets with bad teams go.

Seattle of course would love to get a team back and St Louis would also love a team and they seem to be the two best open markets as well. So, do you think the Grizzlies and Bucks end up in Seattle and St Louis?

Another PG of the Future Poll

danielfarrell — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:22:50 -0000

This discussion, with polls, has been had on here a lot in the past year. Well, the choices have changed a little bit since then. So it's time for another poll.

Do you think Jerryd will turn into a mix between Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash?

Do you think BRoy takes on the PG duties full time?

Is Rudy a playmaker?

Is Blake gonna develop any further? Does he need to?

What about Sergio? He's still quite a playmaker. Has everyone given up on him?

And is everyone's favorite Fin gonna be an NBA PG?

Or is all of this bunk and do we still need to go get the guys?

Let your voice be heard:

Poll

Who is our PG of the future?

Steve Blake

1 votes

Jerryd Bayless

80 votes

Brandon Roy

16 votes

Sergio Rodriguez

2 votes

Petteri Koponen

16 votes

Rudy Fernandez

1 votes

Someone not yet acquired

8 votes

124 votes | Poll has closed

Too many players for a rotation

danielfarrell — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:48:04 -0000

Let's face it guys and girls, we have too many talented players to actually play in a rotation. Most teams get an 8 or 9 man rotation set and the rest of the players are there to hang out and only play in case of injury. Here is what I see our rotation being for the next few years:

Russell Westbrook(assuming KP gets the guy they say is #1 on our draft board)
Brandon Roy
Martell Webster
LaMarcus Aldridge
Greg Oden

Steve Blake
Rudy Fernandez
Travis Outlaw
Joel Pryzbilla

That's it. But that leaves these talented players left over or being traded to get Westbrook or whomever:

Jarrett Jack
Channing Frye
James Jones
Sergio Rodriquez
Josh McRoberts
Peterri Koponen

Not to mention Von Wafer, Raef's contract, Joel Freeland if he ever gets a chance to play overseas and 3 2nd round draft picks.

I'm not really sure if I had a point to make other than holy hell we have a lot of talented guys and we are going to have to trade a number of them to even get down to a 15 man roster.

It's going to be an exciting next 10 years!!!

Green too small?

danielfarrell — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:21:28 -0000

The main negative thing that I hear said about Taurean is that he is too small. I wanted to compare him to a couple other point guards around the league to see how he compared size wise. Here's what I came up with:

Taurean Green 6-0 177

Steve Nash 6-3 195
Tony Parker 6-2 180
Allen Iverson 6-0 165
Jason Kidd 6-4 210
Stephon Marbury 6-2 205
Kirk Hinrich 6-3 190
Rajon Rondo 6-1 171
Deron Williams 6-3 205
Mike Conley Jr 6-1 180
Kyle Lowry 6-0 175
Jameer Nelson 6-0 190

What I see is that Taurean is on the smaller side, but is not noticeably smaller than a number of the top(or at least highly rated young) PG's in the league. I think Memphis' PG's are a good comparison. Is Taurean not really as big as he's listed? Why is there such a concern about his size?

Fantasy world lineup

danielfarrell — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:56:12 -0000

Let's say there is a little fantasy world where all our guys live up to their talent and get their heads straight. In this dream world I just created, what would our lineup be? My guess is this:

PG: Roy
SG: Webster
SF: Outlaw
PF: Aldridge
C: Oden

Obviously things could adjust with any of Sergio/Koponen/Rudy falling into a guard roll. That seems to be the talent in the frontcourt though. What do you guys think?