NBA 2020-21: The Final Covid-19 Season?

[Kingspoint]

Frkm Rotoworld with Rotoworld comments:

C.J. McCollum has a fractured left foot and will miss an extended period of time (at least four weeks), according to Shams Charania. The news flow this season has been nothing short of depressing and you can add McCollum to the list. Gary Trent Jr., Derrick Jones Jr., Rodney Hood and Anfernee Simons are all going to benefit from this awful news and despite Trent Jr.'s awful Monday, he looks to be the guy to grab here. And if he's not available, Jones Jr. or Hood should be the next targets on your list. McCollum was in the midst of his best season and this news is horrible for fantasy managers and the Blazers, alike. Additionally, Damian Lillard's usage is going to rise and Robert Covington and Carmelo Anthony are also going to see a boost in usage.

SOURCE: Shams Charania on Twitter

[Kingspoint]

C. J. played through it for a whole quarter afterwards.

Hood looked like himself last night (on the Offensive end), but C.J. was playing the best basketball of his career.

Trent has gone backwards from the bubble. All he does is stand around a lot on both ends of the floor.

Simons is the backup PG. C J. was. Hood has probably elevated to 2A with Simons 2B as backup PG's.

[M2]

C. J. played through it for a whole quarter afterwards.

Hood looked like himself last night (on the Offensive end), but C.J. was playing the best basketball of his career.

Trent has gone backwards from the bubble. All he does is stand around a lot on both ends of the floor.

Simons is the backup PG. C J. was. Hood has probably elevated to 2A with Simons 2B as backup PG's.

Hood had one decent game, but he's been in the running for worst player in the NBA this season. Trent's the one who's going to have to step up.

[Kingspoint]

The whole things a mess. Starting over from scratch as if the season never began.

The Offense runs best when it runs through Nurkic. C.J. is instant Offense anytime, any game. C.J. rebounds. Trent has to luck into a rebound. This year, C.J. was playing better Defense than Trent, who has been absolutely terrible. They can actually play Defense when Nurkic is in there. They can play good Defense when Nurkic and Zach are in there together.

While Derrick Jones, Jr. has exceeded exectations Defensively the last six games trending upwards in this area, his high-flying play gets him injured three times a game when he tries to land. He'll get hurt and miss time again and again. Dame has been getting hurt four or five times a game on drives to the basket. He'll play hurt and it is what it is.

A lot of young guys (Derrick Jones and Trent are young) are going to get opportunities over the next two months. A move probably won't be made for at least a month where a better assessment can be made of need. The ugly losses, which have been frequent this year, should pile up.

[Kingspoint]

Hood had one decent game, but he's been in the running for worst player in the NBA this season. Trent's the one who's going to have to step up.

Hood's a process in recovery. What we saw from him last night is normal for him, not what he produced prior to last night. Trent is a bigger problem. He has that shooter's mindset of standing around on both ends of the floor unless the ball gets into his hands, and then it's tunnel vision towards a shot.

Stotts has the patience to get the most out of everyone and let them blossom. Things will change for the better as the season goes along. It always does, 100% of the time.

[M2]

Hood's a process in recovery. What we saw from him last night is normal for him, not what he produced prior to last night. Trent is a bigger problem. He has that shooter's mindset of standing around on both ends of the floor unless the ball gets into his hands, and then it's tunnel vision towards a shot.

Stotts has the patience to get the most out of everyone and let them blossom. Things will change for the better as the season goes along. It always does, 100% of the time.

Last night was the anomaly for in-recovery, post-Achilles Hood. He's not suddenly going to stop being terrible, and he has been absolutely terrible. Banish who you thought he was from your mind (and you overrated him like you did with Covington coming in and with Simons and Little and Collins). Can he play his way back into useful bench player? Sure, but it's going to be ugly getting there.

As for Trent, standing around on offense may be a function of the system. They want him roaming behind the arc for spacing and as a release valve, and he's shooting very well. Standing around on defense just means he's playing defense as hard as the rest of the team. You've knocked them for that too. Their whole roster's got to figure that out. yet the door would seem to be open for Trent getting 35 minutes a night while CJ is out. He's the guy who's going to get the first shot to rise to the challenge. Their minutes distribution makes that abundantly clear.

[Bourgeois Zee]

C. J. played through it for a whole quarter afterwards.

No one can ever accuse McCollum of not having a high pain tolerance. IIRC, he played the playoffs with a broken back(!) and now this.

Amazing.

[Rojo Rijo]

Orlando is in free fall. From 6-2 to 6-8. Getting Fournier back should help but still there isn't much reason for this team to fight for a 8 seed in a year without Fultz or Isaac. Fultz injury has allowed Anthony to be thrown to the fire which will hopefully benefit in earlier development but he's struggling mightily right now.

[Kingspoint]

Last night was the anomaly for in-recovery, post-Achilles Hood. He's not suddenly going to stop being terrible, and he has been absolutely terrible. Banish who you thought he was from your mind (and you overrated him like you did with Covington coming in and with Simons and Little and Collins). Can he play his way back into useful bench player? Sure, but it's going to be ugly getting there.

As for Trent, standing around on offense may be a function of the system. They want him roaming behind the arc for spacing and as a release valve, and he's shooting very well. Standing around on defense just means he's playing defense as hard as the rest of the team. You've knocked them for that too. Their whole roster's got to figure that out. yet the door would seem to be open for Trent getting 35 minutes a night while CJ is out. He's the guy who's going to get the first shot to rise to the challenge. Their minutes distribution makes that abundantly clear.

By standing around watching, I'm talking about neither making an attempt to get back to stop another team from fast-breaking or by getting the 5-6 rebounds per game that are available to every Guard in this league. It's not system.

Don't know why you hate Hood so much always referring to him as the player he was in CLE and UTA, but he was never that person in POR. He's not played as a bench player while he's been here, nor will he in the future. He's a quality starter that can be pushed to 6th or 7th in the rotation if everyone is healthy. Defensively, coming back from an Achilles injury will take until next season. He'll struggle there, but improve steadily, as the season goes along. Offensively, an Achilles injury doesn't effect his game. He has the turnaround jumper signature play that uses the Achilles, but his ability to get the shot off and make it effectively has nothing to do with his Achilles. His slow Offensive start (7-36) before last night had to do with rust, no training camp and no court time for a whole year. Last night he displayed all the moves he uses in his game and all were as good as they were before the injury, good enough to dominate the Nuggets in the Western Conference only 25 games ago in his interrupted career. His 3-pt shot is not affected by his Achilles. So, Offensively, Rodney Hood is back. You can make things up all you want about my predictions of how Blazers will fare, but I've been right on all the ones you just mentioned. Zach Collins, when last he played, dominated Paul Milsap on both ends of the floor, completely shutting him down, and that was while playing alongside Enes Kanter. Zach has a tremendous ceiling once he gets back. He never missed a game until the shoulder separation last Fall. He probably rushed his rehab causing the injury to his foot. He had a setback in his foot recovery, and when that is taken care of, he can get back to his upward projectory that was just beginning to explode during the Western Conference semi-Finals against DEN.

Simons' projectory hasn't changed one bit. He continues to show that he's going to be a dynamo on Offense, while his Defense is steadily improving. He came in extremely raw (no college), which I pointed out several times, and the results come from both his rawness and from playing behind the best Guard tandem in the NBA. His time will come, and some of it will come over the next six weeks.

Trent earned his minutes from January to the beginning of March and again in the bubble. He clearly read his press clippings, as his effort Defensively has gone backwards. He had to be disappointed with the signing of DJJ as he opted not to seek an extension but to hit RFA this Summer. With that, it appears that he's trying to increase his shot attempts. Unfortunately, he's given up on his Defense which is what got him on the floor to begin with. It's a very rare player (Dame and othe Hall-of-Famers) who doesn't have ups and downs, but only ups, and many of the Hofers have downs, too. Trent has an opportunity that he has to fight Hood and Simons for, but Stotts said flat out that Trent "will get his minutes" in an asssumptive way just as anyone who has watched him and understands his abilities knows that the mijutes have been earned.

You projecting Little based on what exactly? Prejudice? That's all it can be as he has zero playing time so far in his NBA career. Little can't be assessed properly for at least two more years, as he'll be lucky to log 1000 minutes by then. Too many in front of them while POR tries to win a Championship. He's part of the next group of players for the Blazers along with Simons, Collins, DJJ and Trent and those five will grow together contributing where they can while Dame, Nurk (who is also very, very young) C.J., Hood, Roco, Enes and Melo try to win a Championship. When the playoffs begin late May, once again, POR will be the team nobody will want to play.

[Kingspoint]

C.J. is going to be enjoying some of his famous wine from his wine collection he's always talking about.

[Revering4Blue]

Lots of guys having monster games this season.

Is that a product of poor planning/ coaching, the short offseason and pre-season, injury/ pandemic absences, or a lack of defense?

(And don't just say "yes" on me. I'm looking for some analysis.)

I'm going with the answers/reasoning in bold. In addition - and Stray hit upon this in a prior post - the compressed schedule has also produced several instances of load management.

Players, if/when they're not playing against decimated teams, are often going to war with players who would not ordinarily be receiving heavy rotation minutes, and must carry a larger load. Hence, the monster games.

[Revering4Blue]

I watched the Rockets/ Bulls highlights and really like the troika of Oladipo, Gordon, and Wood together. John Wall should help get them where they need to go as well.

But Boogie Cousins looked putrid. He's really struggled so far this season. So has PJ Tucker. Were I in the Houston front office, I'd be moving heaven and earth to find a PF to replace Tucker post haste.

Dallas could absolutely use him, and a James Johnson and 1st round pick for Tucker and Dante Exum trade makes sense for both squads.

The Rockets are - ironically enough - a Clint Capella (or a play-alike for the second unit) away from being a VERY dangerous team.

[Revering4Blue]

The Pacers have issued an update on Myles Turner, confirming in a press release that he has sustained an avulsion fracture in his right hand. However, the big man won’t require surgery and is being considered day-to-day for now.

While we still don’t know exactly when Turner will be back on the court, it sounds like he won’t miss much – if any – time. Head coach Nate Bjorkgren said that Turner participated in practice today, as J. Michael of The Indianapolis Star tweets.

[Kingspoint]

As far as Covington goes, he's everything I said he'd be for us. We are still in training camp as far as he and DJJ goes. Same can be said about Hood. The whole team is playing together for the first time, whatever five guys you put on the floor. It's still training camp, and with the injuries to Zach, Nurk and C.J., the training camp (hard to get any practices in over the next two months) is going to take another two months for those here now and three months as C.J. and Nurk are brought back.

It's a long season and it will take all of it to blend everything together to get ready for the playoffs.

[Kingspoint]

As long as there aren't any season-ending injuries to Nurk, Dame and C.J., the goal is still the NBA Finals, a goal expected to be reached and realistic. The rest are just pieces to assist those three, but the core of Nurk, C.J. and Dame can reach the NBA Finals.

The Blazers have the opportunity over the next three months to fine-tune those pieces to see how they can best fit with Nurk, Dame and C.J.