Trail Blazers 2014-15 Training Camp Roundup
As the Portland Trail Blazers get ready for their first preseason game of the 2014-15 season (next Tuesday, October 7th in Utah), it’s worth taking a look around the world of Blazers reporting to check on what has been happening in training camp.
On Wednesday, Blazers guard Wesley Matthews claimed that the team was further along than they were at the same point last year, Paul Allen was digging the team’s chemistry, and Will Barton and C.J. McCollum were duking it out to prove they deserve the lion’s share of backup guard minutes. Via Joe Freeman at Oregonlive.com:
"But lurking in the background behind all the glee was a fierce battle for playing time by two of the hungrier young players on the Blazers’ roster… only two — perhaps three — rotation spots are up for grabs in training camp, most notably at backup shooting guard, where second-year lottery pick C.J. McCollum is in a neck-and-neck competition with the self-proclaimed “People’s Champ,” Will Barton.Make no mistake, it’s a healthy, hearty competition between two players who respect each other. But it’s a competition nonetheless, and Barton and McCollum have made it crystal clear over the last two days that they plan on fighting tooth and nail to secure a rotation spot."
Also from Wednesday, Comcast Sportsnet’s Aaron Fentress reported that the Blazers, particularly point guard Damian Lillard, are looking to emphasize defense, a longtime Blazers weakness:
"[Lillard] repeatedly allowed too much distance between himself and the man he was guarding. When the pick came, Lillard said he often had trouble getting over the pick to find his man. Video revealed that he needed to work on becoming more physical and taking better angles.Defense is one of the few glaring holes in the third-year All-Star’s game. He is a budding elite scorer. A sublime playmaker. A cool, calm leader. His maturity is off the charts.But his defense…“It’s more of me putting myself in position to do a good job with that,” Lillard said.It’s something the whole team is working on.“We’ve got to be a better team defensively if we want to be a better team this year,” forward Nicolas Batum said."
On Thursday, Matthews told reporters that he had experience an irregular heartbeat for the second time in the last two years. Thankfully, it’s not serious, and won’t keep him out of full-contact action for long. Again for Comcast Sportsnet, Peter Socotch reported:
"Matthews left midway through practice Wednesday because he said he felt it become irregular and knew exactly what was going on as soon as it occurred.It has since corrected itself.Matthews told reporters that he went back in to the medical office that performed the electrical cardioversion procedure last year to make sure his vitals were good and that nothing remained irregular.“I was in there this morning and they did all of their scans and tests and looked like a lab rat again,” Matthews said. “But everything is cool and now we’re going to ease back into it, but optimistic and excited to get back out there.”Still, there is a cause for concern, even though Matthews’ heartbeat became regular again.“They’re still trying to figure it out because it’s still relatively rare for it to happen to somebody like me in this situation,” Matthews said. “But it’s not anything threatening.”"
After Wednesday’s practice, Casey Holdahl of the Blazers’ ForwardCenter.net reported that some elbows were rubbing together and the competitive juices were flowing, which Lillard thinks is a good thing:
"There were a few moments of contentiousness, as is often the case in competition, which Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard considered a good thing.“It’s competitive,” said Lillard of the scrimmages. “When there’s a score up there and a time limit, that’s when guys get that fire lit under then because you don’t want to keep losing. A couple teams lost a couple times, got mad and they were fired up about it, I guess. You lose, that’s how you get.”"
A little outside of training camp news, Coach Terry Stotts was a guest on Wednesday’s The Jim Rome Show, and Holdahl from ForwardCenter.net provided a transcript and a link to the audio, in which Stotts talked about LaMarcus Aldridge, the culture of Portland, and more:
"Jim Rome: How much of that is a culture that you can set as the head coach and how much of that is you’ve got to bring in the right guys who will always be self-motivated and will never lose their edge?Terry Stotts: Well, it’s a combination of both. You look in college and college coaches obviously set the standard for their program and they recruit to that program and they have an identity. In the NBA, obviously with the turnover of players and coaches, it’s more difficult. When you look at situations like, again, Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich, Pat Riley, Jerry Sloan, those coaches that stayed in one place for a long time, they were able to develop their culture, develop their program and it was pretty much self-sustaining. That’s one of the challenges in the NBA is that it’s a fact of life that there is turnover. It’s something that I think very coach in this league works at."
There’s also a veritable harvest of videos from the NBA Real Training Camp segment featuring the Blazers that aired on NBA TV: