The Trail Blazers Five by Five Part 2

Final Two Cons

4. The Blazers Big Men

Mason Plumlee. Ed Davis. Meyers Leonard. Festus Ezeli. Did I miss anyone?
All have been disappointing. The fact that they have not risen to the challenge at hand, and there’s a reason rumors to acquire a big man keeps popping up. I’ll go one by one:

Ezeli: Injured. Again. Likely out for the season and there’s a reason why he signed for such a low cap hit. He hasn’t played over 46 games in a season since his rookie year and he was meant to be the big rim protector the Blazers had to scare opponents away from the rim. But you can’t do that when you’re riding the pine collecting a free pay check. CON!

Leonard: Where do I even begin with this guy. The fact that he still doesn’t know how to control his body? The fact that he has heavy feet and little agility to guard pick and rolls? Or how about the fact that he thinks he’s the American Dirk Nowitzki and refuses to ever ROLL anymore? No wait, I got it. It’s the fact that we all knew the potential he had when he was drafted and yet he decides mould himself into a niche, shooting big man at the age of 24. But you know how the saying goes – potential can’t buy you a cup of coffee.

Davis: ‘Phys-Ed’ has altogether had a down season where he has copped DNPs because of his poor play and Stotts has had to shuffle Plumlee, Leonard, Aminu and Noah Vonleh to cover his minutes. He had put on some additional muscle this past offseason but he’s a backup 5 who has lost his ability to defend the rim – opponents shooting 56.1% at the rim against him, which ranks worst among Blazer big men. Combine that with the fact he’s down on every major statistical category except FT% and personal fouls, that’s why he doesn’t escape my CONS.

Plumlee: Now this might not be his fault, but the team has placed a burden he seemingly cannot hold. He would be the perfect backup 5 man who flirts with triple doubles while having impeccable offensive awareness – ranking second among centers in assists. With that being said, he is an athletic center who does not strike fear into the hearts of driving guards. Same goes with the dominating inside players who bully him consistently. He’s a lightweight amongst 5 men around the league and doesn’t offer the same rim protection or PnR defense that other big pogo sticks such as Nerlens Noel and Hassan Whiteside produce. On the offensive end, he’s supposedly improved his shot. But shoots a measly 27% from mid range and lowered his FT% by almost 10 percentage points. Add this to the fact that he isn’t the elite finisher – although he has been more aggressive, he doesn’t seem like the long term answer.

I will repeat. I think Plumdog millionaire is a nice player who’s looking to cash in this summer and could be the perfect backup big man. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t dislike how he has performed in the role that is probably asking too much.

5. Not enough BITE

I’ll keep this last CON short and sweet. This is solely an opinion from my eye-test. The Blazers this season as a whole have been rather funky in the sense that nothing has seemed to click for an extended period of time. I have credited this to the fact that I haven’t seen the PRIDE that was present with the 2015-16 team where guys would be happy to play the underdog story every matchup, rock up, pull up their shorts and play hard-nosed defense while sticking to the game plan and executing offensively. Unselfish, beautiful team-oriented basketball.

I believe in the intangibles such as chemistry and leadership having a strong impact on things like this, hence why I am not too worried long-term if Rip City still has ‘The Letter O’ – Dame DOLLA at the forefront.