Yesterday, when talking about Martell’s injury I was pretty nonchalant. I’ll admit that. However, I believe I had reason to be. Kevin Pritchard said it himself during last night’s telecast, that at least in his eyes he believes the Blazers have 4 options at each position. And this is true, our depth can take a hit like this especially on the perimeter where we’re stacked.
But last night talking to Coup during the game, he brought up some good points that maybe we will miss Martell more than we think. Playing Devil’s Advocate to myself now, I’ll have to agree. Let me think about it…
- Perimeter shooting: I wrote about this, last month. With the departure of James Jones, Martell was going to have to step his shooting up a notch anyways. Now with him out, that hole just got replaced by a big bullseye for opposing defenses. It’s a big defense when you’re kicking it out to Outlaw and not Martell. Also defenses may dare him to shoot, more importantly because they know he will. Rudy becomes our number one gun…with possible out-put from Blake and Bayless, but at the end of the day do we really want them jacking up THAT many three’s? A possible weakness just became a definite weakness.
- Perimeter defense: Ever since Ime Udoka left we’ve had a gap. No, Martell Webster is not by any means a lockdown defender by any stretch of the word. But he has that ability…he’s athletic enough where he can keep guys in front of him. We don’t need B-Roy having to play defense for 48 minutes he won’t make it to Janaury. That leaves a lot on Rudy and Outlaw which…thinking about them guarding Kobe scares me. Coup did bring up a great point that our best perimeter D at the end of the day is going to be Oden. And I’m sure Nate can come up with a scheme or some zones to make everything work. But still…LeBron vs. Outlaw? And don’t even give me Batum, he’ll get bullied right now.
- Chemistry: Coup brought this up last night…can Travis make the leap to starting? My point was that he’s shown he can play well with that first unit, he proved that last year with his monster 4th quarters. Coup brought up the point that he had come off the bench, been aggressive with the second unit and was in a rhythm. Can Travis Outlaw get in a rhythm with that first unit? He’s the kind of player who needs a volume of shots, which is why he can be so hit or miss. In that first unit, especially to start the game he’s not guaranteed to get those kind of looks. There’s other variables, all speculation but he could try and force it (we’ve seen him do this before) and what not. Roy’s going to eat up a lot more than anyone did yesterday, combined with getting it to Oden and LaMarcus. All of a sudden he goes from option #1 off the bench to option #4 starting. Maybe Nate should consider starting Rudy…just a thought..
A lot of thinking out loud there but I’m still at comfort with this. Obviously Martell brings things to the table, but outside of his sweet (yet inconsistent) stroke none of it is irreplaceable. I’d rather he go down now than later. Again it will at least cause less stress for Nate and give us a good look at just how much Travis Outlaw can give us. The spotlight is on him now and just like I talked myself off the bridge with Oden because we’d ‘be able to see what we’ve got’ we can see what we’ve got with Travis and Rudy at the 3.