Steve Blake, Chris Kaman alter Trail Blazers’ bench flow

The Portland Trail Blazers made as few moves as any NBA team between the 2013-14 and the 2014-15 seasons. All of their starters are back on board, as is the bench, save for retired and little-used guard Earl Watson, as well as sixth man Mo Williams.

Content with standing pat, the Trail Blazers brought in veteran, offensive center Chris Kaman and two-time former Trail Blazer point guard Steve Blake to shore up a bench that desperately needed improvement. But will Blake and Kaman be beneficial both to the team, and to the development of the Trail Blazers’ youngest players?

Let’s think about what Williams brought. He was a high-energy, dynamic, shoot-first guard that was the focus of the offense when no starters (save for maybe Robin Lopez) were on the court. That means everyone else played off him, and were sometimes at his mercy: it was a crapshoot whether the likes of C.J. McCollum and Will Barton would receive a Williams pass, or be forced to watch as Williams ISO’d himself into a contested fadeaway jumper.

On the opposite end of that spectrum lies Steve Blake. While competitive, he’s much better at holding the team together than he is disrupting the opponents’ defense, and he’d also rather pass than shoot when given the choice. He slashes to the middle and curls under the basket like a destitute man’s Steve Nash, finding his teammates on the kickout as the defense collapses to prevent a shot at the rim.

Oct 9, 2014; Portland, OR, USA; Portland Trail Blazers center Chris Kaman (35) blocks the shot of Utah Jazz center Enes Kanter (0) during the third quarter of the game at Moda Center at the Rose Quarter. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

Somewhere between these two is Kaman, who is more than happy to take the shot and even back down the defense a little to get position, but whose limiting factors (age and mobility among them) don’t allow him to dominate, even if he were the best player on the court.

With Williams, your bench had an identity, and everyone else played into it. ISOs were common, ball movement could stall a little, and the rest of the bench could expect to spend some time without the ball.

With Blake and Kaman, the bench is more nebulous, its narrative less clear. This is especially true when considering that players like McCollum, Barton, Meyers Leonard, Thomas Robinson, and even Allen Crabbe might be expected to take a step forward this year. When you look at the new bench, you don’t see any player who wants to be “the man”: you see a lot of nice, if imperfect, pieces that probably are greater as a whole than the sum of their parts.

Without Williams commanding so much attention, players like Barton and McCollum can spread their wings a bit wider than they could have otherwise, which, early in their fledgling careers, is a definite positive. And with Kaman lending a stabilizing presence in the middle, a lot of the pressure to keep opposing guards out of the paint is relieved: even if Kaman isn’t a great defensive center, he’s bigger and more intimidating than Joel Freeland, and more aware and serviceable than Leonard.

Speaking of Leonard, he may end up as the biggest beneficiary of Kaman’s arrival. We’ve seen Stotts use Leonard at power forward rather than at center during the preseason, and we’ve seen a more confident, engaged Leonard. In one sequence during the Thursday’s preseason game against the Utah Jazz, Leonard let fly and hit a corner three, then played good defense on the ensuing possession to force a Jazz turnover. While many would wish a 7’1” guy with elite athleticism would learn to play center even a little bit, you can’t always fit a square peg into a round hole, and with Kaman backing up Lopez, you don’t have to ask Leonard to be something he’s not.