Portland Trail Blazers: 3 most encouraging quotes from Chauncey Billups

2. Billups wants the Portland Trail Blazers to take smarter shots

"“So, we’re going to try to get easier, quality shots for dudes instead of just coming down and jacking”"

According to Fentress, last year the Blazers led the league in highly contested 3-point attempts. That is not a good stat and certainly not a recipe for success.

Portland has too long relied on Lillard and McCollum’s abilities to get off and make ridiculous shots off the bounce. While those two are some of the best to do it, relying on that ability for offense is more or less just hoping for the best and not expecting the worst. Eventually, the worst case scenario rolls around.

Last year, with Billups as an assistant, the Los Angeles Clippers ran a motion offense under Head Coach Tyronn Lue. This combination of player movement and high quality passing led the Clippers to a fourth overall finish in offensive efficiency. Despite their glacial pace, Los Angeles still ranked within the top-10 in points per game.

The Clips system helped mitigate their lack of a true facilitator, instead relying on off-ball movement and the secondary playmaking skills of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to create offense for their role players.

Billups will need to bring over a similar operation to Portland, as the Blazers lack a true playmaker outside of Dame. Although Lillard is their only true point guard on the roster, Portland is robust with secondary playmakers, as the Clippers were. If the players buy in to the idea of creating offense without the ball, we should see a much more fluid and effective offense from the Blazers next season.