Observing the G League Ignite + Signs of Watchability

Erik saw what the G League Ignite draft prospects are all about and discusses Portland's recent rebound towards watchability. Plus other NBA thoughts.

February is almost here and the Portland Trail Blazers are well beyond the halfway point of their season. It’s mostly been bad, which was expected. And there were moments, like their early seven-game road trip from hell, that were worse than expected. Those games, despite a recent uptick in performance with some victories and more competitive losses, had Blazers fans looking towards the future.

With the future in mind, I took a trip to Chiles Center on Wednesday night to check out the NBA Draft prospects for the G League Ignite. I’m not part of #DraftTwitter and will not pretend that I know of every player in the draft ecosystem who could become a Blazer. But I do like seeing prospects with my own eyes. Events like the Nike Hoop Summit make that easy for me, but I have admittedly had some misses in my day. Anybody who evaluates young players does. And anybody who doesn’t admit that is lying to you.

So with all of the above disclaimers, here is my review on the players on the Ignite I saw last night.

Ron Holland - Wing/Forward - Listed at 6-8 but looks more like 6-6

I always seem to catch Ron Holland on a good night. Wednesday night was probably his best game in the G League, scoring 31 points and going 4 of 6 from 3. But that has been the exception this season and not the rule. He hasn’t had that many good nights for the Ignite. When I saw him in last spring at the Nike Hoop Summit, he was dominant on both ends. Protecting the rim and dominating the paint. In the G League, he looks much smaller while playing alongside bigger players.

But unlike the Nike Hoop Summit where he was playing with a lottery pick point guard in Isaiah Collier and a smart connector in Bronny James, the Ignite lack connection and playmaking to help put Holland into the right spots. He performed well despite not having a true point guard, with veteran Norris Cole registering a DNP. Two-year point guard London Johnson had trouble the whole night, so Holland is fighting an uphill battle.

He’s got a lot of explosiveness and his third quarter was a tremendous display in what he can do. He moved the ball in the half-court when there weren’t clear driving lanes, knocked down his shots and showed his rebounding ability. However, he did have one fast break where he passed up an outlet pass to two teammates ahead of the play in favor of dribbling the ball all the way up the floor instead. He cost his team a lay-up in favor of driving into the teeth of the defense and kicking out for a 3 that missed.

Overall, Holland has a lot of talent, but he looks undersized as a potential 4 man. It’s too bad Chris Beard’s DUI ruined his plans to go to Texas. I wonder if he could play it back whether he would have rather gone to one year of college, even if it wasn’t at Texas. Playing for the Ignite seems to be weighing on him, especially with very few willing passers or able playmakers.

Maybe playing with better players in the NBA will help, but I do think his size might be his biggest issues, given his position.

Matas Buzelis - Forward - 6-10 but looks closer to 6-9

Buzelis, like Holland, may have trouble performing well due to the Ignite’s lack of guard play. But unlike Holland, he let the circumstances completely dim his light. I’m not entirely sure what he does well. He had nice form on a hook shot in the post and missed. He also seemed unware of when to clear the lane when he didn’t get an immediate post touch.

Overall, I came away confused how he was touted for so long as a potential No. 1 pick.

Tyler Smith - Big - 6-11 but looks more like 6-10

I’ll admit it. I’ve got a thing for solid bigs. And Tyler Smith just gave me the impression of being very solid. He’s a true 6-10, he held his own against the Remix big men and looks like he could add a little more muscle without compromising his mobility. He hit a couple of 3s, made good passes and set some very strong screens. While Buzelis and Holland were on the bench, Smith led a unit that helped the Ignite briefly take a lead in the 2nd quarter.

There’s little glory in draft scouting for being right about a guy like Smith. It’s partially why it took so long for Duop Reath to get into the league. There’s no glory in hyping serviceable big men. ESPN has him ranked as the 18th prospect, while ranking Buzelis 10th. After seeing both, I am very confused. Smith has a future in the NBA as a very solid big man, who can also step out and knock down 3-pointers. His 3-pointer and FT shooting looking good and that, mixed with his touch encouraged me. I would take him over Buzelis everyday of the week and twice on Sundays. He will have a very good career in the league so long as he stays healthy.

All of the above will get drafted. But I think this year will have a lot more international prospects that none of us have heard of going in the first round because the big names that have been in mocks for several years simply haven’t been that impressive. In general, I came way pretty down on the G League Ignite experiment. It costs the NBA a lot of money and it also doesn’t look like the participants are benefiting from it either.

Let’s talk Blazers

The January road trip where they posted the worst 7-game point differential in NBA history was rock bottom. After having the Blazers look somewhat competitive for the first six weeks of the season, they looked like a team going through the motions, while failing miserably to make good on any of the stated goals at the beginning of the season from Joe Cronin and head coach Chauncey Billups.

After the road trip, my friend and colleague Sean Highkin went point-by-point on The Rose Garden Report about how they were failing to meet their preseason goals. One of those goals was “sharing the ball.” At the end of the road trip, they were 26th in the league in passes per game according to NBA Stats.

I wonder if someone gave a copy of Sean’s column to Chauncey. Because since he wrote that column on Jan. 12, the Blazers are 9th in the NBA in passes per game and have moved up to 22nd overall in the same category. Adding Jabari Walker to the starting line-up has helped add another willing passer, but he alone cannot be credited for such a jump. Billups has clearly made it more of a priority to share the ball. I even saw them run an old Terry Stotts 3-man dribble hand-off series to at least make the defense think.

Unsurprisingly, an uptick in ball movement has led to more wins and a generally more watchable product. We’ve also seen fewer isos and less match-up hunting, which are pillars of playoff basketball, but shouldn’t be strategic pillars for a young rebuilding team learning who they are. For a team that ranks only 22nd in 3-point percentage, moving the ball and moving bodies is one of the only ways they can make up for their lack of shooting. The eyes of the defense always follow the ball and the Blazers have been doing a better job of getting defenses to move more. They’ve played better offensively as of late even while shooting less 3-pointers per game over the last two weeks.

I’m still not sure that the marriage between Chauncey Billups and the Blazers will last beyond this season. And it is a little concerning that it took being historically bad to get the team to play better. But playing better they are, and just like I will be critical of the coach when the team is making me turn games off in the 3rd quarter, I’ve got to give him credit for making the right changes to the starting lineup and getting them to move the ball more.

There’s still a lot of time left and you hope that they can continue this momentum. Scoot Henderson has continued his season-long trend of playing better off the bench, stacking good performance after good performance. The team simply makes more sense with Jabari Walker’s rebounding and ball movement next to Jerami Grant scoring ability. It also helps having their starting center back.

If they trade Malcolm Brogdon like everyone thinks they should, they should move forward with a hopefully healthy Shaedon Sharpe at the 2-guard spot or put Matisse Thybulle in the starting lineup. If Scoot plays so well that you have to re-evaulate that, so be it. But they should not be forcing him into the starting line-up prematurely, because it’s neither good for his development nor the development of an actual style of play.

Nobody is asking for this team to stack up a lot of wins. But they have done a better job of playing more unselfishly and more intelligently over the past two weeks. That’s all anyone should be asking for.

Other NBA musings

• I was on the revamped Rose Garden Report podcast with Sean Highkin earlier this week. We recorded it on Monday and mused about whether Adrian Griffin would get fired if the Bucks lost to the Blazers next week when Damian Lillard returns to Portland. We had no idea he would get fired the next day. But watching the Bucks on league pass was a painful endeavor. Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had major influence on the decision to hire Griffin, started to voice his displeasure with a lack of game-planning. Damian Lillard’s game-winner against the Kings saved them from an epic collapse. And that’s without even discussing the first red flag in Griffin’s tenure, when Terry Stotts resigned from his post as lead assistant after Griffin reportedly disrespected Stotts in front of the entire team. Say what you will about Doc Rivers blowing playoff leads and losing in Game 7s, at least he’s gotten his teams to that point. Establishing transition defense principles, like who is and who isn’t allowed to crash the offensive glass, are things Rivers excels at. In addition to dealing with star players. They may not win the title this season, but at least they aren’t fighting an uphill battle.

• After their failed pursuit for Damian Lillard, the Miami Heat acquired Terry Rozier for a first round pick and Kyle Lowry’s expiring contract. I thought it was a good move, but not a great one. It was also a tax-saving move, something most of the analysis rushing to pat the Heat on the back ignored. The Rozier deal lowered the Heat’s luxury tax bill by roughly $14 million dollars. So while the headlines were about the Heat making a move to add a scorer, let’s not get it twisted: they also traded for Rozier to save money. But getting the media to ignore such a fact is a benefit of being in The Prestige Zone. I also do wonder if the Heat will come to miss Lowry’s leadership, ability to take charges, switch onto bigger players and move the ball come playoff time. If nothing else, the Rozier trade is another piece of evidence, paired with their failed pursuits of Dame and Donovan Mitchell, of the Heat’s unwillingness to make deals unless they get them at a discount.

• I want to admit that I was wrong about the Los Angeles Clippers. They are absolutely lethal from the 3-point line, James Harden (whose acquisition I lampooned) is great at setting up those 3-pointers and their defense has been very solid. While I still take Denver over the field in the West, the Clippers look to me like the team most poised to take them down. No disrespect to OKC, but the track record of teams going from not making the playoffs at all to winning the West begins and ends with the 1977 Blazers. Even the 2011 Thunder with Durant, Westbrook and Harden, who made a surprise run to the Western Conference Finals, made the playoffs the year before.

• My midseason Finals prediction, which is subject to change because this is my newsletter and I can do what I want: Nuggets vs. Sixers. Give me 7 games of Jokic and Embiid.