The Lonely Road
On Portland's road struggles amid the Olshey investigation, the Warriors being back and two teams I'm fed up with.
Following last night’s dismantling at the hands of Frank Kaminsky, the Trail Blazers have fallen to 0-6 on the road and 5-7 overall, barely good enough for 10th place in the West ahead of Oklahoma City. Yes, the team featuring Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a bunch of teens are right on the heels of the Blazers because of their inability to win on the road.
While I was on the road at a wedding on the East Coast last weekend, I got to watch the Blazers from the distance of the Eastern timezone after activities. Their first win against Indiana was far from impressive but necessary, while they demolished a Lakers team looking to find themselves following the news of an internal investigation into misconduct into President of Basketball Operations Neil Olshey.
As far as the Olshey investigation goes, we don’t know much more beyond what has been reported by Yahoo’s Chris Haynes: concerns about bullying and gaslighting of employees, as well as the “alleged mishandling” of the passing of video coordinator Zach Cooper.
What we can add is: this complaint did come through the Blazers HR department and worked its way to the ownership level. But the investigation is ongoing and there are already discussions of internal people who will serve as the interim GM if Olshey is let go, with or without cause, which they may find in the course of the investigation.
But beyond that, there is little we can discuss until some kind of real decision is announced by the Blazers.
What we can discuss in the more immediate is how the team is playing. They’ve had tremendous highs at home, putting together some impressive blowout victories and pushing their point differential to among the best in the league. But the blowouts also help mask this team’s inconsistency, which was displayed against two very well-coached and experienced teams in the Clippers and Suns.
A back-to-back against the Western Conference Finalists from a year ago is not an easy task, but it’s the type of task this team has to pass if they’re to convince us that the growth in point differential is meaningful at all.
Nurkic’s defense has been great at times and lazy at others, perhaps frustrated with having to cover for three guards most of the time. His offense has been too hit and miss to count on. Lillard has finally started to hit shots but the struggles have now started to come for McCollum and Powell, as well as some of their worst defensive communication and execution against Phoenix.
In both Phoenix and Los Angeles, the type of constant closeouts to shooters were not there, with both teams often getting audiences on corner 3-pointers than defense. Frustration is natural during the 82-game season, but even the Thunder have won on the road. On Friday, they’ll face the only other team without a road win in the Houston AAU Elite.
At this point, they’ve had good games from individuals on the road and a few great wins where they’ve picked each other up at home. They have 10 games in 14 days and “figuring it out” isn’t going to be something they have time to practice. While Coach Billups likes to call an early timeout when the other team goes on an early run, this is one challenge he and everyone are going to have to adjust to in the heat of battle.
The Warriors Are Back
I was skeptical when I saw the Golden State Warriors on the same level as the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers as championship favorites. And how wrong I was! The Warriors are back! They’re fun, they’re dominating teams on both ends like their Golden days and Steph Curry looks like the frontrunner to win his third MVP award.
The first thing a lot of people will say, especially Warriors fans who don’t want to get ahead of themselves, is that they’ve played an easy schedule. And while they have done that, including a lot of home games, I’m here to once again assess my long-held theory that NBA Strength of Schedule is fake. You play who you play and the records of those teams are constantly changing until the final day of the season. Every team has its own challenges throughout the season and the 82 games were created to democratize the schedule, even though things like divisions get in the way, with balances created throughout the gauntlet.
Instead of spending time breaking down the Warriors schedule, maybe just grab some popcorn and enjoy the show, which will probably be here until the summer. Every day I wake up thanking Kevin Durant for letting us enjoy the Warriors again.
I also failed to mention that the Warriors are also cultivating tremendous vibes by employing Gary Payton II and Wilt Chamberlain Impersonator Otto Porter (left below).
Two Teams I Feel Dumb For Trusting
Holy shit, I feel so dumb for trusting the Celtics and the Pacers. Maybe we’ll call this the Curse of Brad Stevens. Or Larry Bird. Or Rick Carlisle. I’m looking for curses and people to blame because I am the idiot here. I was and am still monetarily invested in the success of the Celtics this season and they’re on pace to be well under their expected mark of 46.5 wins.
Jaylen Brown was playing excellent basketball before getting hurt, while Jayson Tatum had been struggling with playmaking and decision-making late in games. Marcus Smart has mostly been off to the side, while Tatum, Brown, and now Dennis Schröder, make plays. Ime Udoka clearly likes having a lot of wings on the floor at the same time to switch, which works in some situations but can also leave them exposed for a lack of playmaking in other situations, leading to a lot of the end-of-game mistakes that have cost them games.
Now with regards to Indiana, their vibes are stale after adding Rick Carlisle and even after the addition of Chris Duarte. Duarte has been fun and the Pacers have a lot of good players, each of which along with Carlisle were reasons why I liked the over for this team, but they don’t look like they have much of an identity.
While I like Duarte, he’s not a point guard and Domantas Sabonis, much as he may wish he is, is not Nikola Jokic with the rock. This team needs to be a great defensive team if they’re going to succeed and they couldn’t even beat the Nuggets without Joker on Wednesday night.
Maybe these two situations, like Portland’s, can be chalked up to teams that are under construction with new head coaches. But for three franchises that are used to being competent, the standards aren’t going to be lowered, and they shouldn’t be.