It’s an exciting time in the NBA, as the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers will square off a week from now in the NBA Finals. As basketball fans the world over watch Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and the rest of the Warriors battle the force of nature that is LeBron James, we in Rip City are left to ponder the next steps for our beloved Portland Trail Blazers.
Last week, I gave a breakdown on all free-agent wing players and backup point guards the Blazers might target. OSN has also featured looks at college players Portland could take with the 23rd pick in next month’s NBA Draft. The coverage on the Blazers has been as constant as the spring rain that abated just this week.
(Though said rain does tend to come back in time for the Grand Floral Parade…)
Today, I’ll take a look at the big men the Blazers could consider, either to play alongside LaMarcus Aldridge, or replace him in the event the free-agent franchise player signs with another team.
(All stats from regular season unless noted otherwise, and are courtesy of NBA.com)
Paul Millsap, Atlanta Hawks
Season Stats: 16.7 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 3.1 APG, 48% FG%, 36% 3PT%, 7.7 Net Rating
Age: 30
Strengths: Millsap was once signed by the Blazers as a restricted free agent, when he was a member of the Utah Jazz. The Jazz matched, then let him go to Atlanta to accelerate their rebuild.
They were sad to see him go, and the Hawks were happy to have him, because Millsap is a multi-talented power forward capable of shooting from three-point range, bang down low on defense, and make the kind of passes big men in today’s league need to make in order to keep the offense flowing.
The likes of Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, who are now TNT commentators, could take the ball in the post twenty years ago and just plant themselves there, deliberate, look at the defense, wonder where they’d go out to eat tonight, look at the defense again, then make their move.
With the elimination of most illegal defense rules, as well as the outlawing of hand checking and the allowance of zone defenses, have made that kind of post offense obsolete, at least in mass consumption. This was a problem for the Blazers as well, by the way: Aldridge wanted the ball in the post all the time, and slowed the offense down to a crawl when the defense overloaded on him.
The point I’m making is that teams nowadays need big guys like Millsap to succeed, and after signing a two-year, $19 million deal with Atlanta–and making two All-Star teams–Millsap’s due for a raise.
Weaknesses: Millsap lacked assertiveness in the postseason, and especially against the Cavs. On offense, I watched him pass up wide-open three-pointers and toss it to the man in the corner, letting the defense rotate back into position.
He literally had two full seconds to think about the shot, and shooting coaches tell you to NOT think as you let that thing fly. Millsap had struggled from three in the postseason, shooting only 30%, and that probably crossed his mind a few times during the game. Unfortunately, the Hawks’ offense is designed to get open shots, and when Millsap didn’t take his, that drove a deep spoke into Atlanta’s offensive machine.
On defense, he got manhandled by Tristan Thompson and Timofey Mozgov on the boards, giving up offensive rebounds by the bushel. Millsap is a sturdy 253 pounds, but he stands 6-8. If he’s not hustling, he can’t overcome that size disadvantage, and against the Cavs, Millsap didn’t hustle.
Any team looking to pay him big bucks will need to understand two things: he’s not a star, and he may wilt under pressure.
Verdict: For the right price, Millsap would be a solid pickup for Portland. If the Blazers get desperate in the event Aldridge leaves, and overpay Millsap to come to Portland, they’ll be disappointed.
DeAndre Jordan, Los Angeles Clippers
Season Stats: 11.5 PPG, 15 RPG, 2.2 blocks per game, 71% FG%, 39.7% FT%, 11.2 Net Rating
Age: 27 at start of next season
Strengths: Jordan has many virtues, starting with his prodigious rebounding. Any guy that can snare 15 rebounds a game has immense value, but the most impressive stat is 4.8 offensive rebounds per game. That’s Charles Barkley territory, folks.
Those offensive boards are usually followed by a putback or dunk. Indeed, nearly all shots Jordan takes are within five feet of the basket, and when you’re a seven-foot, 265-pound freak specimen of humanity, it’s damned hard to miss from that range.
Defensively, Jordan does as much as possible. He has the strength to battle the likes of Aldridge and Marc Gasol in the post, he has the speed to stay with the fastest stretch-4s and/or wing players masquerading as big men (I see you, Harrison Barnes), and he has the nimble feet that allow him to stay in front of most point guards.
In many respects, DeAndre Jordan is the ideal modern NBA center. There’s just one issue with him, what could it possibly be, hmmmmm…
Weaknesses: Ah, I got it! It’s that thing everybody and their families was harping about during the Clippers’ playoff run, Hack-A-Jordan! The heinous strategy that intentionally fouled the putrid-shooting Jordan, putting him at the free-throw line a thousand times a game! The thing that doesn’t, repeat DOES NOT, work!
Stalling the rhythm of the best offense by rating in the NBA makes sense on paper, but it’s really done to get Jordan out of the game. That net rating by his name shows his impact on the game; his team is much better when he’s on the court, craptastic free-throw shooting included.
To his credit, Doc Rivers for the most part didn’t cave when confronted with this strategy, and he was right not to do so. With the NBA’s Competition Committee meeting in the summer to mostly address the “Hack-A” issue, we could see the last of that stuff.
If we do, Achilles’ heel will be dipped along with the rest of him.
Verdict: Despite the lack of depth on the bench, and Rivers doing a much worse job as a GM than he does as a coach, the unavoidable truth is that Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are better than Damian Lillard and Aldridge, and the Blazers might not be much better off in the depth department if CJ McCollum and Meyers Leonard don’t build on their progress, Chris Kaman ages too quickly, and/or Blazers GM Neil Olshey doesn’t sign enough supporting pieces.
Jordan was resigned by Olshey when the latter worked for the Clippers, so they know each other. If Jordan wants to leave, Portland could be a good destination for him.
I just don’t think he leaves.
Kevin Love, Cleveland Cavaliers (Player Option)
Season Stats: 16.4 PPG, 9.7 RPG, 2.2 APG, 43% FG%, 37% 3PT%, 80% FT%, 6.6 Net Rating
Age: 27 at start of next season
Strengths: Other than running the point, there’s no role that Kevin Love can’t play on offense. He is a good three-point shooter for a big, he can post up, he can facilitate and make the good and the great passes, he can take the slower bigs off the dribble, and he can crash the glass with abandon.
His numbers were down sharply from his Minnesota days, but that was completely expected; nobody’s averaging 25-15 playing with LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and others on offense.
If anything, David Blatt and the Cavs couldn’t find the best use for him. Love existed as a spacer so Irving and James could penetrate into the paint. While Cleveland did perfectly well with Love in that role, there are two unavoidable truths. One is that Love’s talents are wasted in that role, and he knows it. The other…
Weaknesses: …is that the Cavs might be better without Kevin Love. I know the East isn’t anything special, but getting to the Finals playing the way they did is still going to stick in owner Dan Gilbert’s mind, as well as in GM David Griffin’s. Griffin brought in J.R. Smith, Mozgov and Iman Shumpert, and he’s now looking like a genius.
Love isn’t nearly as good on defense as Tristan Thompson is, and Thompson’s effort on the glass, destroying Millsap and Al Horford during the Cavs’ sweep of Atlanta in the East Finals, could give Cleveland a chance against Golden State. Draymond Green’s much feistier than Millsap, but he’s also smaller, and Harrison Barnes is four inches shorter and about 938 pounds lighter than Thompson.
Where Love is concerned, it seemed that the effort never was totally there from him, and the success of the Cavs without him has exposed the things he does poorly on the court. He’s a much better player than Thompson in a vacuum, but in the team dynamic, he’s overkill at best and a defensive meltdown waiting to happen at worst.
Verdict: Love shows much stronger inclination towards Los Angeles than Portland, which is a shame. If Aldridge leaves before Love makes his own decision, expect Olshey to reach out to Love. We can also expect Love to hang up the phone, and laugh his ass off as he clutches that Lakers jersey.
Tyson Chandler, Dallas Mavericks
Season Stats: 10.3 PPG, 11.5 RPG, 1.1 APG, 66.6% FG%, 72% FT%, 5.5 Net Rating
Age: 33 at start of next season
Strengths: If Jordan is the preeminent example of the modern center today, then Chandler is the original. Chandler’s role is to attack the rim as the roller in the pick-and-roll, rebound, and be the defensive captain, and he performs all these duties with a veteran’s efficiency.
Chandler is still an effective deterrent at the rim, as his -4.7% Diff% shows. Opponents who challenge Chandler at the rim don’t have as much success as they normally would, despite the ineptitude of the rest of the Mavericks on defense.
Weaknesses: I’m as big a fan of Tyson Chandler as you’ll find. At his peak, he was the second-best player on a championship team, and the anchor of a championship-winning defense that stymied LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, who were both in their primes. That kind of play shouldn’t be forgotten.
Chandler, however, has gotten older, and the Dallas team he rejoined last season got older with him, and worse. 13 years of NBA action, in addition to the numerous injuries that stole much of his prime, have sapped Chandler’s athleticism. He isn’t the same player anymore, and that fact was thrown into the harsh light of reality after the shellacking the Houston Rockets laid on the Mavs in the first round.
Verdict: Even with his diminished skills, Chandler is still a dependable veteran. I’m not sure how much loyalty he’ll show Mark Cuban, who let him go right after Chandler brought him a title. He seems like a decent candidate to bolt.
If Portland could somehow pick him up, it could only benefit the Blazers. Unless Olshey makes major moves prior to courting Chandler, I believe Chandler might want to go to a team with a better chance of winning the title; the Cavaliers come to mind as a possible destination, if only because of the delicious irony of LeBron playing with a guy who had much to do with his greatest professional failure.
Greg Monroe, Detroit Pistons
Season Stats: 15.9 PPG, 10.2 RPG, 2.1 APG, 50% FG%, 75% FT%, -1.7 Net Rating
Age: 25 at start of next season
Strengths: Monroe has all the makings of a Zach Randolph type of player: an interior beast who’s a walking double-double, makes most of his free throws, is not afraid to throw an elbow or two, and is a skilled post player.
Monroe still has a few rough edges to his game, but the inside presence is there. 92% of the shots he attempted in 2014-15 were within 10 feet of the basket, with 70% of them coming either with just one dribble, or no dribble at all. Given the Pistons’ offensive incoherence, the guess here is that Monroe caught a pass from the perimeter, and tried to make a positive out of it come hell or high water. That attitude bit him in the rear at times, but it can be molded into a deadly advantage by the right coach.
Weaknesses: Monroe registered a negative net rating for because of two factors. His team absolutely stank during the first two and last two months of the season, but as much as the Pistons stank, Monroe stinks even more pungently on the defensive end of the court.
I’m not sure whether it’s his slow feet, lack of interest on defense, or Monroe lazily hoping Andre Drummond can cover up for his ineptitude, but the numbers don’t lie. Monroe is a horrendous defender.
At the tender age of 25 (he turns 25 right when the Finals start), and with the knowledge that big men learn the nuances of NBA defense slowly, there might be hope for Monroe to turn into a Zach Randolph type on defense as well, a slow yet sly big man who won’t completely neuter a coach’s defensive scheme.
It’ll take time for Monroe to develop those skills, though. And there’s no guarantee he’ll ever do so, or even be inclined to do so.
Verdict: The Blazers have been linked to Monroe before, in the form of trade rumors. Playing next to a young center in Drummond that also needs to live in the paint has put a crimp on Monroe’s development, and his lack of defensive aptitude hurts as well.
If the Blazers do target Monroe, they’ll do so to replace Aldridge, not to pair Aldridge with Monroe.
Roy Hibbert, Indiana Pacers (Player Option)
Season Stats: 10.6 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 1.6 blocks per game, 45% FG%, -1.4 Net Rating
Age: 28
Strengths: The most obvious value in a 7-2, 290-pound man on a basketball court is his presence near the rim, and Roy Hibbert has taken the art of verticality to Picasso-like heights. He’s had to; Hibbert moves about as well as a groggy bear fresh from six months of hibernation.
Under the tutelage of Indiana coach Frank Vogel and president Larry Bird, Hibbert has acquired the smarts to help make up for the lack of athleticism that’s doomed so many other seven-footers recruited to play basketball not because they possess skill, but because they’re giants that don’t want to scrub elephant butts for a living.
Weaknesses: The biggest knock on Hibbert, however, isn’t his stiff movement or lack of athleticism. It’s his tendency to disappear on the basketball court, almost literally; he’s had more than a few games with zero rebounds, which should be impossible for a man as big as he is. You’d expect at least one or two to find their way to him by sheer accident, but Hibbert on his worst days actively avoids mucking it up in the paint.
The August injury to Paul George put Hibbert under a spotlight he should never have been under, and he wilted accordingly.
Verdict: Despite his flaws, Hibbert would be right at home in the conservative style of defense Portland runs, and if Aldridge is retained, Hibbert won’t have to worry about scoring, like he did for those offense-starved Pacers teams he’s played for during the first half of this decade.
Hibbert would be a bigger, slower version of Robin Lopez, though unfortunately less weird. Given that Hibbert has been a proven master of the art of rim protection, and given that Damian Lillard needs all the help he can get, it would behoove Olshey to inquire about Hibbert if the big man declines his player option…which isn’t a given.
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