Return To Rip City

LaMarcus AldridgeFrustrating. Ineffective. Clueless. Slow. Helpless.

All of the above can and have been used to describe the Portland Trail Blazers offense during the 2011-12 season. Their constant inconsistency has caused too many raised eyebrows and shrugged shoulders. If there is a quick fix, the players or their seemingly clueless at all the wrong moments coach Nate McMillian have yet to discover it.

Raymond Felton, in his first year with Portland, has yet to reward the team by proving that they made the right move in trading for him. Meanwhile, Andre Miller is a few states over in Colorado giving the Nuggets the same component the Blazers are missing: a competent field general.

Some are asking for Felton’s head, and while I initially steered clear of that course, I find myself veering towards it more each game. To put it plainly, Felton can’t shoot. With a field goal percentage currently lower than the career lows he recorded in his rookie and sophomore seasons, one must wonder how long he will be allowed to remain an offensive liability. Worse is that Felton is only averaging six assists per game, meaning that when he does decide to pass, he is usually not setting up his teammates with high percentage looks.

In an offense scrambling to find an identity, with a starting point guard that has trouble efficiently shooting or passing, the time is now for some rather marginal changes.

McMillian brought in Felton, who was believed to be a younger and quicker version of Miller, with the desire to run a more up-tempo offense, push the ball down the court, and teach his team to love to sprint. So far, opposing defenses are running circles around the Blazers and their hapless starting point guard.

Felton is averaging a mere ten points a game, or just 2.5 per quarter, and many of those are coming long after defenders give up on paying him attention. It has and will continue to clog and congest the offense if Felton is a distraction more than a contributor. McMillian needs to find a way to get Felton going early, just as he does with the rest of the offense.

And the easiest way to accomplish the feat of aiding a struggling shooter who plays alongside a pair of forwards with great leaping ability?

Bring back those lobs!

If the team can get Felton some early looks, it will keep defenders honest, and force at least one man to stick with him when he is on the floor. Even if he misses a majority of his shots, teams will keep defenders on him to try and force him in to mistakes. However if the opposition is expecting a missed shot and lying in wait for a rebound, why not….

BRING BACK THOSE LOBS!

The lob is the easiest of offensive game plans to execute! All the team has to do is pass, jump, catch, and score.

Could two points come any easier?!

If there is a play in basketball that draws more cheers from the fans, smiles from the coaches and players, as well as momentum swings (real or imagined), I am not aware of it. And even if it stops working, you know as well as I do that the defenders are geared up to stop that play, meaning many of the remaining plays will be executed with added ease as defenders drop back toward the hoop to stop the lobs.

There are two plays that kill teams: the alley-oop, and made three-pointers. It riles up the team on offense, and destroys the confidence of the team on defense. The difference between the two is that three point shots require a highly accurate shot and open looks, whereas lobs simply require a basketball to be tossed near the hoop and a second player to slam it home.

Can you imagine the pressure that could be alleviated from the figurative shoulders of Aldridge? He can stop trying to lead this team and just make baskets. He can smile, have a little fun, and stop looking as though the team’s hopes ride on his play alone.

During Miller’s last two seasons in Portland, the lob became a mainstay in. Miller would catch the defense off guard a few times, get the team’s confidence boosted, and then run a kind of pick and roll mixed with a little bait and switch operation with Marcus Camby, who would then toss lobs to Aldridge or Batum.

Even when Miller wasn’t the perpetrator, he was still a big piece of the puzzle, and Felton can take over that role. Defenses couldn’t stop it then, and I doubt they can now. They could slow it down, they could make the Blazers think twice, but they couldn’t stop it. The Blazers would simply revert to mid and short range jump shots, maybe toss in a three pointer or two, and then go right back to it.

You can’t or at least shouldn’t plan an offense around lobs, but you can use them to adjust the scheme of the defense in your favor, at least enough so that your better players have more room to maneuver, and a few more wide open shots come your way.

The secret to success in professional and complex sports is often some of the more simplistic of ideas. Felton is ideally suited with his speed and quickness to be simply the delivery man. Let’s stop assuming he is a player of the field general variety and work with what we have rather than what we’d like to have.

Keep it simple, stupid.

Bring back the lobs.

Bring back the high fives.

Bring back Rip City.

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