Steve Blake is back…again.
The Portland Trail Blazers recently finished off a relatively quiet off-season. With all the action going on with LeBron James returning to Cleveland and the NBA awaiting Carmelo’s decision, it is easy to miss what Portland has been doing behind the scenes.
Like I said in a previous post, the Blazers first acquired Chris Kaman as a backup big, but there was still the obvious slot for a backup point guard that needed to be filled. Now, if it wasn’t going to be Mo Williams, then there was really only one viable option, in my opinion, Steve Blake. Well, the Blazers must have been listening to me as Steve Blake is returning to Portland on a 2-year, $4.2 million contract with a player option for the second year. This will be his third stint with the team, the first Blazer ever to do so.
This signing just makes sense. If any NBA fan were to watch the Lakers or Warriors over the past four years, Steve Blake has always been effective and extremely dependable. He always seems to hit shots when teams least expect it and he has that knack of being the player that opposing teams seem to say, “we forgot about him”. He plays hard-nosed defense and is a pass-first point guard. When Kobe freaking Bryant says that Blake was a hell of a teammate after it was announced that Blake was traded to the Warriors; that has to count for something.
Before Blazer fans get all angry that we didn’t sign Kevin Love or that Portland somehow did not find ourselves in the LeBron sweepstakes (really?), let’s dive into some stats shall we?
In his career, he has shot 39% from beyond the arc. Last season, in particular, he struggled with injury issues as everyone on that Lakers squad did. In 27 games with the Lakers (before being traded to Golden State), he shot 40% from three, 38% from the field and averaged 9.5 points and 7.6 assists. In Golden State, his stats dipped slightly, but that was to be expected. He averaged 4.4 points and 3.6 assists in 28 games.
What will both these signings do? Well, both these players will not drop 20 points a night and be all-stars; however, they bring much-needed stability to a bench that was still struggling last year. With the return of Dorell Wright and the continued development of the young players in C.J. McCollum, Thomas Robinson, Will Barton, Joel Freeland and most importantly Meyers Leonard, the bench will be able to at least sustain and not lose leads like the bench has done so many times. There is no longer a sense in my opinion that if you were to bring in most of the bench players now, the ship would sink or the foundation would suddenly explode. Kaman can be a scoring threat, which Portland will have lost with the assumed departure of Mo Williams. Steve Blake, while not as much of a scoring threat as Williams and is not nearly as good at creating his own shot, will be distributing the ball much more. In my opinion, Blake brings a level of reliability to the position off the bench. Mo would be fantastic in stretches, but there were moments what I did not trust him with the ball. However, I know Blake is always looking for the open man or the alley-oop before trying to jack up a shot.
Furthermore, with Kaman on the squad, this allows head coach Terry Stotts to try some interesting frontline combinations. LA/Kaman, Lopez/Kaman and T-Rob/Kaman are all lineups that fans and teams will see. Again, the offensive pulse and the continued presence of somebody big in the paint are now there for Portland.
Barring anything dramatic like trading for Kevin Love (stop dreaming), Roy Hibbert (Hah!) or a dream deal just happens to land into the lap of Olshey, the Blazers’ off-season is finished. While the summer did not bring in big names or franchise-shifting players, it shored up positions that were obvious needs to be filled. Something Neil Olshey said during the press conference yesterday was perfect for how this off-season unfolded. “We’re going to keep moving in a positive direction and adding guys, but look there’s a patience factor to this, too. People point to certain teams around the league and describe that as the ‘model’ small markets teams should follow, but nobody wants to have the patience to let the process unfold.” (from the transcript). Olshey is absolutely right. Small market teams fall into the trap of seeing, for example, the San Antonio Spurs and wanting to get there right away, but they end up sacrificing either young assets or flexibility for the future, which are more valuable to smaller market teams, to speed up the process. The Spurs did not get to where they are at overnight. A lot of research and development went into it. I know that all Blazer fans want the big off-season, but it just is not going to happen every year. Sometimes you have to make small adjustments before really exploring renovating the whole house so to speak.
All in all, I felt like this off-season was short, quick and to the point. The Blazers went in got players they wanted and got out. Feels like a typical Olshey off-season to me. Stay tuned!