Portland Trail Blazers point guard Steve Blake has struggled this season. In the team’s past five contests, he has averaged only 5 points and 3 assists in 25 minutes per game. According to 82games.com, 93 percent of his field goal attempts this season have been jump-shots, which isn’t a surprising number for a shooter, but he’s made only 38 percent of his attempts. Last year through the first 20 games, he had scored in double-figures twelve times; this season through 20 games, he has done so just four times. Last season, he had taken 167 field goals, made 73 (43 percent), and had drained 37 of 88 three-point attempts in that same span of 20 games. This season, he has taken the exact amount of three-pointers and only 29 less field goals, but he has scored 75 less points. Translation: the three-pointer has become his only asset offensively.

Fans have been calling for his removal from the starting lineup, not only citing his predictability and streakiness, but his inability to effectively run the offense. Head coach Nate McMillan has the utmost respect for Blake, but he did endorse the signing of Andre Miller; in fact, he engineered the move. A starter throughout his career, Miller has been a bench player for a majority of his first season with Portland. He brings more to the table than Blake: he scores in a variety of ways, gets to the free-throw line, and has possessed better court presence.

On Brian Wheeler’s “Wheels at Work”, the Oregonian’s Jason Quick divulged that “winds of change are blowing through the Blazers.” According to him, Miller started with the first unit during Friday’s practice, sending Blake to the bench. McMillan’s decision to shake things up may have been just to shake things up, to give the team a different look, but Blake’s struggles and Miller’s potential impact as a starter surely factored into his making the move. Also, the head coach probably wants to see if star guard Brandon Roy, who reportedly favors Blake, can co-exist with Miller.

82games.com details how each five-man unit the Blazers have used has performed this season. When Blake, Roy, and Miller have been on the same rotation, the team is very successful: of the ten different units Portland has used, this rotation ranks first in +/- (the unit’s net points) at +38 (38 points more than the opposition). But two rotations that consist of Miller and Roy, without Blake, rank seventh and last; the former has a +/- of -3, the latter -5.

Quick had another interesting nugget of information. Also practicing with Miller in the first unit was Spaniard Rudy Fernandez, who was taking the place of Martell Webster. Like Blake, both have struggled with their shots this year: Fernandez is shooting 41 percent, Webster is shooting 39 percent. Lately, Webster has brought aggression, looking for his shot, blocking shots, and grabbing rebounds. He has averaged 13.5 points, 5.6 rebounds, and just under a block per game over his past six contests. Fernandez has also been productive: he has scored in double figures in seven of his past eleven games, and has made 21-53 three-pointers in that span. Webster has had more of an impact recently, averaging more points, rebounds, and blocked shots than his counterpart, but both are very inconsistent players. Fernandez will score 19 points one game and 5 the next. Webster will score 24 points one game and 9 the next.

So what the reason for switching things up at the small forward spot? McMillan, who said prior to the season that more plays would be run through Fernandez, wants to live up to his promise. Fernandez has the skills to score 20 points every night, but as a bench player, his primary goal is to knock down three-pointers. But last season, he came off the bench and possessed a wide array of moves and his shot selection was more varied. Why? Because he was playing with fellow countrymen Sergio Rodriguez, who was the second unit’s point guard. They were the definition of chemistry. They knew where each other were on the court all the time, fed off their strengths, and constantly collaborated on alley-opp dunks, which not only boosted Fernandez’s offensive numbers, but gave him a reason to go inside and to be aggressive.

Though both players have an inside-outside game, Fernandez is the better ball-handler and more unselfish. His insertion would give the Blazers three capable ball-handlers in their lineup, basically three point guards: Miller, Roy, and Fernandez.

Portland is worse defensively when Blake and Fernandez are on the floor together along with the three regular starters–Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Greg Oden. As a unit, they have allowed the opposition to shoot 50 percent and attempt seven more free-throws. When Fernandez and Miller played together with Roy, Aldridge, and Joel Przybilla, opponents shoot 43 percent. When the duo plays with Roy, Aldridge, and Oden, the more intimidating of the two centers, opponents shoot a measly 37 percent.

But, this lineup of Miller, Roy, Fernandez, Aldridge, Oden, the lineup McMillan is leaning towards using, has made only 34 percent of their field goals, and, brace yourself, committed 21 percent more turnovers than the opposition. The head coach understands that little has worked over the past three games, so he’s trying to give the team a new look, a new flavor to see if it makes a difference. Only time will tell if this rotation can shake off those woeful statistics and make McMillan’s shakeup pay off.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Breaking News, Most Recommended, NBA, News Headlines, Portland Trail Blazers, Right Column, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.