Steve Blake Discussion: Out Indefinitely (p. 102)

Sometimes, I don't even blame Blake. I think Mike Brown must be kookoo, but he keeps putting Blake on bigger and stronger guys that he has no shot of defending. The only thing the Blake needs to do is drive in more, and try to score inside...this will help balance his game. The defender needs to know that there is a threat to penetrate and score.

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:I also think he will be better...no pressure anymore with Nash around, I believe he will flourish. He has no competition for the back up role though.

Unfortunately he does. His competition is Duhon.

LooN3y wrote: he needs the balls in his hands to be effective.

Scnottaken wrote:

therealdeal wrote:

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:I also think he will be better...no pressure anymore with Nash around, I believe he will flourish. He has no competition for the back up role though.

Unfortunately he does. His competition is Duhon.

anti-yell™ (this is of course assuming yell™ is something good.)

But yeah that's probably bad.

davriver290 wrote:While Blake is sometimes frustrating..... He's not that bad of a backup. I think the complaining was magnified because he was backing up Fisher...... for most of the season. But Behind Nash, I expect him to just come in, play D, hit a couple of threes, and sit back down. I know we're overpaying him for what he does... but we could have worse.

Except that he's going to be backing up Nash and his bad back this season so those minutes are probably only going to be increased.

Either Blake or Duhon

I'm not a Blake hater, but he's probably going to be one our biggest problems this season Fart™

Barnstable wrote:Except that he's going to be backing up Nash and his bad back this season so those minutes are probably only going to be increased.

Either Blake or Duhon

I'm not a Blake hater, but he's probably going to be one our biggest problems this season Fart™

I disagree.

The biggest problems I had with Blake were a) too many minutes and b) he was not aggressive enough.

His too many minutes resulted from him being our backup PG AND our backup SG. Remember him playing with Sessions? Or even worse, with Derek? That's not going to happen anymore. We have a legitimate backup SG in Meeks. The kid started in a lot of games for Philadelphia, he'll be a very good backup to Kobe. Blake will be Nash's backup and even if Nash plays only 30 minutes a game, that's 18 minutes a game left for Blake, and that's still a few minutes less than what he did last season. He'll play a little less in a role he's more suited for.

The second problem however may still be a problem. I don't know why, but ever since he's been a Laker he's been very passive. His shooting comes and goes, but part of that is because he rarely takes the open shot. I don't really understand why, but he almost never shoots the ball when he's open. He takes a lot of bailout shots from distance because of lack of movement and double teams down low. I'm hopeful that playing with Nash will loosen him up a bit and having our bench guys get out in transition may help too.

Blake can't get a whole lot worse, so this season I expect him to get just a bit better. It'll help that he only plays backup PG now.

^Wowww you're right. I didn't realize Blake averaged over 23min per game last season. His stats are even worse than I thought if he played that many minutes, and that's all he could muster.

That's horrific.

Psychobroker wrote:

LooN3y wrote: he needs the balls in his hands to be effective.

he said balls

Barnstable wrote:^Wowww you're right. I didn't realize Blake averaged over 23min per game last season. His stats are even worse than I thought if he played that many minutes, and that's all he could muster.

That's horrific.

True, his numbers weren't great. But here's some reasons for optimism:
- Blake's FG% was terrible because of isolations and non-conventional shots (probably full court type, odd looking shots, etc.) which made up 9.6% and 14.4% respectively. Those two rank 5th and 3rd respectively in his overall shot attempts. Considering those two numbers should be reduced significantly, his FG% should rise.

- Blake took the vast, vast majority of his shots in spot up situations at 43.2%. The next closest was as the pick and roll ball handler at 15.3%. His general FG% from spot up situations wasn't great at 39.9%, but his 3 point percentage in spot up situations was alright at 36.6%; not amazing, but solid.

- His second most used shot attempt, the pick and roll ball handler, resulted in 43.6% from the field and 60% from downtown (to be fair, he only took 10 shots from deep in those situations). Considering the team we have now, it's not crazy to think he'll get more looks in the pick and roll.

- He actually defended the pick and roll pretty well, keeping his man to around 38%.

- With the team he has now, hopefully his assists can go up. Last season he didn't have many people to pass to off the bench. Comparing the two, this season he'll have Meeks, Ebanks, Jamison, and Hill and last season he had no one, Barnes, McRoberts, and Murphy.

Please make it go away already yell™

2 more years.

I know most of you are complaining about Blake playing SG, but I just don't see why you would want him as our PG either. He has poor handles, no play making ability, and is always timid. I don't know how many times I've seen drive the lane just to bring the ball back out and pass it to someone on the perimeter. Drives me crazy. I understand it's good to probe the defense but he's not doing that, he's just wasting the shot clock. And we're slow as is in setting up our offense. While he had his worst showing as our SG, I think it has more to do with the timing of his poor play than it does with what position he's playing. Defensively, he's going to get raped at either position so it doesn't really matter. But offensively, he's at his best when he's knocking down spot up threes. No pressure on him to dribble or make plays like at PG, just catch and shoot. The problem is his shot has not been very consistent and he passes up too many open opportunities. But if you think about it, the only offensive skill he has is shooting threes so SG would make more sense to me.

But at the end of the day, he's probably going to suck no matter what position he's at. The only thing we could do is hope to minimize his, um, suckiness.

Psychobroker wrote:

LooN3y wrote: he needs the balls in his hands to be effective.

Sometimes i need my balls in my hands to be "effective" too.

borri wrote:

Psychobroker wrote:

LooN3y wrote: he needs the balls in his hands to be effective.

Sometimes i need my balls in my hands to be "effective" too.

I hope it's your own...

Nthydro is right.

Blake doesn't really hurt the team but he doesn't contribute anything either. Its like 20 minutes of dead weight on the floor. I always thought he is awful and had lots of discussions about him.

Bottom line: he doesn't help us win ball games. If you aren't helping you should be gone, but he is a reliable backup. He is reliable in a sense that you know he can't do anything and he won't do anything. So he won't disappoint you. But he might have an amazing quarter here and there (vs. Nuggets in the playoffs, comeback vs Thunder in the regular season etc.). He is the pg version of Luke.

I'm praying Mitch comes back from vacation and magic wand's Blake straight out of LA. The only buzzkill for me when thinking about the Lakers upcoming season. And he will get 15-18 mpg, while putting up 3 pts / 2 assists a game.

I think we're going a little overboard here. Blake isn't great, he isn't even good, but he's okay. He'll be fine for what we need. Would I like someone better? Of course. But our success isn't bound to his performance in any way. He won't cost us games. And if he does cost us games, we'll either trade him with someone/thing valuable or we'll play Duhon. He can't be any worse than Duhon though... I just won't believe that.

I also think that with a better man playing in front of him, hopefully a defined roll within the offense, and some far better players to pass it to he'll look a little better than last season. I mean if he can come in the game, hand out 3 assists and hit 2 threes, he's done his job.

Steve Blake just looks weird.

lakerfan2 wrote:Steve Blake just looks weird.

That video rules.

therealdeal wrote:
Blake can't get a whole lot worse, so this season I expect him to get just a bit better. It'll help that he only plays backup PG now.

this theory has been proven wrong over 2 seasons now, i actually do think he can get worse, much worse cause now he's afraid to shoot. At least his 1st yr he took the open shot, now all he does is over pass and takes a shot as last resort most of the time.