A Look At The Blazers’ Offense

Several months ago, I wrote about how 2009-10 was destined to be a lost season for the Blazers because it wouldn’t provide us with any idea about Nate McMillan’s ability as a coach.

Part of the issue is the Blazers’ questionable offensive philosophy, particularly their penchant for an isolation offense with Brandon Roy at the point. Dwight Jaynes has been talking about that much longer than I have, and he has a couple of recent posts about it, like here and here and here.

As Dwight has been pointing out, the isolation offense is simply a recipe for disaster, particularly against good teams that have time to prepare — like in the playoffs. I simply don’t think the Blazers are ever going to win in the playoffs with their current offensive philosophy. At least, they won’t win big, like getting past the first or second round.

That’s one of the reasons this was, indeed, a lost season. Face it, we have no idea whether this team is equipped to make a run for a championship in the next couple years. We don’t know how Greg Oden is going to fit into the mix; we don’t know what McMillan can do with a full complement of players. The injuries of the past season placed Portland into a holding pattern, and now we’re right back where we were a year ago.