Oregon Sports Live

On some teams, select players don’t get the chance to shine because there are proven commodities playing in front of them. This has been the case for the Portland Trail Blazers’ reserves for the past couple of years, but has come to a crashing halt with their litany of serious injuries in the past two months. The wounded Blazers have had to look down the bench for production, and a good thing they did, because they have now seen what Jerryd Bayless is capable of.

The Blazers spent all summer honing Bayless’ point-guard skills with the promise that as their primary backup (behind Steve Blake) he would truly get his chance to shine. In the Las Vegas Summer League, the Blazers urged him to focus on his playmaking skills and his ability to “run a team.” They already knew that Bayless could score at will in a summer league setting (as he did the previous year), but they wanted to see the floor general within him emerge. Bayless proved himself to be serviceable at the point guard spot, but still never really felt like the conductor of the orchestra.

After failed attempts at various offseason targets, the Blazers signed free-agent point guard Andre Miller – one of the game’s best playmakers and passers. It was clear that with Miller’s resume, alongside Blake’s experience and chemistry with star Brandon Roy, that Bayless would find himself buried in the depth chart once again. However the Blazers have a unique logjam at the point guard position, with all three players bringing distinctly different positive attributes (as well as glaring weaknesses) to the table. Even though the Blazers’ injury problems have not been at the point guard spot, Bayless has used his differentiating attributes to carve out time for himself within the Blazers’ rotation.

The Blazers may have come to realize that maybe Bayless isn’t going to be the prototypical point guard they hoped to mold him into. Bayless is a scorer. That isn’t to say that Bayless can’t handle the ball efficiently or get his teammates involved – he can – but when he comes in the game distribution shouldn’t be his primary duty. This is what we saw in tonight’s game against the Phoenix Suns. The Blazers gave Bayless the ball, trusted in him, and allowed him to create his own shot. Largely spurred by his relentless hustle, Bayless poured in a career-high 29 points to help lead the Blazers to a much-needed win.

Bayless has demonstrated that he has one of the (if not the) quickest first steps on the Blazers, and he uses it to take the ball to the rack with reckless abandon. His strength allows him to finish after contact, and take a beating after diving into the land of the trees. He clearly has worked on his shooting touch as well, as several of his shots tonight came from pull-up 20 footers. He was also two of three from behind the arc. Most of all, Bayless plays with more outward intensity than anyone on the Blazers. It’s easy to see that he is hungry to make his mark not only within the Blazers, but to prove himself to the league.

It could be argued that Bayless is an even better backcourt counterpart to Roy than Blake is. Blake’s primary strength playing alongside Roy is his ability to knock down three-point shots once Roy has forced the defense to collapse. While Blake knocked down four of seven from downtown tonight, he has struggled with his outside shot much more this year than we’ve seen in years past. While Bayless’ outside shot is currently nowhere near as reliable as that of Blake, his stroke is improving and should continue to improve. Given Bayless’ scorers mentality, the Blazers’ can rely more heavily on Roy to be the primary playmaker on the floor – which caters to Roy’s preference as well. Bayless can attack the defense when called upon on offense, and chase around the other teams’ quick point-guards on defense.

It will be interesting to see what the Blazers do with their roster once it is on the mend. Even the return of just Rudy Fernandez will require the Blazers to be creative in doling out playing time while still managing the individual egos within the roster. It’s clear that the Blazers have more than a full rotation of players that deserve to play, which has been a blessing in light of all of their injuries. However, at some point, something’s got to give. What’s also clear is that the Blazers haven’t found their comfort zone in the backcourt yet, and that spot is still very much up for grabs. It would seem as though one of the Blazers’ three very-capable point guards needs to be traded for a different piece, likely a frontcourt player. Continuing to use this “point guard by committee” will prolong the Blazers confusion of playing styles, and frankly, there just aren’t enough minutes to go around for this experiment to be sustainable. Bayless’ performance tonight was a healthy reminder of a “good” problem to have, but a problem that needs to be dealt with at some point none the less.

Also posted on NBA Noise