The Portland Trail Blazers had some positives come out of their 118-117 loss to the Washington Wizards. The most notable was Anfernee Simons scoring 41 points (4 shy of his career-high). 22 of those points came in the fourth quarter, giving Blazers fans a little deja vu to Dame Time. Some of the Blazers struggles this season have been because of one key thing: they’re missing a reliable scorer. Sure, they have some young talented guards who might become that, but they’re not yet. The Blazers traded their alpha away in Damian Lillard right before the start of the season.
“On the offensive side, you want to start games and get the ball moving,” Billups said via Rose Garden Report’s Sean Highkin. “We don’t have an ‘alpha’-type dude on our (Blazers) team. It just is what it is. We’ve got some helluva players, guys that are going to be All-Stars in this league. But right now, we don’t have that dude that you can throw it to and he’ll get us going for the first four or five minutes of the game. We just don’t have that. So we’ve got to do it collectively.”
Afterward, the fans were not happy as they disagreed with the comments by Chauncey Billups:
Let’s think about this for a second though. An “alpha” is considered to be a top player in the league. Someone who has MVPs or at least been in the conversation for one. A player who has been named an All-Star at least once and someone who has made All-NBA teams. These types of players have a proven track record.
Simons has the potential to be that type of guy, but he hasn’t done anything to be anointed as an alpha yet. He’s currently the best scorer on the Blazers roster and is starting to become a game-changer. Simons, 24, has been limited this season due to this thumb injury. In the nine games that he’s played in, he has shined bright for the Blazers: scoring 25+ in five of those contests and at least 18 in eight of them. He’s averaging a career-best 27.1 points per game. If he continues playing the way that he has been, he may become an “alpha” for Portland.
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