Oct 23 2009
Player Previews: Andre Miller and Steve Blake
My ambition got the best of me, so we’ll be ending the preview series with a few double previews. Anyway, on to the quotes.
Fuck this! It cost a million dollars. Pamela Anderson was in it, I was jumping across canyons and shit! If I don’t win, the awards show loses credibility.
Kanye spoke these words at the European Video Music Awards as the video for the Justice remix of Simian Mobile Disco’s “We Are Your Friends” took the prize over his Evel Knievel homage “Touch the Sky.” He went up on stage and interrupted the French favorites with this quote. Here’s what Kanye got right: he deserved the prize, and the show did lose credibility to give it to a boring video. Here’s what he didn’t understand: nobody cares about the award winners at the VMAs, and they care even less about the European VMAs. Would anyone ever preface an introduction to Kanye with “one-time European Video Music Award winner”?
Which brings us to Andre Miller and the point guard controversy. Here’s the point: it doesn’t matter. Miller is a hell of a player, the jumping across canyons and shit player, and honestly, if he doesn’t end up starting at some point, Nate McMillan does lose a little credibility. Still, as long as we win, I really couldn’t care less who is our starter at point guard. Miller seems like he’d be a better fit with some flyers off the bench like Rudy Fernandez and Martell Webster (or even Travis Outlaw), but once again, these matters aren’t that important. Miller has this image of some sort of brooder who leaves practice early to listen to Joy Division. He’s probably just a guy that likes to keep to himself, and has a good amount of self-awareness. He will get his minutes and by the middle of the season, he will thrive with those minutes. Just remember this refrain if you doubt Andre: he’s replacing Sergio Rodriguez.
If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don’t appreciate the moment until it’s passed.
Which brings us to Steve Blake. There aren’t many players in the NBA who follow this quote like Steve Blake. As long as he’s been with the Blazers, he’s been hounded by the local media (this humble outlet included) to lose his starting spot, and all he does is improve. When he arrived, he was barely a starter for a team that struggled to get 20 wins, and now he’s the solidified starter of a 50-plus win team. He went through challenges for his spot from Jarrett Jack, Sebastian Telfair, Sergio Rodriguez, Taurean Green, and Jerryd Bayless, and he emerged from them relatively unscathed. You can tell he appreciates every moment in the NBA and maintains a death grip to stay on in the league.
He’s valuable to this team because he’s probably among the most aware of what his limitations are, and what needed to be improved upon. His three point shooting, which he didn’t have coming into the league, that he’s developed over his career has made him nearly indispensable to the team, as there isn’t another player on the roster who plays point guard and can hit the three pointer with consistency. Last year, he not only hit at a good clip at 43%, he was a volume shooter, landing in the top 25 of total three pointers made. Until Bayless learns to do that (Andre Miller simply can’t), Blake’s going to get his time.
This year, he’ll have Jerryd Bayless and Andre Miller on him again, but I expect him to just do what he always does: play steady, hit open three pointers, and not give Nate McMillan a reason to take him out of the lineup. It does lead me to wonder, though: what would happen if he definitively received the starting nod? Would he get complacent and start eating Cheetos on the sideline, with big orange stains on the front of his jersey whenever he would check in? Make the announcement, Nate, let’s test it out.
Read the other previews:
Read Juwan Howard’s/Dante Cunningham’s preview
Read Martell Webster’s preview
Read LaMarcus Aldridge’s preview
