Portland Trail Blazers: Steve Blake A Quality Signing
On the surface, the signing of Steve Blake wasn’t that big of a deal. He played for the Trail Blazers before, so he is a familiar face to Trail Blazer fans, as well as a few of the players like LaMarcus Aldridge. With Mo Williams wanting and not getting more money, the Trail Blazers front office made the move to sign a quality, veteran backup point guard in Steve Blake.
Steve Blake isn’t a star signing, far from it. Blake has always been a role player and he has always played like one. With Williams gone, Blake will get ample minutes to show what he has to offer to this young and inexperienced Blazers squad. The changes will be felt almost immediately because Williams and Blake are pretty different in their approach to the game.
Williams is much more of a scoring guard. For his career, Williams averages 11.3 shots attempted per game, while Steve Blake only takes 6.3 shots per game. Williams is a scoring guard that can sometimes pass the ball and doesn’t play much defense. Blake is much more conservative in his approach and will almost always look to feed the ball to the star players.
Steve Blake can’t do much to create his own shot, but he will play within the offensive system and will look to pass the ball first and foremost. Blake isn’t the best defensive player, but he does work very hard on that end and will help cover up some of Damian Lillard‘s miscues on that side of the ball.
Williams and Blake are both very good 3-point shooters. Steve Blake’s career 3-point percentage is an excellent 38.8 percent, while Williams’ is not far off, sporting a career 38.5 percent from deep.
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Overall, Williams is the better player, but was he the right player for that role? We’ve seen teams pick up good players to be role players countless times and they end up under performing because they aren’t role players. Steve Blake is a role player through and through and will help provide some stability to the lineup, something Williams’ trigger happy style couldn’t.
Steve Blake will help get his teammates involved and keep the offense running smooth, even without Lillard out there. Last season, Blake averaged a solid 5.6 assists per game and that number was higher when he had a clearly defined role on the Lakers. With Los Angeles, Steve Blake averaged a superb 7.6 assists per game. When Blake gets a chance to handle the ball and run the offense, he can do some very good things.
While the Trail Blazers did end up losing the better overall player, they may have gotten a better fit for their team. Steve Blake fills in the need for a distributor off of the bench, as well as a player who actually tries to play defense. He does all of the little things while still being a very good shooter from downtown, something that the Trail Blazers value a lot in their high octane offensive system.
Blake also provides experience to an inexperienced team, as well as providing leadership for some of the younger Portland players. He was also a cheaper signing than Williams would have been. Overall, signing Steve Blake was a quality move for the Blazers, and he will have a bigger impact than he did with the Warriors.