I know we say this a lot, and I’ve said it as well because it’s partially true, but he’s never started this slow.
2022-2023 first 7 games: 29 ppg, 5 AST with 48/41/86 shooting splits. He had a calf strain after that, came back before it was healed and put up a bunch of stinkers before sitting out again and letting it fully heal. He was all-nba dame again after that.
2021-2022 he did indeed start slow, but he was literally playing with an abdominal injury that needed surgery. He was bad all year outside of one week after getting a cortisone injection. He eventually shut it down and got surgery.
2020-2021 first 7 games: 26 ppg, 7 AST with 42/35/91 shooting splits. Slow by his Herculean standards sure, but leagues better than what he’s doing right now.
2019-2020 first 7 games: 31 ppg, 7 AST with 49/40/90 shooting splits.
2018-2019 first 7 games: 30 ppg, 6 AST, with 50/38/93 shooting splits.
Keep in mind, the blazers roster practically every year after their WCF run went through massive roster overhauls, including coaching in 2021. This is not dames first rodeo in a new environment. Yes, same city, but wildly different rosters, coaching staff, and ownership post 2020.
It’s just not true that dame starts slow. Yes, he sometimes starts below his standards, as in once every 4 years he’ll be just all star level instead of all-NBA, but dame is averaging 38% from the field and an abysmal 24% from 3 which is about as bad as 2021-2022 when he was playing with a borderline detached abdominal muscle.
I’m probably one of the top 5 biggest Dame fans on this sub, so I’m not going to hit the panic button just yet. I know he’s going through a divorce, looks visibly heavier/out of shape, and griffin doesn’t exactly inspire confidence on the offensive side of the ball, but writing this level of poor play off as some kinda early season rust is just wrong.
He looks visibly uncomfortable out there. He brings the ball down with no urgency or pace, moves off ball almost never and despite running thousands of PNRs for 12 years, he seemingly cannot stop turning it over on those same PnRs.
Something is wrong, and watching Giannis basically look dame off every single possession for the 8th game straight, there has to be something going on in the locker room or behind the scenes. It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that this pairing doesn’t work out like everyone thought it would, either that or Griffin is way over his head and the stotts fiasco is indicative of that (my personal theory).
Idk. I can’t think of a single super star pairing on the level of Giannis and dame that has gone so poorly so early, and I checked. KD/Curry, Bron/wade, PG/Kawhi, shit not even Russ/PG went this badly their first year.
Now go look at November and come back.
He was literally injured in November. I watched every Portland game since 2015.
Its almost like hes in a new city with a new org on a new team with a new coach playing in a new scheme with reduced touches building new chemistry…what the heck is REALLY goin on with Dame?!
It’s almost like I explicitly mentioned every relevant example that could be analogous to this, and none of them played as poorly as dame. It’s almost like the “new city etc…” is not a real excuse and doesn’t actually apply anywhere
Even if your data pool is accurate, which honestly isnt even that drastic to be concerning, Lillard can go off on a tear for 1 or 2 games and then your data wouldnt line up anymore to the narrative you created right?
If youre truly a Dame fan you already know he starts to show up mid to late season, none of this early season stuff has ever mattered
He also had 39 opening night including a 4th quarter takeover that has happened to varying degrees in 3 of the 6 wins. The consistency isn’t there, obviously. It’s pretty clear he and Giannis haven’t learned to play off each other yet, as they’re basically taking turns having big games. If you want to be concerned about that, okay. He arrived a week before preseason having spent his entire career in the same situation year-in, year-out. It’s far from a catastrophe.
Also, the Heatles started 9-8 their first year together.