Raymond Felton Must Step Up His Game on Offense for Portland Trail Blazers

Raymond Felton’s arrival in Portland on draft day this past June was celebrated by the Rose City media and Trail Blazers fans. Felton will be the team’s long-term answer at point guard, they thought.

Now those same fans and members of the media are falling off the Felton bandwagon faster than he runs the fast break because his season hasn’t started as well as they envisioned.

It’s true—Felton must improve. And he will.

Statistically, Felton is having the worst season of his career. His field goal percentage (37.3), three-point percentage (20.2) and points per game (10.3) are all the lowest they’ve been since he entered the NBA in 2005.

But Portland fans must remember Felton is playing for his fourth team in three seasons.

It takes time to adjust—just ask his predecessor.

In his first year as a Trail Blazer, Andre Miller struggled at the start as well. Just like Felton, through 26 games Miller was having the worst season of his career. Miller’s points per game (11.15), assists per game (4.46), rebounds per game (2.85) and field goal percentage (40.5) were all lower than any of his worst seasons to that point.

But by the end of the season he had improved in each of those categories.

Much like Felton this year, it took a while for Miller to adjust to his new teammates and coach.

The difference between the two is that the pieces surrounding Felton play to his strengths far better than they did with Miller.

Miller was paired in the backcourt with Brandon Roy. Both players needed the ball in their hands to be effective. Felton, on the other hand, is a more complementary piece to this year’s No. 1 option in the Rose Garden—LaMarcus Aldridge.

One of the reasons there was so much buzz around Felton’s arrival was because of the success he had in New York when teamed with Amar'e Stoudemire. Aldridge and Stoudemire are similar players. They’re both highly athletic power forwards who are dangerous in transition and can knock down jump shots.

But where Felton and Stoudemire were able to acclimate to one another during training camp and the preseason, that’s not the case this year. Felton and Aldridge are having to learn on the fly in the regular season.

Once they are able to read one another more effectively, the Blazers will be an explosive team.

In the meantime, there are a few things Felton can do to help the team more immediately.

Foremost is putting up more shots after practice. Shooting slumps are a part of the game. Everyone goes through them. Shooters shoot their way out of them. But hoisting up a ton of shots during games isn’t what’s best for Portland. Felton needs to figure out a way to balance resting his legs during the shortened season and put in the extra hours to work on his shot.

Felton has always been a decent three-point shooter—much better than Miller—but never elite. Needless to say, he’s shown he’s much better than the 20 percent shooter he’s been so far this year. For his career he has made 32.6 percent of his tries from deep. The shooting will come around, it will just take time.

Until he rediscovers his shot, Felton should focus on being the distributor he can be. His assists are down from 8.3 per game last year to 6.7 this year.

The Blazers start three other capable scorers in Aldridge, Gerald Wallace and Wesley Matthews. Felton’s top priority should be getting each of those three involved in the offense. If just two of those three are clicking in a game, other teams will be forced to deny them the ball. That will open lanes to the basket for Felton. A few easy lay-ins or alley-oops can do a lot for his confidence, which in turn should help his shooting touch.

These things are bound to happen.

The fickle Northwest fans and media need to allow Felton time to adjust. Then he will fall into their good graces, just like Miller did last season. Except the upside is far greater with Felton than Miller, just like everyone expected it to be when he found a spot on the roster in June.