The Portland Trail Blazers made major roster changes during the last two weeks of June, 2025. They traded guard Anfernee Simons for Jrue Holiday, drafted center Yang Hansen, and bought out veteran pivot Deandre Ayton. Their 2025-26 rotation is starting to coalesce.
If things remain the same, Holiday and Scoot Henderson should split time at point guard. Shaedon Sharpe, Deni Avdija, and Toumani Camara should have relatively clear runways to blossom in the wing and forward positions, complicated only by the remaining presence of Jerami Grant. Hansen and sophomore Donovan Clingan will tag-team at center.
Though the lineup looks cleaner, it remains to be seen whether they will actually be better next season than they were last. In particular, those assembled eight players lack a quality considered critical to most successful teams in the modern NBA: three-point shooting.
The Blazers ranked 26th in the NBA last year shooting beyond the arc. Through the first months of the off-season, they have thumbed their noses at those percentages, doing nothing to improve their lot.
Portland’s best shooter by far in 2024-25 was Matisse Thybulle, who fired at a 43.8% clip from range. He’s still with the team, but that mark comes with caveats. He played only 15 games. That percentage represents a near-unbelievable increase from his 34.6% mark the season before, which is also near-identical to his career average. It’s likely Thybulle simply got on a hot streak during a limited run. Even if he didn’t, he’s not going to be featured in the upper rotation for Portland.
Jabari Walker came next for Portland in the three-point parade. He shot 38.9% beyond the arc. The Blazers let him sign with the Philadelphia 76ers in the offseason.
After that we have a small group of players averaging in the 36-37% range: Camara (.375), Avdija (.365), Grant (.365), and Henderson (.354). Simons (.363) also sat in this group, but he’s gone, obviously. The Blazers need to pray that these major rotation players all spend the summer working on their marksmanship. That’s the best hope for improvement.
Holiday, their recently-acquired guard, has a career average of 37.0% from three-point distance. He shot a career high 42.9% two seasons ago, his first year in Boston. But he managed only 35.3% last season, lower than Simons, the player the Blazers traded for him.
Below Holiday we find the Robert Williams line. Robert Williams III is a center, an inside scorer, hardly known for his three-point shooting. He shot just three triples last year, hitting one, for a percentage of 33.3%. Everyone else on Portland’s roster fell below that mark. In other words, they were worse than the guy who can’t shoot. That pretty much sums up the situation.
Recapping: The Blazers have one three-point shooter who won’t crack the top eight of the rotation, plus another they gave up in free agency who wouldn’t have played much either. Their next five players are around average but they traded one for a guy who’s not quite shooting as well. The three-pointer isn’t a reliable part of the arsenal of anybody else on the team.
Portland appears to be bucking the modern trend, deciding that athleticism and speed are more important than distance shooting. There’s some precedent. This year’s NBA Finals participants did not rely on the three-pointer overmuch. The Indiana Pacers were 21st in the league in three-point shots attempted, the Oklahoma City Thunder 10th...still top-third but barely. The difference is, Indiana was 9th in three-point percentage and OKC 6th. When they did take long shots, they tended to hit them. Portland doesn’t.
It’s not impossible for the Blazers to succeed without a credible three-point attack. It puts far more pressure on their defense to generate easy shots at tempo and on their halfcourt offense to produce reliable percentage looks. That’s a tall order for a young, learning team salted with a couple veterans who aren’t fantastic shooters themselves.
This will certainly be an item to flag as the Blazers continue to evolve towards next season, then as they take the floor for the new campaign.