The Portland Trail Blazers are carrying a 28-38 record into the final quarter of their 2024-25 NBA season. It’s a little better than pundits and oddsmakers thought they’d do, but still not nearly good enough to be considered a significant threat to established league powers.
As the season comes to a close and Blazers fans start looking forward to the next steps for their beloved franchise, concerns about the future start to take precedent over wins and losses now. That shift is encapsulated in today’s submission to the Blazer’s Edge Mailbag.
Dave,
I have a short question which might take a long answer. Where do we go from here? What’s next on the team agenda besides hoping for good lottery position?
Trey
We’re going to spend all summer answering that question. Probably all of next season too. Before embarking on that journey, though, looking at the road map will be helpful. It’s not just a matter of how Portland gets better. The answer to that is easy: get more talent! How much better to they need to be, though?
To answer that question—and yours, in a super-preliminary fashion—we’re going to look at the landscape of the NBA around Portland. We want to ask who’s ahead of the Blazers in talent and the ability to acquire it. Understanding how far ahead or behind Portland is will help us understand how long the road ahead might be.
We’re going to look at the talent aspect in a slightly different way than normal. It’s difficult to judge who’s better than the Blazers using more than just record and common sense. Teams have different goals, depending on the stage of their life cycle. Would you really rather be the Sacramento Kings right now than Portland? Probably, but it’s not entirely clear-cut. Also, what use is it to say the Boston Celtics are better than the Blazers? No duh.
Instead, let’s look at the teams ahead of Portland in the building process by one, simple criterion: acquiring a bona fide star.
Like “good team”, the designation of “star player” can be murky. We’re going to clear it up by applying this litmus test. Let’s pretend the Blazers could offer their entire roster for one player on an opposing team...salary cap and roster limits be damned. Which teams currently hold a player that would cause them to refuse that offer from Portland?
If the Blazers’ entire squad could not pull a given player on a team, then that team is almost certainly ahead in the building/rebuilding process, at least possessing the rarest and most critical type of asset necessary to do so. Somewhat by default, then, the Blazers would need to pass those teams in order to ascend to the top of the NBA heap.
Here are the teams and players that currently qualify, by my estimation.
Cleveland—Donovan Mitchell, probably Evan Mobley
Boston—Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown
New York—Karl-Anthony Towns, Jalen Brunson, probably Mikal Bridges
Milwaukee—Giannis Antetokounmpo
Detroit—Cade Cunningham
Orlando—Paolo Banchero
Philadelphia—Tyrese Maxey
Charlotte—LaMelo Ball
Oklahoma City—Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Denver—Nikola Jokic
Los Angeles Lakers—LeBron James, Luka Doncic
Memphis—Ja Morant
Houston—Take your pick of 3-4 young guys
Golden State—Steph Curry
Minnesota—Anthony Edwards
Dallas—Anthony Davis
Phoenix—Kevin Durant, Devin Booker
San Antonio—Victor Wembanyama
I tried to be conservative in my estimates, favoring Portland completely. Indiana Pacers fans are going to want to talk to me about Olympian and All-Star Tyrese Haliburton. Kings fans may have a quibble too. Before this season, Sixers center Joel Embiid would have qualified too, for sure. You could make at least a loose argument for adding more teams to the list than I have.
Even counting conservatively, that’s 18 of 29 opposing franchises with at least one asset the Blazers cannot touch. Or put another way, Portland needs to leapfrog 18 of 29 franchises in star power as they develop their roster over the next few years.
Current talent isn’t the only measure of building potential, however. Future assets also matter. Portland has a couple of pick swaps from the Milwaukee Bucks upcoming as the decade closes, plus another potential pick in between. They own most of their own picks too. It’s not a bad place to be. But who, if anyone, is better?
Here are the teams with as much (or more) future draft capital as the Blazers.
The list is much smaller here, which is good for Portland, but there are concerning names on it. Of note, the Thunder, Spurs, and Rockets populate both lists. They have players that they wouldn’t trade to Portland for any amount of talent in return, plus future draft prospects as good as the Blazers’ or better.
That’s going to be the big question for Portland over the next few years, not just how to get better in the abstract, but how to pass Houston, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City.
All of them play in the Western Conference. Portland is going to need some help—injuries or bad decisions hamstringing those franchises—or some luck. Otherwise odds are at least one of those three teams will own the next generation over Portland the way the Golden State Warriors did in the Damian Lillard Era. Maybe all three will stay ahead of the Blazers. Who knows?
Either way, the road isn’t going to be easy. The Blazers have already made a couple of good decisions in their rebuild. They may make a few more. So far, it’s not enough. They’re going to need some great decisions, a little odds-beating in the lottery, and probably extra help if they plan to ascend to the top of the heap.
Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer as many as possible!