Fresh off of a nice victory versus the Memphis Grizzlies, the Portland Trail Blazers and their fans are riding high. The Blazers stand at 31-39, just a couple games out of the Western Conference Play-In bracket, trying to catch the plummeting Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks. It’s a far cry from where they were expected to be at the start of the season. Or, let’s face it, even midway through.
How much of this success is actually transferrable and how much is in “Good...for the Blazers” territory? We take that up in today’s Blazer’s Edge Mailbag.
Dave,
The signs have started to turn encouraging around this team. I love the five of Scoot Shae Tou Deni and Clingan. They’ve shown real progress and now we have a chance to make the playoffs even. I know, just a chance. But that’s more than I thought we’d have. I can hardly believe we’re even talking about it. Maybe in my lifetime we’ll see Blazers Basketball back!
So my question is how good you think this team is for real. With a couple additions and subtractions could they grow into a good team or even a championship one? I don’t see us as that far away. How about you?
Season Ticket Holder On-er
Congrats on the season tickets! At least this year they’ve given you something to show up for, right? You’ve got to love it.
And yes, the improvement is real. It’s great seeing signs of life out of this young core. Each one of the players you mentioned has shown real progress, some surprisingly so.
As far as getting legitimately good, a couple realities still shade the picture.
First, the Blazers have most everything they need except a deadeye shooter or two and a true #1 superstar option. If you remember the old Coca Cola sweepstakes game or McDonald’s Monopoly, this is exactly like saying you have every tab needed to win except the one or two super-rare jackpot pieces. Your winning collection is 85% complete, but that last 15% is a doozy. Everybody’s looking for the same thing, and thus everybody is pretty much in the same situation.
The NBA Draft is the best hope for improvement, of course. It’s hard to trade for shooters or superstars nowadays and they don’t often come up on the open market. Developing from within is possible too if you believe in Shaedon Sharpe, Scoot Henderson, or Deni Avdija. They’ll need to show more before that becomes a credible avenue of approach, but the door’s not closed.
Even if they get them, though, Portland will be walking a fine line with those acquisitions too.
It’s easy to say the team needs more shooting, but they can only play five players at once, not six or seven. Every minute taken by a three-point specialist is a minute that one of their current, multi-faceted, defensively-apt players doesn’t play. If those shooters don’t defend as well, the Blazers will lose something even as they gain something else. They’ll need to balance that out.
Ego will also be an interesting variable if they acquire a franchise-changing superstar. The Blazers don’t have a lot of it right now. They could use a little more strut and swagger, in fact. Indomitable will would go a long way towards lifting them to the next level. But this group succeeds because (or at least when) they’re unselfish, playing “all-for-one, one-for-all” ball. Centralizing and improving their attack will take a little adjustment. Will all these young players still thrive if their roles are more defined and their touches more limited? Will a superstar be able to integrate and value others or will he simply shine with his own 25 a game and make everyone else squeeze in around him?
Neither of these issues are insurmountable. All teams go through them. They’ll be pleasant challenges to face! I’m just suggesting that, even if the Blazers do strike gold, the next steps aren’t instant or automatic. Assuming that they’re going to get better before they’ve even acquired new players, let alone started to integrate them, might be a tad optimistic.
The other reality we need to acknowledge is that, up until now, opposing teams haven’t really been playing their best against Portland...neither their full lineups nor their most focused approach. That’s not an insult to the Blazers. You can only play the schedule in front of you. Portland has. They’ve done reasonably well. Full marks there. That doesn’t change the fact that the season has been the equivalent of starting a video game on easy mode: slightly fewer opponent hit points, boss monsters aren’t so bad.
The Blazers haven’t experienced normal mode yet, let alone the Nightmare Mode that is the NBA Playoffs. Nobody’s really targeting them or underlining their names on a schedule. There’s not just a world of difference between what they’re doing now and a fully-loaded, no-distractions, seven-game playoff series, there’s a couple solar systems’ worth of difference.
For those reasons, we still need to say that the distance between Portland and actual contention is long. The road ahead has plenty of forks, twists, and drop-offs, all of which need to be negotiated well. But at least the Blazers are taking a journey now instead of milling around in a swamp of confusion. That in itself is a step forward and something for season ticket holders, and all the rest of their fans, to celebrate. I’d say go ahead and do so while you can! Tomorrow will bring a new set of problems and plenty of time to worry about them. For now, cheer the things going right and be happy with what you’re seeing.
Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer as many as we can!