On the one hand, it’s clear that the Portland Trail Blazers want to take the next step. After going 23-18 in the second half of the 2024-25 season, with the No. 3 defense in the league during that stretch, general manager Joe Cronin said that making the playoffs would be a “reasonable expectation” going forward. In the offseason, they swapped a 26-year-old guard (Anfernee Simons) for a 35-year-old guard (Jrue Holiday) and got out of the Deandre Ayton business, signaling that it was time to get serious.
On the other hand, um, is it? The biggest splash the Blazers made this summer was reuniting with Damian Lillard, a heartwarming story that will have no impact on the court this season beyond the intangibles that Lillard will bring back to the building. (The 35-year-old future Hall of Famer will miss the entire season, having torn his Achilles tendon five months ago.) The second-biggest splash was drafting Yang Hansen, who is eminently quotable (“Yao [Ming] is number one in paradise. Compared to him, I’m cold ash in a pot,” Yang told the Washington Post) but needs time the way that most 20-year-old centers do. On draft night, Cronin clarified what he wants to see: while the team could “possibly” make a playoff run, his expectation is that it improves over the course of the season, not that it hits any particular benchmark. In other words, the P-word that is important in Portland is “progress.”
The State of Play
Last year: At the halfway mark, the 2024-25 Blazers were 13-28 and on a five-game losing streak, with the second-worst net rating (and third-worst defense) in the NBA. It seemed like Chauncey Billups’ days as their coach were numbered, but, on the strength of an aggressive defense that forced tons of turnovers, they won 10 of their next 11 games and, after finishing the season 36-46, they signed Billups to a contract extension. Deni Avdija averaged 23.3 points (on 51-42-78 shooting splits), 9.7 rebounds and 5.2 assists in 33.6 minutes in the 20 games that he played after the All-Star break. Toumani Camara, the second-round pick…
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