After making the playoffs eight years in a row, Portland missed them last season in a tumoultous year: Damian Lillard only played 29 games due to injury while the remaining players missed a combined 326 games with injuries of their own. The Blazers also changed their front office and coach Chauncey Billups really had a tough time last season. Once the season was lost, the Blazers did a great job at tanking during the second half of the season as they only won 2 of their last 23 games, while losing their last 11 games.
The Blazers had been #27 and #29 on defense in the two previous seasons, so Billups attempted a new style with the team being aggressive at trapping the opposing ball handlers. That didn’t work well and he had to revert into a more traditional style. At the end, Portland were again one of the worst defenses in the league.
2022/23 Outlook:
The direct outcome of such a great tanking job was that Portland managed to draft Shaedon Sharpe with the #7 overall pick. Sharpe has the potential to be a very good player on offense but with him being so young and without any college basketball experience, it could take a while for him to make an impact in the NBA. However, the Blazers do not appear to be in a rebuilding mode…
Led by Lillard, the Blazers were a top 5 team on offense three seasons in a row. Last season, Lillard only played 29 games and his 40.2% FG & 32.4% 3pts were a career low. Fortunately, he looks back to being healthy and so, we can expect Portland’s offense to improve dramatically. The Blazers traded CJ McCollum mid-last season, but it looks like they have a new “CJ” in Anfernee Simons, who developed into one of the best outside shooters in the league as he shot 47.8% on catch-and-shoot three pointers last season!
The Blazers will indeed have some great firepower on outside shooting, but their main challenge once again will be in trying to be a decent team on defense. In order to try to do this, the Blazers signed Gary Payton II, who is coming from a great season in Golden State and is one of the best defensive guards in the league. Portland also lacked a forward that could add value on both ends of the floor, but they got one in Jerami Grant. On the other hand, Jusuf Nurkic will be the team’s Center once again. He has been injury prone during his career but at least last season the games he missed was due to tanking and not injury.
Portland could be a dangerous team in the West if all things go well. They have the potential to be an elite team on offense but once again, it will be their defense (or lack of it) that will dictate how far they can go.