SR – NBA Bubble Breakdowns: #17 Portland Trail Blazers

Continuing on our countdown list, we’ve officially reached day six for the bubble breakdowns, and this list is heating up quickly. Just yesterday, we mentioned the second of four teams who are within the tight clench in pursuit of the eighth seed in the West, and today, the third team within reach of the eighth seed needs little introduction. In fact, this team, decimated by injuries in 2019-20, was a participant in the Western Conference Finals just a season ago…

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Portland’s Season In Review (29-37, 9th In West)

We expected Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum’s Portland Trail Blazers to take that next leap into superstardom with little in their way to stop them in the West. A trip to the conference finals for the first time since 2000 during their 2018-19 campaign signified the true arrival of Rip City onto the landscape of championship contenders and for a while, many speculated if Portland was next in line to advance to a franchise-first NBA Finals as a result of their progress.

Lillard and McCollum were projected to be the league’s most destructive backcourt with the Golden State Warriors essentially taking a year off while they let Klay Thompson heal from his ruptured ACL suffered in the Finals against Toronto, and a healthy Blazers team with all of their missing pieces including Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins was ready to see their championship window opened.

That wouldn’t be the case at all as the season progressed.

Portland started the season with a plethora of questions ranging from who would step up in the place of Jusuf Nurkic, who suffered an infamously gruesome leg injury in March of 2019. Portland has been without four of their best big men and throughout the season, have been forced to plug-in reserves who wouldn’t otherwise be factored within the minutes plan into critical roles at the four and five.

A starting frontcourt composed of Nurkic and Collins molded into Hassan Whiteside and Nassir Little as the season’s gone by. And now, the Blazers find themselves fighting for their collective playoff lives in the NBA bubble. Sitting at 9th in the West, a massive regression and a rather one-sided effort from the likes of Damian Lillard compared to his adversaries pits the Trail Blazers in a tough predicament heading into Orlando.

It’s been a frustrating year for Terry Stotts, to say the least. Injuries have piled up, making his combination of starters, second and additional units a little difficult to piece together. And while Lillard is putting on a historic season, so much of Portland’s issues have stemmed from a variety of causes.

For one, they’ve been abysmal on the defensive end, ranking 27th in total defensive rating. So don’t let that statistic of them leading the NBA in blocks as a team with 6.2 blocks per game confuse you.

One reason as to why they’ve underperformed on defense has to do with their lack of consistent rebounding. Even after trading for Hassan Whiteside to provide a temporary fix to their lack of board presence in the wake of not having Nurkic, Portland currently ranks 27th in the defensive rebounding statistic.

Additionally, while some of the best perimeter lockdown guys in their rotation were placed on the injured reserve as players like Rodney Hood went down early in the season to an injured Achilles tendon, others like Gary Trent Jr. and Anfernee Simons have answered the call in Stotts’ complementary units off the bench. Trent, the Blazers’ 21-year-old, 2nd-year two-guard off the bench earned an opportunity due to those injuries as and he showed improvement as the season progressed. Over a 19-game stretch from January 18 through March 2, Trent averaged 13.5 points on an effective field goal percentage of 60%.

For an offense that’s needed a third scorer at the guard spot, Trent has risen up in a way that no one predicted. As an above-average 3-point shooter (38.8%), he has not only complemented the Blazers’ guards offensively with his sniping from deep but has helped tremendously in his ability to stretch the floor as an off-ball scorer.

So much so, that his shooting from deep has benefitted others within the offense, none more so than Carmelo Anthony, the newly-acquainted Trail Blazer acquired in November to counter Portland’s injury woes. Right out of the gate, Anthony resembled his younger self, averaging 22.3 points per contest on an effective field goal percentage of 62.7 percent with his new team during a three-game winning streak. In his first game, Melo dropped 19 in dazzling fashion as his Blazers secured a 136-119 home rout of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

For a moment, it felt like both Lillard, McCollum and this new-look Blazers team finally turned the corner, finally equipping their third piece. But up until the hiatus, they’ve submitted a subpar record of 20-25 even with Melo in their lineup.

Now, a majority of those losses had to do with the latter: a bevy of injuries to integral parts of the team, defensive inefficiency, inconsistency from starters on offense, and a struggle on the glass. What hasn’t been a thorn in Portland’s side was the tremendous play from Damian Lillard. An effort so good that the five-time All-Star was graced with the honors of being the cover athlete for NBA 2k21 because of it.

To put it into perspective just how groundbreaking Damian Lillard’s 2019-20 season is to Blazers fans, take this scenario into consideration: I’m going to throw out two players at you, and as you compare and contrast the two players, I want to see if you, the reader, can take a guess as to who’s stats these are while looking at the similarities by the time I reveal these statistics.

The first player has a season where he averages 30.1 points per game, 6.7 assists per game, 5.4 rebounds per game off a field goal percentage of 50.4, a 45.4 three-point percentage, 3.3 turnovers per game and a 90.8 free throw percentage.

The second player has a season where he averages around 28.9 points per game, 7.8 assists, 4.3 rebounds, 2.9 turnovers per game, a 45.7 shooting percentage from deep, a 39.4 three-point percentage, and an 88.8 free throw percentage.

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Here’s a little hint: one of these players was voted as an MVP at multiple points in his career…

Did you get it yet? Nah? Alright…here’s the answer.

YouTube/6Man

The year that Stephen Curry posted up this stat line was the year he became the first player in NBA history to unanimous MVP in 2016. This was also the season that we all know his Golden State Warriors went 73-9.

It’s wild to think that Lillard this year is putting up similar, almost identical numbers to that of Curry’s repeating MVP season this year, but his 29-37 Blazers are in such a funk that it will be hard for them to get out of. Fortunately, with the way that Lillard had been carrying these Blazers, they’re within the perfect position to challenge for the eighth and final seed.

The Blazers are just 10-21 against playoff teams this year. But four of those 10 wins (Ws against the Pacers, Rockets, Lakers, and Jazz) came in the span of seven days, part of the stretch in which Lillard was playing at a nearly extraterrestrial level.

Whether it was his career-high 61 points dropped on the Golden State Warriors with 10 assists and seven rebounds on January 20, that Pacers game on January 26 (the emotional game played by the Pacers the day of Kobe Bryant’s passing) that Dame dropped 50 points with 13 assists while shooting 60.9 percent from the field and 66.7 percent from deep…

…or the 36-point performance against Houston one night later…

…or the electric 48-point-10-assist supershow he put on in front of a Staples Center crowd during Kobe’s memorial game against the Lakers…

…or his epic 51-point-12-assist night against Utah in a back-to-back…the Weber State product made legendary strides in the Winter.

Lillard became the first player since Kobe Bryant in 2007 to have more 50+ point games in a stretch of seven days or more. This would warrant a fifth All-Star selection from the Blazers’ superstar guard, but he wouldn’t be able to play in the game due to a hip injury.

His season has been so prolific that it wouldn’t be surprising to see him land some MVP votes once the season concludes.

Per NBA.com’s Senior Stat Analyst Jon Schuhmann – “His 36.9 minutes per game lead the league and he’s one of three players in the top six in both points (28.9, fifth) and assists (7.8, sixth) per game. His true shooting percentage of 61.9% is a career-best mark and the third-highest mark among 40 players with a usage rate of 25% or higher.

His ability to shoot off the dribble is one of the league’s most dangerous weapons. Lillard has an effective field goal percentage of 55.3% on pull-up jumpers, the best mark among 139 players who have attempted at least 100. He ranks second with 13.5 pick-and-roll ball-handler possessions per game and the 1.14 points per possession he’s scored on ball-handler possessions is the best mark among 56 players who have averaged at least five per contest.

The Blazers have the league’s third-biggest differential between their winning percentage in clutch games (16-13, .552) and that in non-clutch games (13-24, .351), and Lillard has obviously been their go-to guy down the stretch. He’s tied for the league lead with seven baskets (on 12 attempts) to tie or take the lead in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime.”

If he keeps this up in Orlando with consistent rebounders and rim protectors around him, Portland has a great shot of reaching the playoffs for another year.

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Portland’s Roster For Season Resumption: Logo Lillard can only do so much, but now it’s up to his healthy supporting cast to carry the rest of the load.

After everything mentioned, Damian Lillard is the true MVP of this team, undoubtedly. But, no one man goes unassisted in getting a team above-.500. Therefore, the returns of elite rim protectors and stretch bigs Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins must help complement the vaunted backcourt of Lillard and CJ McCollum.

It’s imperative of them to do so, considering that, like any other team, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

One of the more consistent starting lineups in the NBA belongs to Terry Stotts’ Portland Trail Blazers. With Dame and C.J. McCollum (22.5 ppg., 4.1 rpg., 4.3 apg.) taking heed of the second-highest scoring backcourts in the league, the forward spots are a bit up in the air. Regular starter Trevor Ariza is taking this time off to tend to some prior family obligations and won’t be present for the Orlando games.

So, Carmelo Anthony (15.3 ppg., 6.3 rpg.,1.6 apg.) is the likely starter at the small forward spot for Portland with Mario Hezonja (4.8 ppg., 3.4 rpg., 0.9 apg.) and Jaylen Hoard (2.9 ppg., 2.5 rpg., 0.3 apg.) possibly sharing minutes with Rodney Hood being out for the season. With Jusuf Nurkic all healed up and ready to go, he and Hassan Whiteside (16.3 ppg., 14.2 rpg., 1.2 apg., 2.5 bpg.) will split reps at center.

Though Whiteside will still have starting minutes, this will give the bench some balance. Currently, it is yet to be seen how many minutes Caleb Swanigan (3 ppg., 4.7 rpg., 1.4 apg.), Wenyan Gabriel (2.4 ppg., 2.1 rpg., 0.3 apg.) and Moses Brown (1.2 ppg., 1.6 rpg., 0.1 apg.) get in the Orlando rotation.

It will take some time for Nurkic to get used to the pace of NBA action with a year sitting on the bench. But when he’s on the floor, you’re talking about one of the most intimidating, bruising big men in all of basketball. Standing at 7 feet tall, the Bosnian Beast was averaging 15.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.4 blocks per gameup until his untimely injury just weeks until the team’s deep playoff run in 2019.

Also, getting Collins back helps in bunches, especially since he hasn’t set foot on an NBA floor since October when he injured his shoulder against Dallas. Up until he got hurt, the Gonzaga Bulldog was averaging a little under 10 points a game with 4 rebounds and 2 assists per contest. Of course, those minutes will gradually increase with a bigger sample. Collins was known for his skill as a shooter and rim protector, characteristics scouts find perpendicular to the model of crafting a championship roster in the modern NBA when scouting big men.

Once Zach Collins sits down, expect trusted rookie and former UNC standout Nassir Little to get some burn as well as up the tempo with his ability to push the pace in the open floor. Occasionally, the power forward has shown tendency to pop the three-ball, shooting a 23.7 percentage from deep. Otherwise, he’s a solid roll man and athletic, lengthy defender who is capable of holding his own out on the perimeter.

Finally the guard position will fluctuate in terms of productivity and overall effectiveness. Rookie Anfernee Simons (8.8 ppg., 2.3 rpg., 1.5 apg.) has been a surprise this year and will split minutes with Gary Trent (7.7 ppg., 1.7 rpg., 0.9 apg.) as shot creators and scorers off the catch.

Reminder: if this roster stays healthy, this is a dangerous team. But their strength of schedule will be the ultimate factor in determining if they are able to keep their position in the West and challenge the Grizzlies in a play-in tournament after the seeding games end.

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Portland’s Schedule, At A Glance

In comparison to the other four teams duking it out for the final playoff spot in the West, things won’t be as peachy attaining that eighth seed for the Trail Blazers. At least, that’s what their schedule – the sixth hardest schedule for the NBA restart among 22 teams – says.

Do remember that this Blazers team has only won 10 games against playoff-bound teams all year, and even if healthy in their frontcourt, there’s no guarantee they’ll escape with a victory in each of their games. That’d usually be a non-issue…if you only had like three or four games against teams with winning records.

Problem is, Portland is now forced to go against a playoff-qualifying team in every game they suit up for in Orlando.

Starting off with the Memphis Grizzlies on July 31, they have a shot to actually get within a game of the eighth seed with a win. After that, they’ll try to exact revenge on Jayson Tatum (who dropped 36 on their heads in the last matchup) and Jaylen Brown’s Boston Celtics, who hold the third seed in the East. The battle of the two highest-scoring backcourts in the NBA takes place soon after, as Dame and CJ will play James Harden and Russell Westbrook’s Houston Rockets one game later. Soon after that, they conclude the first half of their schedule with a game against Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets.

Things don’t get easier in the second half of Portland’s schedule. Starting out with a game against the Kawhi Leonard and Paul George-led Los Angeles Clippers, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid’s Philadelphia 76ers await soon after. They finish their seeding schedule with games against Luka Doncic’s Dallas Mavericks and Caris LeVert’s Brooklyn Nets.

As if things could get any harder for the Portland Trail Blazers, there they have it. But if there’s anyone that looks adversity in the eye, and discerns it to help his teammates work toward the common goal while also answering the call to showing the most equinamity under tension, it’s Damian Lillard.

And it’ll take a team effort, for sure. But when it comes down toit, the Blazers only go as far as their superstar at the guard spot. And if the Blazers are to get to the playoffs for the sixth time in a row, it’ll have to be Dame Time, all the time.