In a New NBA Frontier, the Portland Trail Blazers Provide a Cautionary Tale

Even in the new NBA, where positionless basketball and over-priced free agents are all the rage, not having a direction for your team is a very troubling forecast. Although it seems as though they are trending upwards with the young and promising duo of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, the Portland Trail Blazers find themselves in a sticky situation. Let’s dive a bit deeper.

Starting with their last game against the Golden State Warriors sums up the Blazers perfectly. They started pretty even, slowed to the point where they were down by a large double digit deficit, pulled to within even late in the fourth, but lost a close one. This means they aren’t horrible, but they aren’t that good. Being not horrible and not that good is “basketball purgatory.” By being middle of the pack, it ensures that the Blazers are a pretty good distance away from the top picks in the lottery, further decreasing their chances of procuring an impact player. This is simply not a good place for the Blazers. An NBA franchise either has to be bad and build through quality draft picks or go out and get free agents.

Aha! That is the answer to all the Blazers problems — go out and sign a quality free agent to help close the gap. That sounds like a really great idea, however, the Blazers already spent a relatively large amount on players that aren’t quite returning the investment. Evan Turner signed a 4 year/$70 million deal this past offseason after coming over from Boston, isn’t quite living up to the paycheck. That is quite a bit of “check” for someone with averages of 9 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assist per game. If you look a bit further down the roster, you come to Allen Crabbe and his 4 year/$75 million deal. Although this was an offer in accordance with an offer sheet that was extended by the Brooklyn Nets, the Blazers coughed up quite a bit of cabbage for Crabbe. In looking at Crabbe’s numbers, that is also a rather large sum of money for someone averaging 10 points, 2 rebounds, and a pedestrian 1 assist per game. With a few other players looking to be taken care of in the future, and with these players not quite living up to their enormous salaries, it may be hard for Portland to pluck from the free agency vine.

Lastly, the Trail Blazers lack the big bodies to be successful. Again, we are in a day and age of positionless basketball, but at some times you need “bigs” to do some work. Mason Plumlee does his job and then some most nights, but there really isn’t another consistent “big” on the roster to help out when Plumlee needs a breather. Although they have several of those ‘tweener’ types such as Maurice Harkless or the “chief” Al Farouq Aminu, the Blazers don’t really have anyone other than Plumlee that can be considered a true “big”. Ed Davis is really limited, Noah Vonleh is really young and raw, and who the heck knows what is going on with Meyers Leonard.

Even with Lillard and McCollum, the Trail Blazers have some soul searching to do. Many thought after the team transitioned away from the core of Lamarcus Aldridge and Nicolas Batum that Lillard would step right in and take things to the next level. However, that just hasn’t always been the case. Elite is the word to describe both Lillard and McCullom individually, where McCollum might actually be the best of the two (but that is another topic for another day). For some reason or another, they aren’t taking the Blazers to the promised land alone. If the above continues to be the case, Portland will continue to be in basketball purgatory and struggle to find a direction.