A Season of Uncertainty
The Portland Trail Blazers are either embarking on the second season of an earnest rebuilding era or something like the fourth, depending on how you want to calculate the final seasons leading up to the Damian Lillard exodus.
But no matter how you want to count it the most pressing question facing this team at this stage is this: Can a team start building something without a franchise cornerstone? Does every rebuild need to begin with a star level foundation? Or can you find that along the way?
The team is in a transitional phase, evaluating young talents like Anfernee Simons, Scoot Henderson, Donovan Clingan, Deni Avdija, and eventually Shaedon Sharpe in a quest to determine who might emerge as the franchise’s future leader. Each player brings varying levels of hope and potential, but the challenge lies in identifying who can truly step up.
In some ways the Blazers have the luxury of patience. They can spend this season, truly all 82 games of it, in full exploration mode trying to assess if any of their young players can evolve into a foundational piece.
The early returns haven’t been promising, but they are indeed the early returns. The Blazers can experiment with combos of their young guards, figuring out if any combo or Simons-Henderson-Sharpe is potent enough to be the future. They can give Avdija an expanded role and see how well he handles a larger ask. They can throw Clingan into mix and see if he has the makings of a true defensive anchor. They have the space to try and fail and try and fail again. At least for now, there’s no pressure to win anything.
But patience isn’t forever. And if bad young teams need a foundational star to guide them out of the darkness, the Trail Blazers rebuild now years in the making, might not even have started yet.
So is this the beginning? Or we still in the preamble of a story yet to find its main character?
The delightfully talented Dan Devine of Yahoo Sports is the guest on today’s episode. We discuss the Blazers present, future and path from here to whatever might be next.
Other Topics in Today’s Locked On Blazers Podcast:
- The impact of injuries on the Blazers’ lineup and present and future approach
- Analysis of the Blazers’ defensive challenges
- The role of veteran players in the Blazers’ rebuilding process
- Discussion on the Blazers’ long-term strategy and potential trade scenarios
