The Portland TrailBlazers Sugar High Yesterday.
During the Damian Lillard and Terry Stotts era it seemed like bad luck was always around the corner and it really was. Wes Mathews torn his Achilles. Jusuf Nurkic broke his leg. CJ broke his back. Zach Collins , The talented big man from Gonzaga has been hampered season after season. Undoubtedly these events were horrible in the moment but they did buy this core time as they overachieved getting to playoffs and won a few series that they had no business winning. But this time bad luck was no where to be found. From players, media and fans it looks like major change is in the horizon. As the team looks to move forward, I want to look back at a few key decisions that altered the course of the team.
After clawing their way into the playoffs but quickly being bounce from the playoffs the front office made a win now move to trade their first round picks in the 2020 draft and 2021 draft for Robert Covington. Many praised the move including myself. This clearly signaled that Portland wanted to contend and believed they could by sacrificing so much of their future and unknown for a know player that could help them now.
The second was the in season trade of Gary Trent for Norman Powell. The arrival of an established NBA player with a championship ring and skill pushed Derrick Jones Jr from the starting line up to the bench. Statistically Norman Powell is one of the best shooters in the league. Shooting being one of the most valued commodities in the league he will certainly have a plethora of options to get a financial raise and choice of team. This again may come to bite the blazers in the buttocks as Powell could walk in free agency while the blazers give up a homegrown player.
Both decisions above were done in an attempt to win now and you could argue needed to happen because of where the organization. The most detrimental decision from the blazers organization and coach Stotts was to sign Carmelo Anthony. Let me preface by saying he is certainly still a NBA player and should be in the league. In bringing him in you acquired a scorer who can still get a bucket and more importantly space the floor but pairing him with Enes Kanter and Robert Covington as the back line of your defense was a recipe for disaster. His usage rate was higher than every player except CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard. The short sugar high of having a former top 5 player on the team hurt young players getting reps in the league Nassir Little has shown flashes of growth. Derrick jones Jr struggled to shoot the three pointer but brought many other skills to the table including playing one on one defense and cutting to the basket but a guaranteed amount of minutes were allocated. Acquiring talent is critical in the NBA to compete but evaluating talent is just as important and the blazers just punted two years of seeing their homegrown talent under the bright lights this hurts their prospects of cutting ties with older players and or flipping players to improve the team now.
Now the blazers go back to the drawing board with little certainty from the Neil Olshays job security , Terry Stotts future and many decisions on players young and older. The sugar high is over.
