The Blazers Beyond 2021
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June 5, 2021 - The Blazers Beyond 2021 - Brandon Goldner
Jody Allen had a lot of thinking to do Thursday night.
The hours following the Portland Trail Blazers’ 115-126 season-ending loss to the Denver Nuggets must have been full of considerations and counters, lots of if-thens, and plenty of wrangling… not only over what the Blazers’ owner ought to do, but how to sequence it. Timing matters. One move pushes another.
So many moving parts.
Portland fans DEFINITELY did a lot of thinking - and gnashing, and declaration-making, and reminiscing - partly for a game that slipped away, more for a lost series that was winnable, but mostly because here we were, left with yet another giant ball of uncertainty just as the world was growing back into itself after over a year of isolation and fear.
The only constant for the Portland Trail Blazers in this moment is Damian Lillard. He is reliable and durable, an empathetic All-NBA talent, a top-5 player in the league who can single-handedly carry a flawed team far beyond what could be reasonably expected. He’s not just a great player; he’s a great leader. He’s smack in the middle of his prime and is playing the best basketball of his career. For now, any decision the team makes is through the lens of this simple question: “Does this maximize Dame’s talent?” Whether this should be the ONLY question that is asked the first time, every time, for every staff and player transaction for the next few years is something we get into a little later.
Allen has been notoriously off-limits to Portland media. She doesn’t give pressers. She doesn’t offer quotes on the record. Judging by how sports journalists in Portland bemoan her lack of access, she doesn’t offer anything off the record, either. As an aside… that feeling of being iced out? Of being denied access? That’s what so many independent journalists have felt during the Neil Olshey era. It must sting particularly sharp when you believe your career and work has entitled you to more. Sucks, doesn’t it?
So there’s not a lot to go off when trying to gauge Allen’s thinking. In some ways, the field has been equalized between the old media guard and the new. From the comfort of our computer desks, beds, rugs, or warm underbellies of dogs (which make by FAR for the best pillows), we can sift through some of the decisions Allen has to make. Because as much as she may have wanted to keep the team at arm’s length, the crisis has now met the moment.
It is Jody Allen’s time to act.
Section 1: Smaller Decisions - The Players and The Blazers’ Next Coach
It’s weird to label “should the Blazers trade their 2nd-best player” and “who should be their next coach” as small decisions, but given where the franchise is, they are. Let’s start with the players.
CJ McCollum
CJ McCollum is owed over $100M over the next few years, and while he’s had moments where you could squint and see him as the first option on a good team, those moments are fleeting. Whether any of the NBA’s 29 other teams want a smaller, 30-year-old, well-paid guard whose defense puts enormous pressure on the backline to clean up mistakes IS the question. And even if they do - say a New York Knicks, or an Indiana Pacers - how could you balance the books? How much of CJ’s value is worth paying for, and how much of it will need to be paid by Portland just to move the contact?
Jusuf Nurkic
Jusuf Nurkic was asked by reporter Mike Richman during postgame comments Thursday whether he wanted to be back in Portland. “In the right situation, yes,” replied Nurkic. When asked what that would be, Nurkic said, “We’ll see. I don’t know yet. Because this is not it.”
Welcome to Yikesville. Population: Every Blazers fan.
Nurkic has one year left on the 4-year, $44M contract he signed in 2018, with a $4M partial guarantee. The Blazers control his fate for next year; anything beyond that, as Nurk mentioned earlier in that same press conference, would have to be negotiated with his agent Rich Paul. And while Nurkic was by some metrics the most impactful player on the court for the Blazers in their series against Denver, he also showed the same lack of mental discipline that’s followed him his entire career. At his peak, he is the Blazers’ 2nd-best player and was capable of numbing the impact of presumptive MVP Nikola Jokic. At worst, he blows easy shots, stumbles, and makes lazy decisions that take him out of the game, literally and figuratively. Had Nurkic not fouled out multiple times, the Blazers may have very well won their first round series against Denver this year.
Can you rely on Nurkic as a 2nd- or even a 3rd-option on a contending team? At 27, is he past the point where he can expect to change, or in a different system and with different players around him can he bring his best consistently? Do you keep him for a year and wait to re-evaluate, or do you see what return you can get while he’s healthy and just got done proving what impact he can have in a competitive playoff series?
Norman Powell
When Neil Olshey traded Gary Trent Jr. for Norman Powell, I immediately saw it as a win: the Blazers get slightly better right now, maximizing Dame’s prime, and they push off the decision of having to pay Trent in restricted free agency and avoid a “poison pill” contract situation. Phew! Because there was NO WAY Neil Olshey makes this trade without talking to Powell and his agent first to gauge his interest in staying long-term, right? …right? Oh… Oh, no…
Subsequent reporting has strongly suggested, no, Olshey never had those conversations. With Powell likely to decline his $11.6M Player Option and become an UNrestricted free agent, the Blazers traded away a player they could for sure keep (and maybe trade later) for someone who might up and disappear like good vibes from a Blazers home playoff game where Portland was up double digits only to have it disappear in the blink of an eye because Nurkic was called for a touch foul on a Jokic three that Nurk wanted Stotts to challenge, but he didn’t, so Nurk was pissed and lost focus and got 4 fouls in 5 minutes and had to sit and before you knew it Denver was leading and the Moda Center crowd sat with him.
Definitely no weird feelings about that sequence.
Back to Powell… having Dame and Powell as your 1-2 would be a nice fit; it’s less of a great fit with Dame, CJ, and Powell as your 1-2-3. But if Powell wants a bigger role, can you find a trade for CJ in time to convince him that role is there? Would he want to be in Portland anyway? Does Portland want to commit MORE money to ANOTHER smaller guard (albeit one with more defensive chops)? And did Powell show enough with the opportunity he WAS given that it would be worth it?
Zach Collins
From the bench, Zach Collins is a lot of fun. If you had three guesses to pick where he was born, Las Vegas would be the first two and The Moon might be the third. But he’s also been injured, a lot. And while the theory of a floor-stretching big with a motor and defensive chops has peeked through (and the Blazers would have LOVED him in this Denver series), it’s hard to know what to make of him, exactly. He’s also a restricted free agent. If the Blazers extend a $7.4M qualifying offer to Collins and he declines, he would be a restricted free agent. If he accepts, he can play out next year in Portland and become unrestricted after that. If the Blazers don’t make an offer, he could leave this year. Can he stay healthy? Can he stay healthy? And is it possible that Collins could, perhaps, stay healthy? Given his value is low due to… you know… being injured a lot… that’s really the only question that matters. You could likely get him at a relative bargain, IF, in fact, he could stay healthy.
Enes Kanter
Oh, Enes. How you stole our hearts. And then ripped them right out after being close-to-unplayable in the playoffs. Kanter was shockingly ineffective in virtually every minute he played in this series, and even his most reliable and bankable skills (rebounding and offensive savvy around the rim) evaporated like a fine mist on hot concrete. Nobody expected him to be a defensive savant against Jokic or a world beater on offense, but what we saw was bad. Really bad. Will the Blazers and Nurkic part ways, opening more playing time for Kanter? Will the Blazers’ roster shift enough around him for his defensive shortcomings to be papered over? Or is he just a backup-level big whose biggest weaknesses are exactly the kinds of things you really NEED from a center behind Dame?
Derrick Jones Jr.
At the beginning of the year, the Blazers had their collective phone firmly in Airplane Mode. Not so much lately. And while some Blazers fans bemoaned Jones’ lack of playing time, it’s important to note that a) the Blazers did MUCH better down the stretch without him in the lineup, and b) there are reasons why last year in Miami under Erik Spoelstra, Jones’ role was limited during the Heat’s run to the 2020 NBA Finals. Some have argued Jones was injured, but he was cleared before the Playoffs started, and I haven’t found any reporting that said he was suffering ill effects after that. Jones has a Player Option for about $9M for next year, so whether he wants to come back is up to him… but Blazers management could certainly do or say more (or less) to try to convince him to stay (or leave). Is Jones’ defense overrated? If not, is it worth his offensive limitations? Can he continue to improve as a three-point shooter? At 24, are his best days ahead of him, or has he already peaked?
Carmelo Anthony
It’s mostly been really cool having a future first-ballot Hall-Of-Famer on the roster. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been maddening at times. Seeing Melo pound the air out of the ball only to take a contested turnaround jumper and killing the Blazers’ 2nd-unit offense isn’t fun. On the other hand, there have been games when his shooting has single-handedly lifted the team, even getting the Blazers wins they wouldn’t have otherwise earned. And I do think there’s something to having someone so universally beloved and respected on a team that historically has a tough time getting free agents. But Melo is now 37. He’s not just in the twilight of his career… it’s creeping toward astronomical dusk. Does he have anything left in the tank? Is his cache worth the stomach ache of guaranteeing him playing time he wouldn’t otherwise earn? Would he accept an even smaller role as he continues his decline?
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
Out of the NBA for most of the 2020-21, former Blazers short-lived draft pick Rondae Hollis-Jefferson may be a negative zero on offense… but he gives them something on defense that was helpful enough to earn him some minutes during a competitive playoff series. Are his very real limitations on offense worth anything to this team? With a different roster, would he have any value at all? And might there be better players you could get on minimum contracts?
Anfernee Simons
Showing flashes of an elite shooter is one thing; doing that while ALSO being active and pesky on defense is another, but those moments for him are fleeting. Anfernee Simons is still only 21, but after shooting above 60% from deep against Denver in these Playoffs, you have to wonder whether he could be used as a sweetener as part of a bigger deal, or whether the Blazers see enough in him to stand pat. How much better can he get? Can his flashes on defense turn into a consistent light? And is his shooting just small sample size theater, or could it be expanded if given a bigger role?
Robert Covington
Robert Covington has been passed around a lot lately, but for good reason. His off-ball defense can make a good defense better, but there was less evidence that he could single-handedly make the Blazers’ terrible defense passable. And his shooting from deep, while streaky, has proven to be enough of a threat to keep the floor spaced for others to do their work. Most promising were the flashes of a line-drive ball-handler who could use his length to escape defenses and put pressure on the rim, but deep into his 20s, you have to wonder how much more development is left. Covington is under team control for next season, but with all cards besides Dame ostensibly on the table, it’s another question of whether he’s worth more to the Blazers or to someone else.
TJ Leaf, Kelvin Blevins, CJ Elleby, Harry Giles, Nassir Little
None of these guys played enough during the regular season or playoffs, or have enough value around the league, to figure as more than afterthoughts… the possible exception is Nas Little, who did show brief moments of the player the Blazers were hoping to get when they drafted him in 2019. But with so many other pieces that frankly matter more to the team’s future, it’s best to assume that none of these players will by themselves (or even in sum) tip the Blazers’ fortunes much one way or the other.
The Blazers’ Next Coach
…this is what they call burying the lede. After nine years as Portland’s head coach, Terry Stotts and the Blazers “mutually parted ways” on Friday.
It’s hard to argue Allen should have stood pat. As a thought experiment, ignore Stotts himself, and ignore the supporting cast and how it was put together (more on that in the next section)… ANY coach of a team with an MVP-caliber player that gets bounced in the first round four of the last five years is going to be on the hottest of seats.
But it’s deeper than that. Stotts’ offense is built on trust and autonomy, particularly for his best players. You don’t see a lot of Dame being run through off-ball action to find him open looks. For as gifted of a passer as Nurk is, when he DOES get the ball, it’s usually either at the elbow where he stands and waits for something to develop, or when he’s gotten position on the low block. Much of Portland’s crunch time offense, arguably the most important possessions of the game, aren’t planned at all. It’s the equivalent of rolling the ball on the court and saying, “psst, hey Dame… do something.”
When you have a player as gifted as Lillard, that can work… and it HAS worked. There’s a reason the Blazers’ most recent starting lineup of Dame, Nurk, CJ, Powell, and Covington had among the best offensive ratings not just in the NBA, but of all time. A lot of that is because Dame is really, really good.
Stotts deserves credit for maximizing Damian Lillard. But he also deserves blame for not maximizing the team, and that ultimately cost him his job.
Say what you will about the roster construction: Portland should have beat Denver in these 2021 NBA Playoffs, full stop. Denver was missing their 2nd-best player and another starter; Portland was healthy. Whether the Blazers could have competed for a title with this cast is a separate question, but Portland had more talent.
And so much of that comes down to defense. Despite missing multiple offensive weapons, and despite the Blazers doing an admirable job of limiting Jokic’s playmaking, the Blazers got roasted by Denver’s less-than-stellar guard rotation again and again. In Game 6, Jokic and Monte Morris, who averaged 15 points (up 50% from the regular season) shooting 42% from deep in the series, pick and rolled Portland’s guards to death. Portland’s big adjustment was putting Dame on the MUCH larger Michael Porter Jr., and while that may have worked to some extent (both to get Portland’s better defenders on Denver’s guards and inexplicably to slow down Porter after he scored 22 in the first quarter), it wore Dame out. He had nothing left in tank in the game’s critical moments.
It should never have come to that. And that’s on Stotts.
He could have dusted off Derrick Jones Jr. or Nassir Little for extra size. He could have seen more quickly that Kanter just wasn’t going to work in this series and maybe could have saved Game 3 by pivoting faster.
But most importantly, for years Stotts has been asked about his basic defensive philosophy: drop coverage. The logic is sound for a different era of NBA basketball: when screens happens up high, keep your center back toward the hoop, let your guards fight over screens and contend threes from behind, and have the center contend drives, letting teams feast in the less efficient mid-range.
The problem is that in today’s NBA, many bigs can now shoot and handle the ball by themselves. There aren’t too many Greg Kites and Roy Hibberts left in the world. And while Robin Lopez may have anchored a top-10 defense for the Blazers in 2014, the NBA in 2021 looks much different, and you have to adjust accordingly. You have to ask your bigs to defend a little in space. You have to ask, or maybe demand, the entire team to keep a map of where their teammates are while defending, moving together, and filling gaps accordingly rather than just focusing on the player in front of you.
Stotts stuck to his guns. And in his defense, when you say Jusuf Nurkic and Enes Kanter, you don’t think of fleet-of-foot, fast-adjusting big men. But you kinda do when you roll out lineups with Robert Covington at center. And beyond that, having different defenses you practice enough in the regular season so that you can use them when you might need them in the playoffs, even if they’re not ideal for every player, is critical.
In general, Stotts is very good at the people management part of coaching. That’s not a small thing. I’d argue it’s the MOST important part of coaching in the modern NBA, where players have more power and autonomy than they ever have. When you make lineups and ask players to do stuff, there are only 48 minutes a game and five positions to fill. You can’t run offenses and defenses that play to the strengths of every player at the same time. Despite that, the Blazers had a functional and harmonious locker room for nine years almost without exception .
Was some of that Dame’s leadership? Of course. Was some of that Stotts? Also, of course.
Stotts is also not quick to panic in his gameplay. He doesn’t allow runs or surprises to blow him off course. That stubbornness to change can be bad, but it can also be very good. It has kept the Blazers calm in moments of gameplay turmoil, and one of the hallmarks of this era of Blazers basketball is that you could never, EVER count them out of a game.
Again: some of that was Dame. But some of that was certainly Stotts.
And let’s be honest: Stotts was given some lemons of lineups in years past, and overachieved with bad rosters more times than we can count. He was able to get more from some players than they ever showed before arriving or since. That stuff matters.
But at the end of it, the offense, the defense, the lineups, the people skills, the consistency… none of it matters when you don’t win, and specifically when you don’t win in the playoffs. And when your best player is Damian Lillard, a single trip to the Conference Finals in nine years only to get swept just isn’t good enough.
If life were a video game, I would love to have seen Stotts coach a Dame-led team with one or two other All-Star players and real defensive help at positions of need. Alas, life is not 2K… and of all the choices Allen has to make, the question of who will be Portland’s next coach won’t be made in a vacuum in her offices at Vulcan.
This decision will be made, at least in large part, by Damian Lillard.
Section 2: Big Decisions - Dame’s Involvement and The Blazers’ General Manager
Neil Olshey has failed Damian Lillard, and he should be replaced.
With that out of the way, let’s table the General Manager talk for a second and get back to the person who matters more to this franchise than any one person outside of Jody Allen herself, and that’s Dame.
Dame’s Involvement
In the hours after the news hit about Coach Stotts leaving the team, another article floated to the Internet, this one lofted by Yahoo Sports reporter and longtime Lillard confidant Chris Haynes. There was no speculation. There was no beating around the bush. There it was, in black and white, a direct quote from Lillard: “Jason Kidd is the guy I want.”
With that, the divisions between the “Pro Stotts” and “Fire Stotts” Twitter was, at least for now forgotten. Blazers fandom was united: This is bad. REALLY bad.
A competing list of coaching candidates was also floated by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnorowski: Clippers assistant Chauncey Billups, Jeff Van Gundy, Nets assistant Mike D’Antoni, and Michigan’s Juwan Howard.
And just as Haynes is close to Damian Lillard, Wojnorowski is one of the few national reporters that has a direct line to Neil Olshey.
So what do we likely have here? A competing set of coaching priorities: one from the Blazers’ General Manager… and one from the Blazers’ franchise player.
If you’re Jody Allen, how you play this is critical.
A quick programming note: there are tons of articles specifically about Jason Kidd’s domestic abuse, including one from 2019 by Lakers Outsiders when Kidd was hired by the Los Angeles Lakers. This cannot be ignored. I encourage you all to check out that article and others to understand that how the Blazers navigate this goes well beyond basketball.
In addition to that, there is no evidence that Kidd is a good NBA coach. His single year with the Brooklyn Nets was uninspiring. Then, after trying to wrest power from Brooklyn’s General Manager, the owner slapped him away, then traded Kidd to the the Milwaukee Bucks for two second-round picks. While Kidd perhaps deserves credit for helping develop Giannis Antetokounmpo into the superstar he became, team success did not follow… and for folks who wanted Stotts gone, this should sound familiar.
Two first round exits later, and the Bucks were no closer to a title than when Kidd got there. His lineups often shifted without purpose, or obvious strategy. And the Bucks’ defenses were in the bottom half of the NBA in all but his first season. The year after he left, the Bucks won 60 games and got to the Conference Finals.
Jason Kidd would not be a smart hire. But Kidd is who Damian Lillard has explicitly says he wants.
So what should Jody Allen do? Does she acquiesce to the best player the Blazers have ever had in their 41-year history? With Dame’s comments on the record and out in public, would it damage the team’s relationship with him to go against his wishes? Should Dame also have input - or even final say - on things like roster construction and other front office staff?
Speaking of…
The Blazers’ General Manager
There is no single person more responsible for a team’s year-to-year success and failure than the General Manager. Many argue that ownership is more important, and that’s true… but it’s true insofar as the owner is responsible for choosing the General Manager (or President of Basketball Operations, in the case of Olshey and others). Yes, the business part of the team matters too, especially in a smaller market like Portland. But for the purposes of this piece, we’re thinking about the Portland Trail Blazers as a basketball team trying to win an NBA title, not as a business venture to turn a profit, as important as that may be.
Looking across Olshey’s tenure, there is a lot to like. He built - or at least as been a participant of - consistency and continuity across the franchise which is pretty rare in the NBA. From the ownership, through President Chris McGowan, through Olshey, through Coach Stotts, and through the players, the Blazers were all on the same page for a long time. Olshey set the tone for this by immediately working to upgrade and refresh the Blazers when he arrived in 2012, from the coaching, to the training and conditioning staff, to overseeing a full remodel of the Blazers’ practice facility.
That all matters. Olshey deserves credit for that.
He also deserves full credit for he and his staff drafting CJ McCollum; and at least partial credit for drafting Damian Lillard, though much of the scouting had been done by the time Olshey came in. The interim General Manager before Olshey, Chad Buchanan, headed up the Blazers’ scouting both before and after Olshey took the helm.
And the Blazers did well this offseason. Robert Covington for two first round picks is exactly the kind of “slightly mortgage the future to maximize Dame’s prime” type of move that made sense; Derrick Jones Jr. was a young if inconsistent wing that could help bolster the Blazers’ defense and their vertical spacing; Enes Kanter loved Portland the first time around, and getting him for next to nothing was good stuff. And while trading Gary Trent Jr. for Norman Powell gave up team control of that contract, it’s hard to argue that Powell wasn’t an upgrade in the present.
All credit to Olshey.
But just as we don’t evaluate coaching on a single season, neither do we judge a General Manager for the same.
When Olshey first got to Portland, he repeated a familiar phrase for why the Blazers weren’t making trades or splashy signings: they didn’t “move the needle.”
He also limited the Blazers’ moves in his first few seasons specifically to set up the Summer of 2016, when the Blazers would have oogles of cap space and set the team up for its long-term future with Damian Lillard as their star.
When the dust settled on 2016’s free agency, the Blazers were left $244M poorer, and with the following players:
Allen Crabbe: 4 years, $75M
Evan Turner: 4 years, $70M
Moe Harkless: 4 years, $42M
Meyers Leonard: 4 years, $40M
Festus Ezeli: 2 years, $16M
By any objective standard, this was a failure. It was at the time, and it is even moreso in retrospect.
Immediately after Olshey made these moves, Nate Duncan of the Dunc’d On Podcast joined a podcast I co-hosted at the time on Blazer’s Edge and gave the Blazers’ offseason an F+, which, in Nate’s words, “…is the worst of anyone I gave in the NBA.”
I asked Nate what would have made the Blazers’ offseason moves more productive. His point was that the things the Blazers needed - rim protection, defensive rebounding, and generally more defense - were not met by these moves.
Yes, it is easier here in 2021 to see how spending a quarter of a billion dollars on players who would mostly be out of the NBA in a few years was bad. But this criticism came at the time it happened.
While some may say, “hey, that was years ago… why does it matter?” It’s because Olshey didn’t make moves to strengthen the roster specifically to build toward 2016. We’ll never know whether that contributed to LaMarcus Aldridge leaving - I tend to think it didn’t - but the team was not as good as it could have been, SPECIFICALLY to have more flexibility in 2016.
When that moment came, Olshey failed.
And the team was hamstrung by those decisions for years to come.
But let’s leave that aside and look at his more recent moves, not necessarily by NBA season, but by calendar year.
In 2017, the Blazers traded two first round picks for the pick that became Zach Collins, choosing to pass on players like Donovan Mitchell, OG Anunoby, Bam Adebayo, John Collins, and Jarrett Allen.
A year later in 2018, Olshey re-signed Nurk on a good deal and signed Seth Curry for one year, but did little else, again hamstrung by the financial decisions of 2016. Drafting Anfernee Simons may still turn out to be a win, and getting Gary Trent Jr. in the second round turned out to be fortuitous, but the Blazers’ core remained the same once again.
In 2019, the Blazers secured Rodney Hood, Mario Hezonja, Pau Gasol, and Anthony Tolliver; brought in Enes Kanter for the first time when he was bought out by the Knicks; acquired Kent Bazemore and Hassan Whiteside; and drafted Nassir Little while signing Dame and CJ to a combined $300M.
Notice a pattern with these moves?
Scrap heap finds, bargain basement deals, middling moves on the margins. At no point was there a strategy to bring in a second option for Dame that was better than the one Olshey let walk for nothing in LaMarcus Aldridge. While media locally and around the country asked again and again whether a modern NBA team could take two guards who mirror each others’ strengths and weaknesses to a T and spin that into a contender, Olshey bet that he could.
Maybe he thought he could turn four quarters into a dollar. But he never did. For all the talk in his early tenure of “needle-moving deals,” none came together for a team that was now years deep into a two-guard experiment, and had made the decision to put McCollum, a sub-All-Star player, onto an All-NBA-level contract.
And that brings us to 2020. Because for as much as we may credit Olshey for the moves he made this year, they were the same as they’ve always been: on the margins, and around a failed premise (at least as of now) that it’s possible to build a contending team with two small guards, and limited by the decisions that he had already made.
Jody Allen knows this.
And while her and Vulcan’s decision to shake up the upper reaches of Blazers management is important, it would also be costly: Olshey is under contract through 2024, Stotts will need to be paid for the remaining two years on his contract, and both the Blazers and the NBA are still financially hurting from the prolonged effects of losing ticket sales and other revenue to COVID.
The calculus Allen has to make is whether Damian Lillard is a good enough NBA player not just to acquiesce some decision-making to his judgement… but is Dame good enough to warrant spending even more money to maximize his prime.
To me anyway, it’s clear that under Olshey, Dame will not be surrounded by a team good enough to maximize his talent. We have 9 years of data suggesting that’s true. Whether that’s compelling enough for Allen to fire Olshey and give the keys of the remaining years of Dame’s prime to somebody else is a question whose answer won’t just affect this season, but many seasons to come.
And maybe even the future of the Trail Blazers as a team in Portland.
Section 3: Foundational Decisions - Dame Himself, and Selling the Team
The biggest questions facing Jody Allen are about Damian Lillard, and of course, the future of her involvement with the franchise, and what that might mean for the City of Portland.
Dame Himself
While some may consider this to be asked and answered, it’s worth revisiting often: how good is Damian Lillard?
Statistically, he’s the best player the Blazers have ever had. You can quibble over whether he’s on balance the best player to put on a Blazers jersey. Perhaps not, if you appreciate reaching the mountaintop (Bill Walton winning a title in 1977) or long-term high-level success (Clyde Drexler taking the Blazers to the Finals in 1990 and 1992) over individual greatness.
But those things don’t matter. It’s not the 1970s, and it’s not the 1990s, it’s 2021, and the Portland Trail Blazers have a bona fide superstar, a top-10 to top-5 player who’s a perennial All-Star, a perennial All-NBA player, and is now at the table of MVP conversations.
But it’s not just that.
Dame is also a leader. Players and coaches rave about his ability to bring people together, to get people on the same page, to lead by example, to forge meaningful bonds with people, to use care and caution in when and how he chooses to push. Not every player knows how to do that. Not every great NBA star is a great leader. Dame is.
He’s also 30 years old, a smaller guard, and has played over 27,000 minutes over the regular season and the playoffs in a career that has been impressively durable.
Allen has to decide whether, on balance, this is the player the team wants to hitch its wagon to for the next few years.
And it’s not just about this year. Deciding to do the unthinkable - pull the rip cord, trade Dame, and send this team into rebuilding - will impact the team for many years, and may alienate giant swaths of a fanbase that, more and more, associates itself with a player rather than a team.
But you have to keep asking: is Dame REALLY a top-5 NBA player? Can he elevate the right roster to contention?
Can he be the best player on a title team?
Because if you think he can be, great. He’s been healthy enough and he’s young enough to where making nearly every decision about him, either with his input or ceding decisions to him altogether, and generally molding the franchise in his image, makes sense.
But if you see mediocre teams being able to throw defenses at him that dampen and dull his effectiveness, be it because of his teammates or something else, and you see a guard who will never be an above-average defender (which limits how you can maximize the roster around him)… well… asking the question is important. So is being honest about the answer.
Because if you think deep down riding with Dame makes sense, you can’t half-ass it. You have to go all in and give this team a chance to succeed… because waiting a few years as Dame never gets a legit title shot and having him just bounce somewhere else is worse. Much worse.
But Allen could ignore all of these questions - about players, coaches, General Managers, and even Damian Lillard - and wash her hands of the entire thing.
Selling the Team
It’s no secret Jody Allen doesn’t love basketball like her brother did.
Paul Allen was the Blazers owner from 1988 until his death 2018, when his sister Jody took over. He loved basketball, and he loved the Blazers. He would often be at games. He was HEAVILY involved in roster moves, but particularly the draft. His love of smaller guards at times may have hurt the team (think Nolan Smith), but it also may have led the Blazers to draft a 4-year guard out of Weber State by the name of Damian Lillard.
Working for a Paul Allen team meant giving up some level of decision-making to him.
But Jody isn’t Paul.
By all accounts, Jody has been happy to let the basketball people do the basketball stuff. She’s appears every now and again in Blazers gear, but hasn’t taken public questions about the Blazers since she took over. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no law that says that if you become in charge of something you never wanted to be in charge of, that you have to fall in love with it.
Which is exactly why you couldn’t blame her for selling the team. I’m not a billionaire, but I have to imagine there are other, less visible ways for very wealthy people to become wealthier.
And to that point… if there’s penny-pinching driving the decision to keep Neil Olshey, and there’s penny-pinching in not using all of the available salary cap exceptions to make this team as competitive as it could be… then certainly there would be penny-pinching in selling the team.
And putting in a clause that prevents a new owner from moving the team out of Portland? That would reduce the value of the team.
Penny pinching.
We’re seeing this right now with the Minnesota Timberwolves: despite promises that the new owners won’t move the team, that’s exactly what business partners of majority owner Glen Taylor are suing him for refusing to include in the terms of the sale.
A team is more valuable when you can do whatever you want with it. And that includes being able to move it to a bigger market. While Portland has a long history of packing the Moda Center, Portland is still just the 27th-largest city in the US, far behind team-less cities like Seattle, and even cities like Las Vegas and Nashville.
And while the Moda Center is in pretty good repair… and while it’s been been upgraded regularly… and while it has one of the larger “shells” of any NBA arena… it’s nearly 30 years old. As time goes on, there’s only going to be a greater need for retrofits, upgrades, and technology improvements that get harder and harder to keep up with as time goes on.
Will the Blazers continue to overperform their market expectations in attendance? Is selling the team in the financial best interests of Jody Allen? And if so, would that mean keeping it at least flexible, if not explicit, that the team could be moved?
The Blazers Beyond 2021
The Portland Trail Blazers face more uncertainty today than they have in a long time. From players, to coaching, to front office staff, to the General Manager, all the way to the owner and even the future of the Blazers in Portland - all of it seems unstable.
And after more than a year of pandemic-related isolation, and with the opportunity for some things to begin returning to normal, there is nothing more Blazers fans would want than some comfort, some certainty, and some consistency.
If it comes at all, we’re going to have to wait a little while to get there.
Thank you all for reading and listening. You can find us at WeLikeTheBlazers.com, @LikeTheBlazers on Twitter, and by searching We Like the Blazers wherever you get your podcasts. I’m Brandon Goldner. Appreciate you all. And Go Blazers.
