The Blazers Face An Uncertain Future Despite Their Success This Season

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My grandfather used to say that if you don’t like the seeding in the 2018 Western Conference playoff race, just wait a minute. While the top two teams — the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors — have comfortably pulled ahead of the pack, the rest are locked in a virtual dead-heat that is threatening to plunge the standings into utter chaos.

Just a half-game separates the three through seven spots, and an untimely skid by any of those teams could land them out of the playoff picture altogether. It’s a tenuous situation and one that they’re all acutely aware of. It’s crazy to think that none of them, from No. 3 through No. 8, are assured a postseason berth at this point.

Some, however, are rising to the occasion right when it matters most. The New Orleans Pelicans, for instance, have won seven straight behind Anthony Davis‘ surprising late-season MVP push, while the Portland Trail Blazers have also found their groove amid a five-game win streak and a subsequently stunning — if not flimsy — ascension to the No. 3 seed.

A big reason for that has been Damian Lillard‘s phenomenal play. During the month of February, he averaged better than 31 points per game on 48 percent shooting from the field and 35.6 percent from downtown. And he’s kept it going so far here in March, a stretch he capped off Thursday night by scoring 13 of his 35 points in the fourth quarter to help seal a tough win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Backcourt mate C.J. McCollum has also put in solid work during this tear and indeed all season long, but by far the most surprising component of their success has been their stifling defense. Yes, you read that correctly: The Portland Trail Blazers are good at defense.

In fact, they’re a top 10 defensive team right now and have been among the very best in that department at various points this season, which is a critical sea-change for a team that’s historically been a mediocre-to-bad (mostly bad) defensive unit during Lillard and McCollum’s tenure together.

That they are in the middle of the pack offensively — 16th overall with a 105.4 rating — should be even more surprising given the type of firepower they’re packing in the backcourt. But more than anything, the Blazers have finally understood that scoring barrages will only carry them so far. They’re putting the clamps on opponents, with Lillard in particular demonstrating a growing adeptness (and better general effort level) about his on and off-ball defense.

But with less than a quarter of the regular season remaining, they have anything but an easy schedule from here on out. Over the next month, they’ll face the Thunder (twice), the Warriors, Cavs, Celtics, Pelicans, and Clippers (twice), the last of whom are just a half-game back of the No. 8 seed. Given the standings, any one of these games could end up being a make or break scenario. As with the rest of the group, a postseason appearance is anything but assured.

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And that could have much larger implications for the organization as well. Earlier this season, mercurial owner Paul Allen assembled some sort of nebulous exploratory committee tasked with pinpointing the source and fulcrum of the Blazers’ problems, with its sights allegedly set on both head coach Terry Stotts and GM Neil Olshey.

Lillard has publicly thrown his full support behind Stotts, who has arguably gotten the most out of the rosters he’s had to work with during his six-year tenure with the franchise. Lillard has also insisted that he’s happy in Portland and has no plans to seek opportunities elsewhere.

Still, that didn’t stop him from arranging a meeting with Allen recently. He claims he did not request or trade or issue any sort of ultimatum, rather that it was designed to gauge Allen’s short and long-term plan on how to transform his team into a legit title contender and, more directly, “spark urgency” to accomplish that.

Though Lillard has been unwavering in his loyalty, that meeting should’ve been more than enough to make everyone involved a little less complacent. And his public support for Stotts was also designed to send another not-so-subtle message. Those two things combined should be more than enough to land Olshey firmly in the cross-hairs.


Olshey’s record with the Blazers is suspect, at best, if you’re trying to be diplomatic and just downright disastrous in many other concrete ways. He awarded enormous contracts to Allen Crabbe, Meyers Leonard, and Evan Turner that have left little-to-no salary cap flexibility, and he’s struck out on all of the organization’s major free agent targets in recent years.

Aside from the acquisition of Jusuf Nurkic last season, his trade deadline dealings have amounted to little, he’s failed to collect future assets that can be packaged into potentially larger deals, and the majority of the players drafted the past few summers haven’t developed into quality rotation players.

Granted, it is objectively true that Portland is a hard sell as a destination for free agents, but Olshey and the Blazers organization as a whole can only hide behind that idea for so long. At some point, front office creativity should win out.

Even if the Blazers do, for argument’s sake, get out of the first round, a trip to the conference finals seems unlikely given that the road will have to go through either Houston or Golden State. Which once again begs the question of whether they are any closer to actually contending. On the one hand, it’s admirable that they’ve avoided a full-fledged rebuild, but something will need to change this summer one way or the other.

Lillard’s transcendent talent is one of the primary reasons the Blazers are as good as they are, and though he’s expressed his commitment to the Blazers, that doesn’t give them a free pass to sit on their hands much longer if they ever want to get over the hump and truly make a run at a title.

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