Portland Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin and coach Chauncey Billups said Monday that losing Damian Lillard does not mean that the franchise plans to have another losing season in 2023-24 in hopes of landing yet another lottery pick to help a rebuild.
Instead, they said the Blazers will enter next season fully expecting to compete. Or course, following two poor seasons that ended with blatant tanking, one could consider it foolish for franchise leaders to admit that a third consecutive losing season is inevitable.
But it would require true cognitive dissonance to believe that the current roster is capable of reaching the play-in round of the postseason, let alone the actual playoffs.
In other words, Cronin has a lot of work to do if the Blazers hope to even be competitive next season.
The current team, on paper, is not on par with last season’s team simply based on the expectation that the Blazers will lose Lillard, who has requested a trade. His direct replacement on the roster will be point guard Scoot Henderson, taken with the No. 3 pick in last month’s NBA draft.
Shifting from a 33-year-old legend to a 19-year-old rookie certainly points the direction of the team downward for at least the immediate future.
Cronin indicated that he is far from finished with tinkering with the roster and has sought to maintain flexibility with roster spots. However, the Lillard situation has slowed the team’s progress.
Lillard has specifically requested a trade to the Miami Heat, and right now the situation is at a standoff. That trade could involve mostly picks and salary filler or maybe include a rotational player who could change the look of the Blazers’ roster. The uncertainty has left the Blazers in neutral.
“Those are the ripple effects of something like this that does just kind of make you press pause and we’re not alone in that,” Cronin said. “There’s other teams that I think are doing the same thing where it’s, OK, let’s maintain flexibility here because there could be some fairly big player movement happening.”
Consequently, the roster as is does not reflect a winner. Here is a look at the good and the bad of where the Blazers stand right now:
GUARD
Even with losing Lillard, the Blazers will be loaded with talent at guard with Henderson, 19, Anfernee Simons, 24, Shaedon Sharpe, 20, and Matisse Thybulle, 26.
Portland Trail Blazers’ Scoot Henderson drives up the court against the Houston Rockets during the second half of an NBA summer league basketball game Friday, July 7, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)AP
But it’s a relatively young group.
“I think they are going to be win-now very soon,” Cronin said.
Maybe. But probably not next season.
Simons, while filling in for Lillard following his core muscle surgery in January 2022, led the Blazers to a 12-11 record in the games he started before the franchise started shutting down players to assure a high draft pick. The team ultimately used that pick to select Sharpe.
Last season as a full-time starter, Simons finished second on the team in scoring (21.1 per game), and that number should rise with Lillard and his 32.2 points per game out the door.
Given Simons’ experience and past production, he should be considered ahead of both Sharpe and Henderson, and the presumptive starter at point guard.
However, it’s possible that Henderson’s natural point guard skills could continue to evolve to the point where he helps the team in different ways than Simons does. In that case, Henderson could start at point guard with Simons likely at shooting guard.
Regardless of the starting combination, Simons, Henderson and Sharpe will receive ample playing time. But growing pains for both Henderson and Sharpe should be expected.
Adding some stability is Thybulle. But as the No. 4 guard, it will be interesting to see where his minutes come from.
It’s a quality group, but one too young to be considered playoff level.
FORWARD
Jerami Grant gives the Blazers one quality starting forward, but they lack a second legitimate NBA starting forward.
The Blazers began last season with Grant at power forward and Josh Hart at small forward, and right now don’t have a forward comparable to Hart.
Trail Blazers forward Jerami Grant looks for an open teammate as the Portland Trail Blazers face the New Orleans Pelicans in an NBA game at Moda Center in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, March 1, 2023.Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
Rookie Kris Murray has promise but shouldn’t be expected to start as a rookie. Second-year forward Jabari Walker is also not ready to start.
If the season began today, the starter would be Nassir Little, who took a step backward last season in terms of consistency. Unless he shows dramatic improvement, Little is best used as a backup.
Cronin and Billups both said after last season that they desperately needed to add veteran depth and length. So far, they have not.
This is a huge problem and one that must be rectified if the Blazers are to be taken seriously on any level.
The Blazers must either add a starting small forward or add a starting power forward and move Grant to small forward.
But how? The free agent market is limited to role players at the moment and the Blazers’ only roster-building tools to play with are a couple of salary cap exceptions, worth $12.2 million and $4.5 million.
Maybe a small forward Kelly Oubre Jr. could be a fit, but he wouldn’t dramatically move the needle.
The best avenue could be via trade. Maybe in the eventual Lillard trade.
Cronin said that a trade involving Lillard could net any combination of players and picks.
“It could be more of a win-now player, and that would be intriguing to us,” Cronin said. “It could be a young player and picks, and that would be intriguing. It could be just picks. And we would look at that as well. For us, it’s how do we maximize this return?”
The best player the Miami Heat appear willing to offer along with picks is guard Tyler Herro. The Blazers do not need another guard, let alone one making $30 million per season over the next four seasons.
The Blazers and Heat could bring in a third team that has interest in Herro and either get a draft pick out of that team or a starting-caliber forward.
Adding a forward the caliber of Herro would definitely get the Blazers going in the right direction.
CENTER
Should Jusuf Nurkic remain with the team, the Blazers at the very least will know they have a starting-caliber center. In fact, he and Simons played amazingly well together in 2022.
The Blazers hope to add the 7-foot-3 Edy Tavares, who is playing overseas at the moment. He likely isn’t the answer as a starter should Nurkic be traded, but Tavares would at the very least provide solid depth.
MADRID, SPAIN – JUNE 20: Walter Tavares of Real Madrid reacts in a shot during a Liga Endesa Playoff game against Barcelona at WiZink Center on June 20, 2023 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Pedro Castillo/Real Madrid via Getty Images)Real Madrid via Getty Images
Should the Blazers trade Nurkic — maybe as part of the Lillard deal — then the Blazers had better come away with a different starting center or a starting forward. Otherwise, they would then have two glaring holes to fill.
VETERAN DEPTH
When injuries hit key veterans last season, and after the Blazers traded Hart to the Knicks, they were left with playing several young players in key roles.
That didn’t work out so well. This is also an area that has yet to be addressed.
Thybulle will be a solid veteran backup guard. But there are holes at backup forward.
The Blazers could still bring back Justise Winslow, who played a huge role last season before an ankle injury in December ultimately ended his season.
But the Blazers will need more than just Winslow. They need at least three total veteran players off the bench in order to be a threat. Otherwise, more experienced teams will once again take advantage of Portland’s lack of experience coming off the bench. Such teams will already look to do the same with the Blazers’ young backcourt.
Clearly, this team remains a work in progress. If the Blazers hope to return to the NBA lottery in 2024, they are set. If they hope to actually contend for a postseason berth, Cronin must work some trade magic.
Doing so would certainly please Billups, who has been saddled with flawed rosters, injuries, trades to clear salary and now a disgruntled superstar who wants out, when all he wants to do is win. In Billups’ eyes, the team is on the right track.
“But there’s a process involved and that you don’t just wake up and start winning,” Billups said. “So, I’m the one that is in the middle of that process in how we work, who we have, how we want to play and things like that. So, I’m excited for next year. I’m very excited for next year.”
— Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook). Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts
