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No. 11: Portland Trail Blazers
Last Season: 51-31
6th place in West; Lost 4-1 to Memphis in Round 1
For the better part of two seasons, the Portland Trail Blazers relied on a well-balanced starting five, and it paid off: Portland notched its first playoff series win since 2000 and earned a spot near the top of the Western Conference standings. But when shooting guard Wesley Matthews suffered a ruptured Achilles in March, it broke up the quintet for good.
After the Blazers struggled down the stretch and lost in the opening round of the playoffs, three starters -- Matthews, star LaMarcus Aldridge and Robin Lopez -- left via free agency, and a fourth, Nicolas Batum, was traded. Now Portland embarks on a new era, attempting to build with young talent around the last man standing from the starting five, All-Star point guard Damian Lillard.
Coming off a surprising season in which they won 54 games and beat the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, the Blazers were unable to maintain their good fortune in terms of health. Lopez missed six weeks with two broken bones in his hand, and both Aldridge, who delayed thumb surgery until after the season, and Batum, who had a bad wrist, played through injuries.
Still, Portland was on its way to a 41-19 record, good for third in the West and with the conference's second-best point differential (plus-5.3 ppg), when Matthews went down shortly after halftime on March 5. The injury thrust deadline addition Arron Afflalo into a lineup that lacked the same cohesion of the previous starters. Add in a variety of minor injuries to role players, including Afflalo, and the Blazers went 10-12 the remainder of the regular season.
Portland was guaranteed the fourth seed in the West by virtue of winning the Northwest Division. However, the Memphis Grizzlies got home-court advantage for their playoff matchup and won both games at home and Game 3 at the Moda Center. Behind contributions from young reserves Meyers Leonard and C.J. McCollum, the Blazers won at home to extend the series, but the Grizzlies finished them off in five games.
The summer of 2015 always figured to be a defining one for Portland's direction, with three starters and seven total players hitting free agency. Rumblings about Aldridge's desire to leave started with a report from The Oregonian during the playoffs and reached a fever pitch after the Blazers' series loss to Memphis. After meeting with multiple teams, Aldridge, a Blazer for almost a decade, decided on July 4 to sign with the San Antonio Spurs.
While attempting to re-sign Aldridge, Portland GM Neil Olshey had also prepared an alternative plan. Figuring they couldn't compete in the West without Aldridge, the Blazers made no effort to re-sign veterans Lopez and Matthews. Instead, they put their tens of millions in cap space to work by pursuing younger players on long-term deals. Within minutes of the market opening for business, Portland agreed to a four-year, $30 million deal with forward Al-Farouq Aminu. The Blazers then added big man Ed Davis on a three-year, $20 million contract.
Portland also added to its young core via trade. On the eve of the draft, the Blazers sent Batum to the Charlotte Hornets for power forward Noah Vonleh, who was the No. 9 overall pick of the 2014 draft, and veteran wing Gerald Henderson. The next day, they sent their first-round pick in this year's draft, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, to the Brooklyn Nets as part of a deal that landed them third-year center Mason Plumlee. During the summer, Portland added forward Maurice Harkless from the Orlando Magic.
Perhaps most important, the Blazers locked up Lillard, their 25-year-old point guard, on a five-year extension for the maximum salary, worth an estimated $120 million. The deal will keep him under contract through 2021.
Amid an offseason of roster upheaval and uncertainty, Olshey found solace in a text message sent to him in mid-July after the team acquired Harkless.
"The first text I got was from Dame saying, 'Great move. Love Moe,'" Olshey said, according to The Oregonian. "Any time you have your best player embrace new additions to your roster you know you're heading in the right direction."
It's too early to say where, exactly, the Blazers are headed. But there's no question that they are now Lillard's team.
Days after Lillard finalized a five-year, $120 million extension, Aldridge agreed to terms with San Antonio. That set off a chain of events that ultimately led to Portland playing, in Olshey's words, the "futures game" by building around Lillard. Gone are Lopez, Matthews and Batum. They've been replaced by younger pieces such as Davis, Plumlee and Vonleh, who fit with Lillard's career arc.
Now, and for the foreseeable future, the Blazers are Lillard's team, something that sits well with him.
"To have the type of contract that I have now, the first thing that goes off in my mind is that I have to perform like I deserve it," Lillard said, according to the Oregonian. "I wouldn't say it's a burden, because nobody challenges me more than I challenge myself. Nobody expects more of me than I expect in myself. So, like I said, it's going to be exciting. I'm looking forward to having a bigger role, to being the leader of the team, and I think it's going to be fun. I'm going to continue to be the same person. I'm going to continue to attack things with confidence like I always have. And, hopefully, it'll all work out like I plan for it to work out." -- Ian Begley
Projected Real Plus-Minus for starters
Damian Lillard, PG: +4.0
C.J. McCollum, SG: +2.6
Al-Farouq Aminu, SF: +1.8
Meyers Leonard, PF: -2.1
Mason Plumlee, C: -1.8
Scouting reports on every player on the Blazers
Using shot data from 2014-15 and projected starters, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry ranks each team's offensive efficiency based on square footage.
Good news, Blazers fans! You have another power forward, in Meyers Leonard, to (sort of) stretch the floor. More good news! Unlike LaMarcus Aldridge, Leonard can nail the 3. He hit better than 42 percent from deep last season and projects to shoot 37.3 percent in 2015-16.
Franchise cornerstone Damian Lillard can do it all: In addition to being a 3-point threat (career 36.8 percent), Lillard was second in the league in total points on drives in 2014-15, behind James Harden.
All About The Space: 25th (370 square feet of above-average offense)
To identify players who stretch offenses the most, ESPN Stats & Information created the Kyle Korver Effect -- a metric on a 1-100 scale, factoring in 3PT%, 3-point attempt rate (percentage of total shots that come from 3-point range) and influence on teammate FG%.
Korver Effect: Lillard's (78.8) favorite shots are above-the-break 3-pointers (498 attempts in '14-15). The problem? He shot a combined 34 percent from there last year.
Obviously, Portland lost more production than any team in the NBA over the summer. Players responsible for more than 60 percent of the Blazers' 2014-15 points and nearly two-thirds of their rebounds have departed. Still, don't pencil Portland in among the league's bottom five teams. There's more talent here than the reputations of the Blazers' players might indicate. Aminu and McCollum are favorites of ESPN's real plus-minus; Davis, Leonard and Plumlee are high-efficiency scorers; and Vonleh has the potential to help right away.
Portland's inexperience and limited outside shooting on the wing will probably prevent the team from making a playoff push, but if veteran coach Terry Stotts can find the right combinations to get the most out of the new pieces, the Blazers could remain competitive. Thirty wins is a realistic baseline, and RPM-based projections show Portland closer to 40 wins than 30.
Assuming they're out of the playoff race, the Blazers won't have much incentive to milk every win out of this season, which could limit their total. This year may end up looking like 2012-13, Lillard's rookie campaign, when Portland was 33-36 before losing its final 13 games.
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