The Portland Trail Blazers Aren’t Trying to ‘Win Now’

To understand the Portland Trail Blazers and their place in the NBA ecosystem, we need to go beyond the familiar walls of Portland-based media. It’s not possible to understand the Blazers without listening to or reading perspectives that cover the other 29 NBA teams, just as you can’t understand make informed decisions about what products to buy without comparing different companies to each other. Context matters.

More than context, it can be helpful to hear from other voices who don’t just cover the Trail Blazers offer perspective about the decisions being made or their play on the court. Speaking for myself, I know I can become insulated when my basketball opinions are ONLY shaped by other people who like the team as much and follow it as closely as I do.

We good on that? Sweet. Because we can hold all of that and also make a statement:

The national NBA media doesn’t understand what Portland is doing right now.

On the latest Hoop Collective podcast with Brian Windhorst, Tim MacMahon, and Tim Bontemps, they covered all 15 Western Conference teams and discussed their over/unders (Blazers discussion starts at 27:16, time stamped in link and embed below).

In their section about Portland (projects for 33.5 wins), the three gentlemen – who I have always found to be reasonable, informed, and good faith actors in their basketball analysis – repeated a version of a line that’s come not just from them, but from countless other NBA media folks: the moves Portland made this summer, particularly trading for Jrue Holiday, means that the Blazers are trying to “go now.”

No, it doesn’t. And nor is what the Blazers doing “confusing” by trading away Anfernee Simons and waiving Deandre Ayton, but also trading for players like Deni Avdija last year and Holiday this year rather than valuing future draft capital.

Are they only podcast or outlet characterizing Portland’s move to a hard pivot over .500? Of course now. And muddying the waters a bit is the Blazers organization itself and its own players messaging the offseason as courting playoff success today:

“If it’s getting to the playoffs, if it’s winning a championship,” Holiday said, “I feel like winning is the purpose and the reason why I’m here.”

*Obama voice* Let me be clear: the Blazers are NOT trying to “win now.”

Are they pivoting away from abject failure and shameless tanking? Yes. Are they perhaps going to win more games than last year? Yes. But “win now” means a team that at minimum believes it can be feisty in the playoffs. That’s not what the Blazers are, and despite their public pronouncements to align with corporate-approved PR spin, that can’t possibly be what the decision-makers in Portland think is happening.

On the latest episode of We Like the Blazers, Blazer’s Edge associate editor Conor Bergin and I talked about it (starting at about 26:45). Here’s what I said at the time:

[The Blazers] are trying to see what they have in their young players. Period. Next paragraph. In order to see what they have in their young players, you have to put them in an environment that replicates competitive, winning basketball. That second piece, that to me makes a lot of sense. That’s where I think other people get a little bit confused. ‘What about the vets? And what’s going on with some of the more win-now moves? Like, are they trying to win now?’ And I keep hearing that the Blazers are trying to “win now.” They’re not trying to win now! The Blazers are trying to create a functioning basketball environment so they can actually evaluate their young players.

I agree with that man, whoever he is. Voice of reason, he.

You can’t see what you have in your developing talent if they’re slogging day after day in a woefully losing environment… ESPECIALLY if you don’t think you have a potential future superstar player to build around on the team, and you’re instead trying to get the best from what might be a bunch of second and third options. I continued:

The thing that does make this weird, to be fair, is they’re trying to do that… [and] it doesn’t seem like they have a potential first option on the roster. So they’re trying to develop their young players kind of knowing that they’re all second options at best. And that’s kind of hard to do. To that point about creating a competitive basketball ecosystem… you probably would be better if you had a 1A option to then see how they played off of that 1A option.

More irrefutable, sage wisdom from whoever that person happens to be.

You could argue that if you have a budding first-option star, it may matter less what’s happening around them. They’re good enough: they will limit test and explore the studio space with whatever flotsam they’re paired with, and you could skate by that way for a while. I’m not even sure how much I agree with myself right there, but you could make the case.

You could also make the case that without such a star, it’s even more important to have a structure, a system, and enough talent to support that structure and system… and that’s exactly what the Blazers are doing, with the end in the short term being not winning, but talent evaluation.

As Damian Lillard takes a gap year recovering from a devasting Achilles injury (a recovery that seems to be going well, for what it’s worth), the rest of the team will try to rally around its newfound defensive identity, take in Jrue Holiday, see what they can do with another year of development from the likes of Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, Toumani Camara, Donovan Clingan, and Deni Avdija, and develop… and yes, maybe win a few more games. And maybe even win a few of those games now.