3. Can Portland manufacture a bench?
Last season’s Trail Blazers capitalized on a white hot streak from Damian Lillard and an injured Western Conference middle class to catapult themselves to the third seed in the playoffs. What happened after that is a slightly different story, but there’s no denying that they found something for a stretch there.
This offseason hurt them, however. Losing both Ed Davis and Shabazz Napier to the Nets, two players who played sizeable roles last season, will weaken a bench that had its fair share of foibles to begin with.
Portland brought in Seth Curry as a Napier replacement, and it hopes that sophomore Zach Collins can grow to fill the hole that Davis is leaving. The team also signed Nik Stauskas to replace Pat Connaughton, but I think this is the only sentence I need on that move.
Curry was an exciting player for the Mavericks two seasons ago before multiple injuries sidelined him for extended time. If he can recreate what he had before, then I don’t think Portland will miss Napier much at all. That’s a big question mark though.
Question marks seem to unite the Blazers reserves: Wade Baldwin, Curry, Collins and Jake Layman are all less-than proven players who will be called upon for serious contributions throughout the regular season. Portland has an excellent starting lineup with Lillard, CJ McCollum, Mo Harkless, Al Farouq Aminu and Jusuf Nurkic, but Terry Stotts can’t just play them all for 48 minutes. Someone will need to step up, and I’m afraid it’s going to be Evan Turner far too frequently.