Halfway through the 2024-25 NBA season, the Portland Trail Blazers were sitting at 13-28 and looked like a lock to finish in the lottery for the fourth straight season. While they did wind up missing the play-in tournament, they quietly went 23-18 over the second half of the year while posting the league's 10th-best net rating over that stretch.
Oddsmakers aren't buying that their improvement will be sticky, though. Even though the Blazers finished 36-46 last season, their preseason win total is set at 33.5 across multiple sportsbooks this year.
Some skepticism of the Blazers' late-season surge is fair. They wouldn't be the first team to finish strong in Mickey Mouse March, only to falter once more teams begin putting their best foot forward at the beginning of the next year. A majority of their wins after the All-Star break came against tanking teams such as the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets. They might not be ready for prime time quite yet.
The Blazers also suffered two key personnel losses this offseason. They bought out starting center Deandre Ayton and traded starting 2-guard Anfernee Simons to the Boston Celtics, which means they'll need to replace 40% of their starting lineup this year.
While the Blazers received nothing in return for Ayton, they did get two-time NBA champion Jrue Holiday back for Simons. They also drafted Hansen Yang—one of the biggest surprises of draft night—and will get Matisse Thybulle back after he played only 15 games in an injury-ravaged season last year.
The question, then, appears to be whether the additions of Holiday and Yang and the return of Thybulle can make up for the losses of Simons and Ayton. However, that might not be what determines whether the Blazers can blow past their relatively minuscule win total.
Portland's new guard arriving?
While Simons and Ayton are notable losses for the Blazers, their departures might not be as impactful as perhaps feared. Ayton played in only 10 games during the Blazers' surge in the second half of last season before he got shut down right before the All-Star break, while Simons shot only 42.3% from the field during that stretch.
Simons was the Blazers' leading scorer and top threat from three-point range last year, but he's also been one of the NBA's worst defenders since he made his debut in 2018. He was in the 1st percentile in defensive estimated plus/minus in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2023-24, according to Dunks and Threes. Holiday is basically the polar opposite in that regard.
Holiday averaged only 11.1 points per game last season—his fewest since his rookie year—but he has six career All-Defensive team nods and routinely grades out as one of the league's most stifling perimeter stoppers. He's also versatile enough to play either guard spot, which should make him a strong complement to both Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe.
Since Holiday won't be soaking up as many offensive touches as Simons did, the loss of Simons should force Henderson and Sharpe into even larger roles. Henderson in particular is heading into a critical year, as he becomes extension-eligible next offseason and will want to convince the Blazers that he's worthy of a hefty long-term investment. The jury was out in that regard after he shot only 38.5% overall and 32.5% as a rookie, but he showed more of the flashes last season that convinced the Blazers to take him with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2023 NBA draft.
Sharpe become eligible for an extension in early July, and he's fresh off a career year in which he averaged 18.5 points on 45.2% shooting, 4.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.0 made threes in only 31.3 minutes per game. If he doesn't come to terms with the Blazers by late October, he'll be heading into a contract year before he becomes a restricted free agent next summer. He could have nine figures riding on his performance in the coming months.
While the Blazers invested the most draft capital in their backcourt, a trade acquisition may be their biggest reason for hope this year. In 20 games after the All-Star break last year, Deni Avdija quietly averaged 23.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 2.4 made threes in 33.7 minutes per night while shooting 50.8% overall and 41.7% from deep. He had his first career triple-double in an overtime loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in early March, and he followe that up with another 32-point, 15-rebound, 10-assist triple-double against the Atlanta Hawks one month later.
The Blazers also appear to have found a gem in 2023 second-round pick Toumani Camara, who started all 78 games in which he appeared last season. He finished ninth in the Defensive Player of the Year race while earning a second-team All-Defense nod, and he ranked in the 88th percentile of defensive EPM for the second straight year, according to Dunks and Threes. Every basketball hipster is about to claim him as their favorite player (if they haven't already).
Clingan could also be primed for a big second-year jump with Ayton no longer in the fold. He averaged 11.9 points, 14.3 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per 36 minutes as a rookie and only got better as the year went on. The combination of him, Robert Williams III and Duop Reath should give the Blazers enough frontcourt depth to ease Yang's transition into the NBA.
The Western Conference figures to be an absolute warzone this year (as usual), as the Utah Jazz may be the only team that isn't harboring playoff aspirations entering the season. A few other teams are bound to disappoint as well—here's looking at you, New Orleans Pelicans and Sacramento Kings—but the Blazers should have a realistic shot of at least challenging for a play-in spot again.
If Henderson, Sharpe and/or Clingan take a leap and Holiday helps bolster the Blazers' defense, their 33.5 preseason win total could look comical in retrospect.