In the NBA, 16 out of 30 teams make the playoffs each season. The other 14 are somewhere in the process of rebuilding, trying to regain relevance compared to their more successful peers. With 36 wins in their 2024-25 campaign, the Portland Trail Blazers fall into the rebuilding category, as they have for the past 3-4 seasons really.
This week Tim Bontemps of ESPN released the latest version of his NBA Rebuild Rankings, measuring the league’s 14 non-winners against each other in their race to ascend.
Despite drafting Yang Hansen, trading for Jrue Holiday, and signing Damian Lillard this off-season, the Blazers still rank low—10 out of 14—in the list. Bontemps explains:
For a few years now, the Blazers have felt like a team trying to execute multiple strategies at once under general manager Joe Cronin. The team has drafted a series of young players high in the lottery — Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe and Donovan Clingan — and yet has had all of them repeatedly blocked by older veterans for playing time. This offseason, Portland traded for Jrue Holiday — now in his mid-30s — and for the second straight year, used a first-round pick on a center, Yang Hansen, an intriguing player who will need time to grow his game...
...Portland welcomed back franchise icon Damian Lillard on Thursday, signing him to a three-year, $42 million contract. His return gives the Blazers a leadership presence that their next generation is developing. Sharpe and Henderson are intriguing talents who require more consistency to take that sort of leap. Clingan can be a menace defensively but selecting Hansen this year leads to questions about his future, too. Toumani Camara and Deni Avdija, who have been quite good on below-market deals, could earn big deals in the coming seasons, removing some of their surplus value.
Portland is clearly operating like a team that believes it can get into the top 10 in the Western Conference this season, as evidenced by the Holiday deal. The path to chasing a top-four seed, however, is years away.
Bontemps has the Chicago Bulls, Sacramento Kings, New Orleans Pelicans, and the lowly Phoenix Suns below the Blazers on the list. The San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks, both supercharged by generational first-overall picks, lead the pack.
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