The latest round of NBA Power Rankings is out and the Portland Trail Blazers are not faring quite as well as they were last week. On the heels of losses to the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs, the Blazers are drifting towards the middle of the NBA pack instead of keeping their early-season perch at the top.
Law Murray of The Athletic [subscription required] has Portland among bubble teams at the 11th position, the third tier of the rankings. That’s down from the 7th slot last week. Murray highlights
Damian Lillard as a big factor in Portland’s success, present and future:
The Trail Blazers wound up splitting a tough week, getting bombarded at the end by MVP candidates Luka Dončic and Victor Wembanyama on back-to-back nights with that notorious LAX to PDX flight in between. But what was encouraging is that Damian Lillard was able to play both games of that back-to-back. Do you believe that Lillard can keep doing that, as well as maintain his elite free-throw attempt rate (6.3 free throws per game)? That is a big swing factor in Portland’s season.
Meanwhile John Schuhmann of NBA.com also ranks the Blazers 11th, slipping from 9th last week. Schuhmann points a finger at guard Scoot Henderson but remains encouraged about Portland’s offense overall:
The Blazers were held under a point per possession by the Spurs on Saturday, and their starting lineup with Scoot Henderson in Ja Morant’s place has scored an anemic 83.2 per 100 in its 52 minutes. Henderson has shot just 6-for-36 (17%) from 3-point range, the third worst mark among 185 players with at least 25 attempts.
But the Blazers still rank as the league’s second most improved offensive team, having scored 4.5 more points per 100 possessions than they did last season. They’ve seen the biggest jump in effective field goal percentage, the second biggest jump in free throw rate, and the third biggest drop in turnover rate. The context is that six of their nine games have come against teams that currently rank in the bottom 10 defensively.
Both surveys have the San Antonio Spurs ranked as the #1 team in the NBA.
