John Hollinger of The Athletic wrote about the bottom of the western conference and is predicting the Portland Trail Blazers to finish second-from-last in the conference with just 31 wins:
14. Portland Trail Blazers (31-51)
Portland had a strong second half last season and finished with 36 wins, nearly scratching its way into the Play-In Tournament in the final weeks. But the Blazers seem to be a likely regression candidate on multiple fronts. For starters, the underlying data from a year ago suggests the Blazers weren’t quite as good
as their record, with a minus-3.0 per game scoring margin.
It remains to be seen how this team will score. Minus Simons and Ayton, the Blazers seem like a near-guarantee for a bottom-five offense, with Deni Avdija (who was genuinely good last season and should have received far more attention for it) the closest thing they have to a go-to guy. Blind faith in the idea that Scoot Henderson can be a plus-starter at point guard is probably the only other reason for optimism here, but he will miss the start of the season repairing a torn hamstring, and the point guard spot is a glaring hole in his absence.
Alas, the Blazers seem not quite built for the future but also not for the present. They missed their moment to trade Jerami Grant, who still has three years and $102 million left on a contract nobody wants, and jumped right back in the same boat with Holiday. Damian Lillard, back for the vibes, adds another $14 million cap hit while taking the year off to recuperate from a torn Achilles.
This would put Portland below New Orleans (32 wins), Phoenix (35 wins), and Sacramento (36 wins).
For reference, the Blazers’ win total line is 34.5 according to FanDuel, and the Blazers won 36 games last year. Portland will head into the season with a different starting lineup after trading Anfernee Simons and waiving Deandre Ayton, but adding Jrue Holiday.
We wrote last week about how both hosts of the Dunc’d On Podcast are taking the Blazers over on 34.5 wins (almost entirely attributed to their defense), and with a little bit of sleuthing we found that Portland has had 22 seasons with a top-10 defense and have won no fewer than 35 games in any of those 22 seasons.
