The Portland Trail Blazers’ 2025-2026 season had a little bit of everything. There were changes in the coaching seat and the ownership suite, a franchise legend working his way back from injury, an unexpected All-Star, and the team’s first taste of the NBA Playoffs since 2021. But through all the turmoil, injuries, ups and downs, fans could always count on one thing. Toumani Camara would be on the court and he’d be giving his team everything he had, shadowing the other team’s best player from baseline
to baseline.
Camara was the only Blazer, and one of only 18 players league-wide, to appear in all 82 regular season games. Let’s take a closer look at how that went in our season review.
Season Stats
BASIC STATS
STANDOUT STATS
Defensive impact can be hard to quantify, but any review of Camara’s season has to start on the defensive end. Camara played the fourth-most total minutes in the NBA. Most of the time, Blazers Head Coach Tiago Splitter had him defending the opposing team’s most dangerous scorer.
The main number that stands out for Camara is that he drew 106 offensive fouls against opponents, setting a new NBA record in the process. No other player even came close. Jamal Shead of the Toronto Raptors landed a distant second place with 66.
Change Year Over Year
With so many of his teammates in and out of the lineup with various injuries, Camara provided steady and reliable production that mostly lined up with his statistics from the previous season.
- His minutes per game rose slightly from 32.7 per game during the 2024-2025 season to 33.3 per game this past season.
- He increased his scoring average from 11.3 points per game to 13.4 points per game.
- His rebounds fell slightly from 5.8 per game to 5.1 per game. The decline was almost entirely on the offensive end, where he dropped from 2.2 per game to 1.6 per game. This probably has more to do with Donovan Clingan getting all of the offensive rebounds and less to do with Camara’s effort or ability.
- His assists rose from 2.2 per game to 2.5 per game.
- His free throw shooting percentage fell from 72.2% to 70.8%.
- His three point shooting percentage slid from 37.5% to 37.0%.
Those numbers have now been pretty consistent across the past two seasons. Dig into the shot selection a little bit more, though, and there are some meaningful changes that help explain the 2.1 points per game increase.
- First, the volume of three-point attempts went way up this season, jumping from 4.6 attempts per game last season to 7.2 attempts per game this season.
- His two-point attempts dropped from 4.6 per game to 3.6 per game.
With overall shooting percentages remaining roughly the same, that change in shot selection accounts for the slight bump in his scoring average.
Analysis
At 37.0% or better for the past two seasons, Camara has turned into a respectable three-point shooter and he certainly proved that he can catch fire on any given night. He made 9-11 threes against the Brooklyn Nets on March 23rd, 8-10 against the Philadelphia 76ers on February 9th and 8-13 against the Denver Nuggets on April 6th.
But the Blazers could really use some improvement from Camara in one specific area. His three-point shooting from the corners is well below the league average. This season, he made 60-of-185 (32.4%) from the corners, while the rest of the league knocked down corner threes 38.7% of the time.
Camara has made an impressive 39.0% of his above-the-break three-pointers over the past two seasons, but becoming more dangerous out of the corners would do wonders for the Blazers’ offense. Those shots are available when defenses collapse on Deni Avdija’s drives and they’ll be plentiful next season when Damian Lillard joins the lineup and forces teams to defend him well beyond the arc.
Offensive outbursts from Camara are nice, but again, it’s the defensive contributions that matter most.
As a team, the Blazers made a late-season surge up the leaderboard, finishing as the NBA’s 12th-ranked defense. That’s partly due to better overall health and partly due to a softer schedule in March and April. For the season, they allowed 113.5 points per 100 possessions.
NBA.com’s advanced stats suggest that the Blazers were actually slightly better defensively with Camara off the floor, but don’t read too much into that. When he’s on the court, it usually means the other team’s best scorer is too. And nobody stops the NBA’s leading scorers. Instead, the goal is to make their lives difficult, force them into lower-percentage shots, and get under their skin.
Camara is among the league’s best at doing that and there are a few stats that demonstrate how his game has evolved over the past few seasons. In his second year, Camara served as a one-man full court press, menacing opposing point guards as they brought the ball up the floor.
This season, it looked a little different. Jrue Holiday and other guards often checked the opposing point guard while Camara tried to prevent his man from getting the ball at all. It resulted in less direct full court pressure, but it may have been even more disruptive. In 2024-2025, Camara led the league in drawing 31 offensive charges out of a league-leading 91 total offensive fouls drawn. This season, Camara drew significantly fewer charges (18) while drawing more fouls overall. Most of the offensive fouls drawn were either away from the ball, with opponents pushing off, or on illegal screens.
Camara’s relentlessness forces opponents to deviate from their plans, commit fouls out of frustration, and take difficult shots later in possessions. Much of it won’t show up in the stats, but Camara’s defense remains elite.
Last season, it earned him 9th-place in the Defensive Player of the Year voting and a spot on the NBA’s 2nd team All-Defense. This season, 13 players received at least one point in Defensive Player of the Year voting, but Camara was not among them. That suggests that he may miss out on a spot on the All-Defense teams, but we’ll find out officially when results are released in the next few weeks.
The Future
Camara’s contract with the Blazers runs through the 2029-2030 season and should age well. Every team in the NBA wants players like Camara that compete on defense, make open threes at respectable levels, and suit up each and every night over the course of a grueling season.
He’ll never be the offensive engine, but the Blazers are fortunate to have been able to acquire him as part of a much larger trade three offseasons ago. It looks like he’ll be a key component of the team for many seasons to come.
