At the end of almost every Blazer’s Edge Mailbag—our perpetual feature where we answer your questions about the Portland Trail Blazers—we leave you the email address to send submissions. Along with it I always say, “We’ll answer as many as we can.” I started putting that in years ago, the exact moment when the site got big enough that I could no longer respond to every Mailbag question we got.
One of the reasons it’s hard to get to every question is that, in typical Blazer’s Edge style, most of the submissions
are lengthy and cover complex topics. We’re usually 1000 words in before we blink. That takes time.
Today we’re going to bypass all of that. We’ll cover a week’s worth of questions or more, simply by picking the short ones that can be answered in a paragraph or so. Following are some of the quick-hit inquiries that come into the inbox and similarly-paced replies. Thanks to everyone who submitted one of these questions!
Dave,
I don’t get Ja Morant. Any chance the Blazers are just looking to flip him?
Vic
I don’t think so, at least not this year. They might be looking to rehab his reputation and then move him next summer for a gain. But the simplest explanation is just that they like his ceiling still, they got him cheap, and his contract doesn’t run more than two years if the whole experiment fails.
There are a couple of other possible explanations. Maybe they already know they’re planning to trade other guards. Or maybe they anticipate that Damian Lillard can’t return at a high level. But the “low-risk, high-reward” explanation still stands as the most likely.
Dave,
Which of the less known Blazers is going to surprise us this year?
Another Dave
The odds-on favorite is Sidy Cissoko. There’s space for him. If he works on his three-point shot, he should get playing time.
Jeremy Sochan is a personal favorite. I think Micah Potter also has a chance. The other name to watch is Vit Krejci if he rediscovers his three-point shot. I halfway think he might get traded though.
In order, I’d go Cissoko, Krejci, Sochan, then Potter.
Dave,
Do you think Scoot gets traded now?
Stephen
That’s always a possibility. Unfortunately he’s in no-man’s land as far as return. I don’t see anybody giving up a really good player for him. But they’re not going to lose a first-round draft pick either, at least not unprotected. Portland would be trading away youth, talent, and ceiling for…what? A role player and/or a modest pick? I’m not sure how that helps more than Scoot.
I’d say Jrue Holiday and Robert Williams III are far more likely to be traded by the deadline this year than Scoot. Teams will covet them. The Blazers will be dropping salary instead of picking it up, at least in Holiday’s case. The most likely scenario is that Portland finds they aren’t ready to compete with the conference elite, then decide to trade veterans for savings and future assets.
Dave,
How are we going to run the offense with Dame and Ja on the floor?
Guy
I foresee an adjustment period in which it kind of doesn’t work, but then there’s a secret sauce in Branden Carlson and Micah Potter.
The key to the offense for Ja especially, kinda Dame too, is screen plays. The problem with Donovan Clingan setting the screen is that he’s 100% a roll guy. He needs to get to the rim to be effective. Unless Clingan develops a mid-range jumper we haven’t seen yet, that’s going to leave the lane crowded with defenders when Morant has the ball as everyone dives down low, Dame’s three-point shot inhibited when he has it as defenders feel free to jumo him while ignoring Clingan, trailing him slowly until he gets within three feet of the cup.
I want to see if either Potter or Carlson have pick-and-pop ability, allowing the Blazers to run plays similar to the ones Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge used to. Those forward-centers don’t necessarily have to back up to the three-point arc. They just need to pull a defender away from the guard, leaving Dame or Ja one-on-one against an out-of-place defender.
Dave,
Who are your surprise teams in the west this year? Any chance the Blazers could become one?
Gary
I think there will be surprise teams this year in both conferences. Everyone is zeroed in on the Knicks in the East. They had a great run, but it was just that: a run. They were hardly a juggernaut. If anything, that was the Boston Celtics of a couple years ago, and look where they are now. We’re too enamored with front-runners in the current environment.
That said, the West has two clear teams at the top. Oklahoma City and San Antonio have the inside track to the conference lead and I don’t foresee either of them giving it up.
The real question is who comes in third and fourth? All of your usual teams—the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Rockets, and Lakers—arguably got either worse or less stable during the offseason. If the Suns or Trail Blazers put together a big year…who knows?
The problems are two. First, I don’t know if the Blazers have a big year in them. But even if they do, this is a consolation prize. It’s a fancy one. Imagine finishing in the Top 4 in the conference! Wow! But the distance between third and second is immense. Even given my suspicion about overhyping last year’s success stories, I don’t think anybody in the West has the horsepower and staying power to overtake a healthy Spurs or Thunder team.
Dave,
Do you think the Blazers drafted badly or was bad luck a big factor?
Ryan
Both?
The HUGE litmus test for me historically was the Greg Oden-Brandon Roy duo. Portland had incredibly high selections in 2006 and 2007. Roy obviously proved his sound. LaMarcus Aldridge was inarguable. It’s obvious why they took Oden as well, despite the hindsight. Taking Greg in 2007 was far more defensible than selecting Sam Bowie in 1984. (Bowie was a good player, though!)
The big question is, how much did they know (or should they have known) about the injury potential for Roy and Oden? Apparently Brandon’s was foreseeable. That’s one strike right there. If they could have forecast Oden’s as well, then they deserve everything they got. But if they made excellent picks who happened to go down with injury, then we could say that a potential championship—or even dynasty—got robbed from them. They hadn’t been close to anything like that since 1992. They haven’t been close since either.
Other than that, they’ve had a solid draft or two (think: Donovan Clingan) and a couple disastrous ones as well (hello, 2017). They took a high-risk swing on Shaedon Sharpe and a slightly lesser one on Scoot Henderson. Cumulatively, it ends up kind of a mess.
I’d say this overall. Portland has not been good at drafting, but that impression hasn’t been helped by the fact that on the occasions they did do their jobs well (even perfectly), back luck came and kicked them right in the groin.
Thanks for all the questions y’all send. If you want to add to the pile, you can email blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to get to as many as possible!
