New Portland Trail Blazers head coach Micah Nori has a monumental task in front of him. While figuring out his frontcourt rotations will be pretty straightforward, his backcourt is going to resemble a Rubik’s Cube. After signing an unconventional contract that guarantees him the upcoming season only, how he manages the roles of his guards may be the deciding factor on whether or not he sees a year 2 at the helm of the Blazers.
Nori is going to have to make the tough decision to prioritize fit above
all else.
The guards who mesh the best together have to see the lion’s share of minutes. It shouldn’t matter the name on the back of the jersey, the amount of money a player makes, the tenure or reputation they have, or who should be prioritized as the future lead guard. If Nori is going to meld this group into a formidable unit, he’s going to have to take some risks, and potentially ruffle some feathers.
The odd thing, however, is that today’s coaches often feel pressured to cave in to the aforementioned conditions above. Teams do not like to sit the players they have the most money invested in. They also don’t sit players of Damian Lillard’s stature. He’s right there with Steph Curry and James Harden, as older superstar guards who remain a major factor in their teams’ outcomes. Morant is the team’s highest paid player the next two seasons. Add in his resume of past elite play, and the gamble the team is making on him, it’s easy to see Morant in the starting five. At least to begin the season.
Jrue Holiday is Portland’s most balanced guard on both sides of the ball, and his presence on the floor usually calms the team. He’s also at the stage of his career where he’s going to play the role the team needs from him, whether that’s as a starter or a reserve. He’s the only Blazers guard whose deliverables feel certain: be the point guard or the shooting guard (or a forward), defend any position well, and lead. Jrue is as close to being right as rain than anyone. Hands down, he’s Portland’s most versatile player.
Then there’s young Scoot Henderson. Once regarded as a future cornerstone of the franchise, his three seasons of ups and downs have cast an uncertainty about where he fits into the equation. The word out of training camp is that Scoot “looks impressive”, and the Blazers need that to carry over to the season. He’s in a contract year and has just over a couple of weeks to ink an extension, or he’ll play out the season and become a restricted free agent next summer. Scoot is now a combo-guard who will likely play more as an off ball scorer who gets points in a variety of ways. It’s his penchant for costly turnovers that has been a major factor holding him back. His career assist to turnover ratio is 1.69 to1. The average for a NBA point guard is 2.4-2.6 to 1. For a shooting guard, he falls into the average category of 1.5-1.8 to 1. Scoot was drafted to be the point guard of the future. However, he’s expected to become more of an off ball scorer/creator, and his career trajectory could trend towards being Jrue Holiday Lite. That’s if his defense can become a strength, as well as, being a more efficient offensive player.
Meanwhile after the Morant trade, Nori said publicly a reserve role was something he and Morant talked about during lunch. Considering the low price to acquire him, compounded by his injury issues, Ja has been served a slice of reality. What used to be a given before is no more, when it comes to being the lead guard. He seems aware that he needs to recapture the swag that made him often unguardable, and he appears willing to mesh into the appropriate role Nori needs.
However, Morant and Lillard share a career usage rate around 30%. At 27, Ja has been a career starter, but never an off ball player. Lillard has had more practice at playing off ball next to CJ McCollum and Giannis Antetokounmpo, although Dame historically looks very mortal in the off ball role. Something would have to give here. If Lillard is running a high pick n’ roll with Clingan, Ja is not a perceived shooting threat. He may spend a lot of time on the perimeter standing around, when Lillard is initiating offense.
This is where coaching matters. In those instances, how do you turn Morant into an off ball weapon? Can he lurk along the baseline and surprise people leaping into the dunker’s spot? Is there any possibility he could become proficient as a catch and shoot three-point shooter, since he’ll be left wide open most of the time? He’s the highest paid player on the team for the next two seasons, so he’ll to be central to what the Blazers are doing. These are questions and experiments that need answers in the very early part of the season.
Nori was quoted last week that Lillard and Morant will start in the first preseason game on Wednesday against Golden St in order “to see what it looks like.”
The sweet spot for Nori is having an offense that capitalizes on Deni and Ja attacking the rim with Lillard licking his chops, ready for a kick out to knock down threes. If this gets figured out, Portland stands to have a pretty incredible offense. There’s just not enough defensive rotation that can successfully cover a Dame/Ja/Deni trio with good floor spacing chemistry. If it works out, Portland is going to force every opponent to pick their poison because they are capable of demolishing teams. We haven’t even discussed the 37% three-point shooting of Toumani Camara, or Donovan Clingan who is the league’s premier offensive rebounder and one helluva mountain of a screen setter.
Defensively, this guard pairing is an abject disaster. We don’t need to see them in a large sample size to make this prognostication. We’ve seen several years of a younger Lillard and CJ McCollum. It had a clear ceiling. Around them were supposed defensive players in Jusuf Nurkic, Al Farouq-Aminu, and Moe Harkless (or Evan Turner/Robert Covington/Trevor Ariza/Kent Bazemore.) There might be two better defenders in Camara and Clingan in the starting lineup now, but they will quickly begin to look average by constantly having to scramble to cover the sieve defense of Lillard and Morant. A complete systematic breakdown occurs for a defense with two undersized, bad defenders in today’s game.
Listening to Nori in Friday’s post-practice interview, he seems to know what’s at stake. Jason Quick of The Athletic released a story with several key quotes from the Blazers coach.
“The thing that concerns me most is just defensively, at the point of attack, (opponents) are going to be able to take advantage of us being a little bit small,” Nori said. “I know they have to guard us, but how can we protect the paint, protect the rim, protect those (guards)? … That’s probably the biggest thing for me.”
Then there was this proclamation: “Tou is as consistent and as good of a defender as I’ve ever been around, and that includes (Minnesota’s) Jaden McDaniels,” Nori said. “Tou is gonna be on the best player. And Donovan is elite. So, that’s why I feel comfortable in being able to survive being very small.”
No!! Micah, my man, we had a philosophy here for a decade where it was “just add defenders” around small, offensive juggernaut guards . It’s a false prophecy. Don’t feel comfortable! Good defenders came here and got worse playing with Lillard at the helm. As mentioned above, too much of Lillard and Morant together will water down the defensive effectiveness of Camara and Clingan.
The scary thing here is that Nori is looking at this team, and thinking it may need to lean harder into being an elite offense to force teams to keep up. That is a clear late stage Lillard Era strategy from his previous Blazers run.
“I mean, if we’re giving up a high number, let’s say 112 defensive rating, but our offensive rating is up around 120 … I mean, we are not looking to outscore people, but we do want to make sure we play the mathematics,” Nori said.
The bottom line here is simple. Unlike the past several preseasons, all the guards need ample time on the floor to experiment with the best pairings. If we see Lillard, Morant, and Holiday playing short minutes or sitting out preseason games, those are lost free opportunities to get important data.
The solution to begin the season on the right foot seems like it’s right in front of all of us.
Start Dame and Jrue. They can play a more halfcourt game that slows and is better for the old legs of the guards, and for the giant body of Clingan. Jrue seems like an ideal backcourt mate for Dame, and he props up the team’s defense to help them get off to better starts. Also, the two-man game between Lillard and Avdija is such a more natural fit with their contrasting styles, versus Avdija and Morant. Deni attacking the rim with three viable 3-point shooters spaced around the court is clear as day for being the best strategy for offense. Holiday, Clingan, Deni, and Camara are the best defenders this team can field to prop up Lillard for the bulk of his time on the floor.
Bring Ja and Scoot off the bench. A second unit backcourt that can fly up and down the court, along with Robert Williams III and Sidy Cissiko, gives the team a balance of scoring and defense. On paper, this unit looks like it could really punish most teams’ reserves. The Blazers have the luxury of playing slower and faster, and should lean into those strengths by playing the players who fit each style the best. Everything can be fluid because we need more Jrue and Scoot, and Dame and Scoot.
We’re also probably going to see a healthy amount of Dame, Ja, and Jrue at times; likely at the end of games to maximize ballhandling and playmaking. I’m curious at how well the Blazers will be able to play small ball, but there’s a part of me wincing at its defensive capabilities. Many Blazers fans are bracing to revisit an era that they’ve actively worked to move away from.
Now we have to hope that Nori will make the right decisions in the heat of the moment to prioritize the team’s on-court fit, while keeping his guards content. For the sake of winning and the way this roster is constructed, there will have to be some bruised egos throughout the season. Everyone is saying the right things in training camp, Nori especially. His transparency with his answers gives some hope that he has the same concerns on his mind as Blazers fans. If his actions match up with his words, then we should see a coach not afraid to make tough and decisive decisions.
