Yet the underlying question for this season has nothing to do with any of the above. Because what we all know, what we all realize with the NBA trade deadline approaching, is that this team cannot make its mind up. Is it a playoff team? Or a lottery team? Is it great? Or a tease? Just pick one. The Blazers, losers at Utah on Friday and winners over Utah at home on Saturday, feel at times as fickle as a teenage girl riding the MAX line, unsure of which downtown stop she should take.
I asked coach Terry Stotts after the game if it frustrated him that the Blazers could look like a really solid playoff team one minute, and a clear lottery team the next. The Blazers are once again a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a headband. I hadn't even finished the question, really, and Stotts shot back, "You mean, one minute to the next?"
Yup. The boss man sees it, too.
"We're finding our way," Stotts said. Then, the first-year coach said something about the hot-cold routine being part of the normal ebb and flow of NBA basketball. Then, Stotts summarized, "I strive for consistency as a coach -- we're not there yet."
For the record, the Blazers' most valuable player to this point hasn't been Lillard, LaMarcus Aldridge or even Nicolas Batum. Nope. It's been Stotts. I know, he doesn't play for the Blazers, technically. But if we're looking for a most valuable person who has made the most notable difference this season, it's the guy on the sideline who is all-in, and taking some heat for playing three starters in excess of 38 minutes a game this season.
Stotts fielded some of those questions again before Saturday's game, explaining to a reporter for a national publication that nobody would notice he was playing an important player 38 minutes a game if it were just one player. "I happen to have three players who are pretty important to us."
(Really, Stotts means he has no bench and needs those guys badly. But he's more polite than I am. Also, he has to ride airplanes and eat meals alongside his bench players.)
Thinking "playoffs" around here is like a guy who is Saturday-afternoon car shopping thinking "Lamborghini." It's an indulgence of the soul. And so we can't reasonably announce the Blazers as a true postseason candidate while they're sitting one game behind the No. 8 spot in the standings, at a semi-cool 24-23, alternately playing the roles of Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals.
Let's see: Stotts is a playoff coach. Lillard is a playoff point guard. Aldridge is a playoff power forward. Batum is a playoff mismatch. Blazers fans are playoff ready. But in no way are the Blazers a playoff team. Not yet. Not while they're threatening to, either, win eight of the next 10 or lose eight of the next 10.
All this talk about making the playoffs is just talk. With two months of basketball left, all most of us have when it comes to the Blazers are questions. Will they make a move at the trade deadline? Will they find more consistency? Are they ready to take the critical step from fun fodder to a serious threat? Ultimately, are the Blazers in or out? Because this middle ground, halfway to heaven/hell business is going to leave them exactly nowhere, and cost them their first-round draft pick (goes to Charlotte if they don't finish in the bottom 12).
