the "best-of-all-possible-blazer-worlds" threads are fun...I guess. I think a team being "fully healthy" by the time the playoffs roll around is extremely rare.
as for Portland, I'm sure not convinced a healthy Hood and Zach would have made much difference for the Blazers. Hood was playing really well for Portland and they were only 8-12 with him healthy; and Whiteside was playing well at the time too
as usual, I think people overrate the impact of role players. They don't significantly alter a team's trajectory. Hood and Zach are role players. Nurkic is a core piece at this point, obviously, but he's been healthy for two playoff series now, and Portland's record is 1-8 in those games
Olshey had a bad summer. Part of it was still a hangover from his idiocy of 2016. But he believed that Bazemore, Hezonja, and Tolliver were good additions. That was a disaster. And by his roster decisions, he insured that the Blazers were going to depend heavily on Zach and Simons to play like consistent veterans. That was an obvious bad bet right from the beginning.
so no, I'm not buying that the 'missing ingredients' for contending were injured. Too many negative and unlikely variables in the blazer mix. A better regular season record...sure. But there are 3 or 4 or 5 better built teams in the West and that makes it tough to have different results. Blazers still pretenders, healthy or not
