1. Fact or Fiction: The Blazers are better now than they were at the end of last season.
Amin Elhassan, ESPN Insider: Fact. The acquisition of Jusuf Nurkic finally brought some much-needed stability to the 5 spot, not to mention the ancillary playmaking that Portland was searching for when the team signed Evan Turner last offseason.
Coupled with the natural maturation of Lillard and McCollum -- and the bevy of first-round picks they'll be playing with this June -- the Blazers are unequivocally in a better spot than they were a year ago.
- Kevin Arnovitz, ESPN.com: Fact, if you account for Nurkic's injury and his newness to the team. Last year's April-May Trail Blazers were probably a more cohesive bunch, with a clean bill of health all season, along with Mason Plumlee and Gerald Henderson in well-defined roles honed over eight months. So I'd take the 2016 Blazers in a seven-game series over the 2017 Blazers. But I'd take the 2017 Blazers headed into next season decisively.
Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Insider: On the court, the version of the Blazers with Nurkic is better than the one Portland finished last season with. However, at the close of last season, the Blazers had yet to splurge on all those big-money contracts for players who, as a group, didn't move the needle in the right direction. So while this year's team might be better in a basketball sense, last year's team was probably better positioned in a roster-construction sense.
Jeremias Engelmann, ESPN Insider: It depends. With a healthy Nurkic, this year's Blazers probably would beat last year's, even though Portland's 17-6 record to close the regular season is likely a bit of a fluke. That said, this year's team is significantly more expensive yet not a lot better.
Kevin Pelton, ESPN Insider: Fact. Nurkic's arrival makes the way the Blazers finished this season more sustainable than the second half of last season, as I see it. Nurkic was an upgrade over Mason Plumlee at both ends of the court and is the frontcourt player with upside Portland previously lacked.
2. Fact or Fiction: Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum should be the long-term backcourt in Portland.
Arnovitz: Fact. When endowed with two dynamic, playmaking guards who can initiate offense off the most basic actions and carve up defenses at will, you should happily build around them. The Trail Blazers will probably always be vulnerable to penetration so long as Lillard and McCollum are manning the guard positions, but there's still an ability for each to become an adequate team defender (McCollum is on his way) if there's support at the forward spots and at the rim.
Elhassan: Faction. This is a tough conundrum for the Blazers to unravel. On one hand, they form a lethal offensive combo and exhibit a fair share of peaceful coexistence on that end of the floor. On the other hand, there are very real issues, as both guards are undersized and neither is known for his defensive prowess. And you have to consider that trading either one of those guys would yield a remarkable haul.
Doolittle: The $50 million backcourt is fine. Lillard is a star and McCollum is on the tier below that. The Blazers are better when they share the court, and both are better with each other than without. With the right mix around them, Portland can win with this backcourt.
But in an ideal world, you'd like to see a backcourt with more complementary traits or, at the very least, better defense out of one or both. If you could trade one for a player of comparable value who might be a better complement, you have to consider it, especially if you can do it while reducing long-term payroll obligations.
Engelmann: Fact, probably. Lillard and McCollum are obviously one of the best backcourts in the NBA. But one has to ask whether you want to pay a combined $50 million to $60 million annually through 2020-21 for a backcourt that's so defensively anemic. The Blazers were one of the worst defensive teams in the league, and these two, especially Lillard, deserve some of the blame.
Pelton: Fact. I don't think there's much credible evidence that Lillard and McCollum hurt each other's performance. More likely, they make life easier for each other offensively. Unless a team is willing to severely overpay for one of them, a trade would change only the shape of the Blazers' performance (sacrificing offense for defense), not the team's overall level of play.
3. What do you foresee and advise for the Blazers this offseason?
Pelton: I think Portland will want to give Nurkic a full season with the rest of the core. So I don't expect changes to the Blazers' top seven or eight. Any shuffling will likely involve Portland's backup frontcourt rotation, where Ed Davis fell out of favor this season and Festus Ezeli never got healthy. The Blazers could still use a rim protector off the bench.
Engelmann: Terry Stotts rates as the third-worst active coach by my coach metric, so replacing him should be the highest priority. His impact on player development and performance, especially on the defensive end, simply leaves too much to be desired. Scott Skiles would be my dream candidate.
Elhassan: There's not a whole lot the Blazers can do! They are over the cap, and even with the revised cap exceptions, those numbers still fall far below what good free agents will command in the market.
I would try to start stripping down some of the mistakes (starting with Festus Ezeli's non-guaranteed contract, which has been a very expensive paperweight this season); Portland needs to streamline the roster and regain some flexibility to be able to continue to make improvements.
Arnovitz: The Trail Blazers are hamstrung by their salary commitments going forward, but they're also not without future assets and young players on value deals, like Al-Farouq Aminu, Moe Harkless and Noah Vonleh. Combine any number of those, and Portland might be able to find an upgrade at one of the forward spots.
The more likely scenario, though, will be a modest tweak or two and seeing what their current core can do at full health next fall.
Doolittle: With the payroll about to spiral out of control, it's hard to see how the Blazers fit three first-round contracts into this mix. I'd leverage those picks to move salary. Vonleh can handle Meyers Leonard's job, so if you can package picks to find a taker for Leonard, go for it. Same type of deal applies to Allen Crabbe.
The Blazers were good on both ends of the floor down the stretch, so all you're really doing is trying to create enough flexibility to possibly add a rotation veteran or two, if at all possible.
4. What trade would you like to see for Portland?
Elhassan: In the vein of what I talked about in Question 3, Turner and Leonard both have long-term deals at exorbitant numbers. I would explore attaching first-round picks to them and seeing if there are any takers.
Pelton: I'm not enamored of the 2017 draft, in which the Blazers will have three first-round picks. So if they could deal one of their picks in the 20s (No. 20 or 26) for a lightly protected 2018 first-rounder with the potential to land in the lottery from a team eager to add talent now, I'd jump at that kind of offer.
Arnovitz: If you could guarantee that, going forward, Gorgui Dieng could hit 37.2 percent of his 3-pointers -- but at a rate of greater than one per game -- I might be tempted to dangle a package that included either Crabbe and a pick or some combination of Harkless, Aminu and assorted parts. Dieng's defensive errors are easy to spot, but he somehow always manages to land near the top of
defensive real plus-minus (RPM) among power forwards, and he'd fill a vital need for Portland.
Doolittle: I read some Carmelo Anthony-to-the-Blazers rumors recently, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Take on Anthony and maybe even Joakim Noah -- there are your veteran additions -- and see how many contracts Phil Jackson will take back, beginning with Crabbe and Turner. Given the Knicks' proclivity for weird deals, you might not even have to break up the Lillard-McCollum backcourt.
Engelmann: Optimally, the Blazers would find trades in which they'd get rid of Turner and Crabbe, who each will be paid $18 million to $19 million per season through 2019-20 despite each having an RPM of about minus-2.5.
Also, dealing Lillard would make sense if the Blazers could get a deal resembling the Nuggets' trade of Carmelo Anthony. Like Melo, he appears to play only one end of the court, but some teams would probably give up a lot to get him.
5. Fact or Fiction: The Blazers will be a top-four West team during the next three seasons.
Arnovitz: Fact. Other than the Warriors, who in the West is certain to have a permanent parking spot in the top four? Nobody should bet good money against the Spurs, but they're aging. This incarnation of the Rockets looks like a strong bet, but nobody would've said that six months ago. Utah and the Clippers might each lose one of their two best players.
So long as Westbrook is healthy and the Conley/Gasol tandem presides, OKC and Memphis will be within shouting distance, but would you take them over Portland for the next three years? Denver is interesting, but we shall see.
Elhassan: Fact. Portland is young with an elite, talented backcourt. The current roster incarnation isn't there yet, but with some tweaking, Portland can be one of the elite teams in the league .
Doolittle: I'd say yes. There appears to be some flux in the West, but Golden State, San Antonio and Utah look like fixtures at the top of the conference going forward. Then you have teams like Minnesota, Houston, Oklahoma City, Denver and New Orleans that appear well positioned to contend for home seeds. Portland will be part of the latter mix, and given a three-year window, they should have their moment to shine.
Engelmann: Fiction. The management decisions made last offseason -- e.g., giving Evan Turner four times the money he's worth -- were some of the most mind-boggling moves any team has made. Not only did these missteps hurt the long-term outlook of the team, they also showed that Blazers management can't compare to that of the Western Conference powerhouses.
Pelton: Fact. I don't know about top three, but there's enough volatility in the West's middle tier that I'd expect at least one stretch similar to that of the 2014-15 Blazers, who won the Northwest Division and were solidly in the conference's top four before Wesley Matthews suffered a ruptured Achilles.
