Following the second day of Portland Trail Blazers training camp, swingman Al-Farouq Aminu said the team is committed to starting this season off better than any season since he’s been here.
Over the last couple years, the Portland Trail Blazers have had lackluster starts to their seasons, forcing them to play catch-up.
After the second day of training camp, a reporter asked Al-Farouq Aminu what made him hope they would start their season off better than they have in the last three years he’s been here. With a smile, Aminu replied, “Because we’re committed to it.”
He went on:
"“You never know how the season might go, you know what I mean? Last two years in a row, I’ve been hurt, which hasn’t helped…[We’ve just got to] make sure we get off to that good start. I think that we know that. It’s been two years in a row [we’ve gotten off to a bad start] and just see what that does. There’s a big emphasis on it. I think guys came back super early this year, making sure that there would be no rust when it comes to the start of the season.”"
Over the last three years, the Blazers have gone 11-19, 13-17, and 16-14 in their first 30 games (ordered chronologically). While the Blazers have made the playoffs in all of these years, they started off with paces for 30, 35, and 43 wins respectively.
In the 17 of these games Aminu did not play in 2016-17, the Blazers were 7-10. In the 13 games he did not play in last year, the team went 9-4.
While last year saw his effect on the team’s start lessen, he still proved to be an impactful member of the team throughout both seasons with his staunch defense and three-point shooting.
In 2016-17, he was a net +3.9; in 2017-18, he was a net +4.6. A healthy Aminu for the first half of the season will undoubtedly help the team to get off to a better start this year. His consistent inclusion in these beginning lineups will also improve chemistry, especially as coach Terry Stotts experiments with lineups involving him and Portland’s newly acquired shooters in Seth Curry and Nik Stauskas.
This year, the Blazers should push to go 17-13 in their first 30 games. To do so would put them on pace to win 47 games – last year’s cut-off to make the West’s playoffs.
While Portland has shown they can make the most of the latter part of their season, they shouldn’t bet on this always being the case. If the Blazers can rail off 17 wins early and maintain their usual pace throughout January and into April, then they could easily repeat their third-seed finish from last year.
The Blazers’ start could be a major indication of whether this team suffered a catastrophe in last season’s first round, or if their being there was a fluke in the first place.