Portland Trail Blazers: Revamped Roster Places Pressure to Succeed on Stotts, Coaching Staff

With the latest acquisitions for the Portland Trail Blazers, pressure should be mounting on Head Coach Terry Stotts to succeed sooner rather than later.

The Portland Trail Blazers have been building their current roster for some time now. The senior Blazers, Damian Lillard and Meyers Leonard, were drafted by the team back in 2012 and represent the first pieces of the current iteration of this Rip City squad.

With the expected bumps in the road along the way, such as losing LaMarcus Aldridge to free agency, Head Coach Terry Stotts and General Manager Neil Olshey have navigated the team through the rigorous Western Conference landscape and fortified a reputation for winning in Portland. That said, winning has eluded the team under Stotts and Olshey in one key area: the postseason.

Damian Lillard’s iconic game-winner to down the Houston Rockets 4-2 was just under five years ago. Outside of dismantling an injury-ravaged LA Clippers squad, the Blazers have struggled to find their footing in the postseason. A good portion of the struggle is due to perennial matchups with the world champion Golden State Warriors, but other issues arose along the way. Whether it was depth or poor play on the wing, there has typically been a glaring weakness that explains or justifies the end result.

That said, until the sweep at the hands of the New Orleans Pelicans last season, the frustrations were seldom directed at coaching. It is not easy to blame the coach when certain aspects of his given personnel are noticeably lacking. In fact, it would not make much sense to blame the coach in that situation. Of course, coaches have to get the most out of their players, but even then all players have their limitations.

Yet now, there is little room for complaint about the roster. Portland possesses two of the best interior scorers and rebounders in the entire NBA in Jusuf Nurkic and Enes Kanter. The addition of Rodney Hood and the emergence of Jake Layman erased most doubts about Portland’s wings, and Lillard – coming off First Team All-NBA honors – seems better than ever. On paper, the current Blazer roster is, from top to bottom, the most talented roster Terry Stotts has had in Portland.

The improvements are surely a double-edged sword for coach Stotts. He has never had more assets to work with, but he’s also never had less of an excuse to fail. Head-scratching decisions such as the continued starting role given to Maurice Harkless will now fall almost entirely on Stotts, for there is no drastic weakness in the rotation that would provide the safety net he has had in the past.

Coach Stotts developed a rapport with the organization and fans as a coach known for getting the most out of insufficient talent, but the talent is no longer insufficient. The possibilities have never been greater for the Blazers in the Damian Lillard era, but neither have the expectations.

Evidence of this fact came out earlier this week in a tweet from 1080 The Fan radio host Brandon Sprague. The tweet broke down a Blazer conversation between Jason Quick of The Athletic and Mike Richman of NBC during a podcast:

The stakes have never been higher for Stotts, or Olshey for that matter.

Olshey did himself a service by acquiring Hood and Kanter, however, and was also the one who drafted Layman, now a key contributor in the rotation. Like it or not, Olshey may have done enough at the deadline to defend himself and place the pressure on Stotts. A similar situation to the one facing coach Stotts played out last season in Toronto, which saw Coach of the Year winner Dwane Casey fired by the Raptors for failing to meet the postseason expectations of a highly talented team.

At the end of the day, none of this matters if Stotts and the Blazers perform as expected. A single playoff series victory, as the tweet above would indicate, would be enough to prevent any earth-shattering changes. The talent is there to win an opening series against any non-Golden State Western Conference foe.

The excuses are gone now, and if this revamped team cannot deliver, Terry Stotts may be too.