Key Injuries Drastically Alter the Portland Trail Blazers Offseason Prospects

As the Portland Trail Blazers climbed the Western Conference standings, talk surfaced over what would happen this offseason if they could not get past the first round. Injuries to key players have changed this whole conversation.

With the Portland Trail Blazers sitting among the elite in the Western Conference standings, there naturally came a feeling of deja vu. Like last year, the team was rolling through February after the All-Star Break. Only this time, along with the excitement, was a healthy dose of anxiety. Was this Rip City club having an incredible regular season just to be bounced again in a first round playoff series? What would happen if that were the case?

Analysts and fans alike have wondered how secure certain players’, coaches, and executives positions are if this team continues to underperform in the postseason. 10-straight playoff losses naturally produces paranoia. On February 18, the Athletic’s Jason Quick went on NBC Sports Northwest’s Mike Richman’s podcast and shined some light on potential Blazers plans should that be the case.

He said two of three things would happen should the Blazers fail to get past the first round for the third consecutive year: Head Coach Terry Stotts is fired, Neil Olshey is fired, and/or CJ McCollum is traded.

At the time, none of these options seemed particularly unfair.

Stotts has faced injuries going into the postseason and was overmatched by the Golden State Warriors in 2016-17. But the sweep to a six-seed New Orleans Pelicans team last year was an embarrassment and placed necessary pressure on him to succeed this season, especially with a revamped roster post trade deadline and Jusuf Nurkic playing so well.

Olshey has made some solid moves as GM, including getting the aforementioned Nurkic for pennies-on-the-dollar from the Denver Nuggets two years ago. But he has mostly ran similar teams back year-after-year with slight changes, keeping the Blazers biggest weakness – their lack of a truly dynamic wing – intact throughout.

McCollum has been a valiant co-star with the club’s leader Damian Lillard, averaging 21.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 3.5 assists since becoming a full-time starter in 2015. However, he may be a redundant piece alongside Lillard, being a point guard-turned-shooting guard who needs the ball to be most effective. The idea in trading him is that the Blazers could get back a better-fitting player whose talent they could more easily maximize.

Of course, though, things have changed remarkably since these plans were first discussed. On March 16, McCollum went down with a popliteus knee strain against the San Antonio Spurs. Soon after, Nurkic went down with a fractured left leg on March 25.

These are the Blazers second and third best players, key components in getting Portland to their 47-27 record. While McCollum’s injury appears minor and there is a decent chance he returns for the playoffs, missing time and playing while recovering could affect his play. Nurkic’s injury, on the other hand, is far more serious as the big man will sit for the rest of the year and should miss time into next season too.

These prospects presented by Quick, then, likely change. Is it really fair to judge any of these three parties given the circumstances?

With this bad luck, the Blazers could sacrifice another year before making a franchise-altering decision to start them towards a new identity. It could be the right choice in the end, as we cannot know if the pre-March 16 version of this team would’ve made some noise in this year’s postseason.

And because it is impossible to know, this season is likely a wasted year…

If they lose in the first round, they cannot truly assess Stotts, Olshey, or McCollum and therefore could potentially breakup a team before knowing how good they truly could be (this could be especially disheartening if Kevin Durant leaves the Golden State Warriors and the West opens up).

If they get past the first round, everyone’s job is safe – but the victory likely comes on the back of Lillard going absolutely nuts. They still do not truly know what they have with their squad, and it will make other offseason personnel decisions all the more difficult.

Should the Blazers retain their home-court advantage through the remainder of the season and McCollum comes back looking normal, these ultimatums could be back on the table. But I don’t see that. Nurkic, amid a career-year, has become too important to this team’s character to not heavily account for his absence in defeat.

These injuries do more than affect the Blazers prospects for this season. They reshape the entire decision-making process for this summer.