ESPN underrates the Portland Trail Blazers in preseason power rankings

After improving upon a roster that made a Conference Finals run last year, ESPN somehow believes the Portland Trail Blazers are a “borderline playoff team”.

Peanut butter and jelly. Cookies and milk. Bacon and eggs. The Portland Trail Blazers and being criminally underrated by the national media. Can you think of a more iconic duo?

In ESPN’s preseason power rankings, the Blazers came in ranked tenth overall. While that may seem a questionable take, I’d be willing to listen to a coherent argument based on the fact the roster has had so much turnover and most contributors from last year’s playoff run are now wearing other jerseys.

But alas, I’m still here scratching my head. ESPN projects Portland to finish third place in the Northwest Division, behind the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz. They also give the Blazers less odds than the Boston Celtics to win the championship next season.

While they didn’t provide any justification for their rankings, they did highlight Zach Collins as a potential breakout candidate.

"“We got a glimpse of things in the 2019 playoffs, particularly in the Blazers’ second-round series against the Nuggets during which Collins became an X factor defending Nikola Jokic and Paul Millsap. But as Jusuf Nurkic continues to recover and with the departures of Enes Kanter and Meyers Leonard, there’s more opportunity for Collins. He needs more offensive consistency, but Collins is a savvy pick-and-roll player with elite defensive potential.” — Royce Young"

If anything, Collins’ ceiling is only indicative of the fact the Blazers may have not yet even reached their full potential. If he steps into a bigger role and performs well, Portland has a realistic shot at cracking the NBA Finals. Could the same be said for a team like the Celtics, who come in at No. 9 on these rankings despite losing their two leaders in Win Shares — Kyrie Irving and Al Horford?

Zach Lowe of ESPN also expanded on this train of thought in his own recent power ranking, where classified the Blazers as “borderline playoff contenders”.

"“Yup, for the second straight year I’m doubting the Blazers. I’m a moron, obviously. They have a rock-solid culture, a great coach, and one of those scoring stars who pulls even bad teams — and this is far from a bad team — toward .500. I didn’t hate their offseason makeover, either. They lost size and defensive versatility effectively swapping Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless for Kent Bazemore and more Rodney Hood, but I can’t blame them after watching Aminu and Harkless brick wide-open 3s in the playoffs every season.” — Zach Lowe"

As Lowe referenced, Portland has established a reputation for being notoriously better than their roster looks on paper. The culture established here and the simplified scheme Terry Stotts employs seem to get the best out of players, even if they struggled elsewhere in their career. This is why I have high expectations for this reinvented roster of reclamation projects.

At the end of the day, I have far more faith in the Portland Trail Blazers organization to put together a true contender at year’s end than many of the team’s listed ahead of them. The Lakers, Rockets and Warriors may collapse after experiencing so much internal turnover. The Celtics don’t appear to have the makings of a team that could win it all. The Nuggets and Jazz still have to prove they can beat Portland in the first place. Despite not being the sexiest team on paper, the Blazers are still the smart bet to advance far in the playoffs.