Portland Trail Blazers guard Gary Trent Jr took a massive step forward this season. How is Trent poised for a massive breakout in the 2021 NBA season?
Gary Trent Jr is the future of this Portland Trail Blazers team. This isn’t just in relation to his on court play, Trent is a model professional in the locker room and on the court. He is tough, resilient, and most of all, he plays a position of utmost need in the NBA. The wing.
To a casual NBA fan, Trent’s 8 points a game probably don’t seem anything special. But for the Blazers fans and the trained eye, it has been an impressive rise.
Trent went from not being in the rotation at all, to being a starter and maybe even the third or fourth most important player on the court. We will detail below why he was so important, but the key thing to note with Trent is, he represents the way that this Blazers team needs to play and function moving forward.
Trent is a six-foot-six wing that can play defense and shoot threes. Teams would give their right leg to have a 21-year-old that can do this. Some teams have this, some teams don’t.
Teams like the Minnesota Timberwolves, have Josh Okogie, who can defend but can’t really shoot. Other teams have players who can shoot but can’t defend. The NBA is moving towards a style where everyone needs to be able to shoot, and if you can guard multiple positions too, then you will have a ten-year NBA career.
Not only is Trent six-foot-six, he has a six-foot-eight wingspan. Though he isn’t a perfect size to play the three, he’s pretty close. He can guard most one’s and two’s pretty well. And unless it’s LeBron or Kawhi at the three, Trent is going to acquit himself pretty well.
He shot the three at 39 percent this season, while shooting mid-range shots at 44 percent. He showed a step back, he shot off the dribble, and he used a pull-up from the mid-range too.
Now you are probably wondering why we think he is going to breakout in 2021?
In the 2019 season, Trent played just 77 real NBA minutes. This season, he started off just playing garbage time. But when Zach Collins went down, he was all of a sudden in the rotation. Then with the signing of Carmelo Anthony, he was back to garbage time.
After Rodney Hood went down as well, it was Trent’s time to shine. He started slowly, but as his minutes increased with injuries to CJ McCollum and then the Kent Bazemore trade, he started to crank up his play on both ends.
On the 18th of January, with Bazemore unavailable after being traded and Trevor Ariza not able to play until the trade had cleared, Trent had 30 points with 5 rebounds and 3 steals. He played both ends of the court and even made seven shots inside the arc. He had arrived.
Trent unfortunately only had two months of NBA play after this breakout game in January. His stats were impressive from the start of January till the hiatus though.
38.1 percent from three, 10.2 points a game, 1 steal a game.
He has had his learning year in 2019 where he barely played as a rookie. He then had a year this year where he had starter minutes, bench minutes and garbage time too.
Next season, Trent will have a much larger role and the opportunity to be a mainstay in the rotation. He has experienced enough where he is now ready for a major role on this team.
He will likely be the team’s sixth man, and he may get crunch time minutes guarding the oppositions best guard threat. Trent only had two months playing as a proper rotation player, but his growth was impressive.
Next season, with a full training camp and the backing of management, Trent is primed to breakout and show his two-way ability. The Blazers need defense so badly, especially at the point of attack. Trent can now be the guy that guards the oppositions best guard, taking this pressure off Dame or CJ.
Interestingly, when paired with Dame, these two had the best net rating team wise. Better than any time Dame was on the court with CJ this season. This means when Trent and Dame were on the court, the Blazers were 11.8 points per 100 possessions better as a team.
This gives the team more flexibility in terms of lineups. But it also shows that Dame playing with an off the ball guy like Trent, who can also guard the point of attack, leaves Dame to guard a smaller player, meaning that he can have a bit of a rest on defense.
In these two months, Trent showed that he could be the future of this team when Dame and CJ eventually retire. Along with Zach Collins, these two could, and probably will form the nucleus of the next strong Blazers teams.