The Portland Trail Blazers aren’t away from official NBA regular-season games. Looking towards the first game, what are this team’s strengths and weaknesses?
We are so close to the official return of Portland Trail Blazers basketball. It’s been around four months since we last saw this team in official regular-season games.
This hiatus and then following NBA Bubble setup has seen two players not join the team in Orlando: Trevor Ariza and Caleb Swanigan. At the same time, they have had added three more to the fold in Jusuf Nurkic, Zach Collins and Jaylen Adams.
The return of Nurkic and Collins changes this team’s frontcourt depth, its defense, and then to a lesser degree, its offense. Adams likely won’t play a lot, but with Gary Trent Jr required to now play a bit of small forward, it’s nice to have guard backup in Adams. The NBA let all 22 teams involved in the bubble add their two-way players fulltime as well, meaning that both Jaylen Hoard and Moses Brown joined the team for the all-important regular-season finish.
It will be interesting to see much Brown and Hoard play. They are both very raw, but Hoard is more likely to play with the shortage of wing options. Brown has struggled in his limited time on the court this season. Though the Blazers aren’t deep at the big men positions, they likely won’t need Brown.
The Blazers have had a tough year, but if you exclude Rodney Hood, who won’t return until next season, they are 90 percent fit.
What are this team’s strengths and weaknesses as they look to play their first regular-season games in the NBA bubble?