Portland Trail Blazers: 3 bold predictions for the 2021 NBA season

2 of 3

Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, and Carmelo Anthony, Portland Trail Blazers (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images) /

Bold prediction #2 – The Blazers will make the Western Conference Finals

For a good reason, the buzz around the 2021 iteration of the Blazers is huge. They may not have had a team like this since the 2000 season where Scottie Pippen and co made the conference finals and were close to stopping the Los Angeles Lakers epic three-peat before it even began.

The combination of three players in their prime in Lillard, Nurkic, and CJ McCollum makes for a formidable core, and this is now surrounded by two-way players Gary Trent Jr., Covington, Jones Jr., and Harry Giles.

Energy big Enes Kanter will also combine with exciting perimeter talent in Nassir Little and Anfernee Simons. NBA legend Carmelo Anthony will return for an 18th NBA season after making some of his career’s biggest shots in the bubble seeding games.

National media are taking note of this Blazers team too. Some are even saying that the Blazers had the best offseason of any NBA team.

When they actually hit the floor though, there is a good chance that they are the second-best team in the West. This may not mean they finish with the second-best record in the West, but they have arguably the second-best squad when it comes to the post-season.

Lillard and McCollum’s shot creation are made for the playoffs, and now when two-way players are surrounding them, they are built better than the 2019 team that made the Conference Finals.

The LA Clippers still lack shot creation from the guard spots, the Denver Nuggets got worse this off-season, and the Houston Rockets will likely trade kingpin James Harden.

This is a significantly different team from the one that was under .500 in the 2019/20 season. That team still had the 3rd ranked offense in the league, with Kent Bazemore, Carmelo Anthony, and Hassan Whiteside starting. All three of these players are on the minimum this season, showing just how much the Blazers have improved in 2021.

A starting lineup of Lillard, McCollum, Jones Jr, Covington, and Nurkic is one of the best in the league. They can put the NBA on notice this season by getting back to the Conference Finals again.