Portland Trail Blazers: Ranking projected starting lineups in the NBA part 2

The Portland Trail Blazers got an early look at how their starting lineup will fare in the upcoming NBA season, as their core five played the Golden State Warriors to basically a draw on Monday night.

While preseason certainly isn’t a great indicator of much, it’s clear that the Blazers have a well-balanced, talent-laden starting group, but not without their own flaws. Even if the team commits to the defensive intensity that new Head Coach Chauncey Billups is demanding, the way their lineup is constructed caps the group’s overall ceiling in terms of their ability to string together stops.

But every lineup has its weaknesses, and the Blazers are set to return one of the most efficient five-man groups from last season. Even with their lack of size, Portland’s starters should be able to go toe-to-toe with any starting five in the league. On those not so rare occurrences where Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum or both catch fire, they have the potential to outplay any opponent on any given night.

The Portland Trail Blazers starters ranked extremely well in 2020-2021; how will their talent hold up in 2021-2022

I’ve already began ranking the starting lineups in the league, the first section of which you can view here: a first-look at the bottom-10 groups in the NBA.

The league has its deepest collection of talent in a long time so it might be surprising to read some of the names on that list, but as a collective stacked against the remaining squads in the league, it’s obvious that these teams are just a tier or two behind from the real contenders.

These next ten teams have starting lineups that should carry them into the lower playoff seeds and some could even be considered dark horse contenders.