The Portland Trail Blazers wrapped up their 2021 preseason with another loss to the Golden State Warriors, 119-97. This defeat sent the Blazers headed towards their season tip-off against the Sacramento Kings without a single victory with their new squad. While losses in the preseason certainly shouldn’t be cause for major concern, there are a few things that we can discern from the exhibition games.
Without knowing that former Head Coach Terry Stotts was relieved of his post and replaced with Chauncey Billups, one could still tell pretty easily that the Blazers were trying something new in this upcoming season. The change in offensive philosophy was the most obvious and consistent throughout the preseason matches. Billups has left zero doubt that he intends to stick with his motion offense, even if it means early struggles in the regular season.
Billups also promised a harder emphasis on the defensive end of the court. That change, though, was harder to notice. The Blazers seem to have switched from a drop coverage scheme, which relies on center Jusuf Nurkic and his backups anchoring themselves in the paint to meet drivers at the rim on pick-and-rolls, to a harder hedge at the point of contact. So far, the results have been pretty abysmal, as has been the effort displayed on the defensive end for Portland.
The Portland Trail Blazers struggled heavily in preseason; what does this forebode for the 2021-2022 NBA season?
It’s important to note that evaluating a team as a whole in the preseason is a silly gimmick, especially a team undergoing a systematic overhaul like the Blazers.
Between irregular efforts, strange rotations, and the lack of pressure, a team’s outlook as a whole is impossible to determine between four meaningless exhibition games.
What can be assessed, though, is individual efforts within those contests.
With that in mind, let’s see if we’re buying or selling some of the hot takes from the Portland Trail Blazers preseason.