Chauncey Billups warned us that he was going to experiment with different starting lineups throughout the Portland Trail Blazers' preseason. But we never imagined Deni Avdija would be demoted to a bench role, let alone be the first casualty!
Testing out these different starting lineup combinations makes perfect sense for a Blazers team that has seven legitimate starters when fully healthy. But it doesn't make sense to make your first variation one that brings your best player off the bench.
Deni Avdija's starting role should be off-limits
Some may think this signals that Billups will bring Avdija off the bench to start the season, but we actually view it as the opposite. It felt as though Avdija was the odd man out because he was the "safe player" who had already earned a starting spot, giving the others an opportunity to show that they deserved to be included in that unit.
Hopefully, that is the case, as bringing Avdija off the bench would potentially be a disastrous decision. But even if that was the approach Billups was taking, there's still a flaw to that logic.
Each preseason game is precious as Portland now only has three opportunities left to fine-tune its starting unit and figure out what works best. Billups should have been rolling out the clear-cut starters and mixing in the fringe starters each game in order to find out what truly works best. In other words, Avdija should be starting every single preseason game, with Billups rotating players like Jerami Grant and Shaedon Sharpe to see who fits best alongside Avdija.
The scientific term for what's missing in this starting lineup experiment is a control variable. How are we going to compare what works when there's no constant?
I would rather start Avdija every single game, but experiment with him playing different roles within each game. For example, with Scoot Henderson now sidelined for roughly four to eight weeks with a hamstring tear, Portland desperately needs more playmaking in the backcourt. Jrue Holiday filled some of that void with seven assists in the first half, but Billups should be using this time to experiment with Avdija in a more point-forward role. He showed flashes of being capable of taking on that challenging role down the stretch of last season. Why not give him an entire game to see if he can be Portland's version of Luka Doncic or Cade Cunningham as a jumbo playmaker?
Portland's starting lineup dilemma is a problem that will carry over into the start of the regular season. Billups won't realistically know what works best with just three games of experimentation left, not when he's wasting opportunities like this. If this trial-and-error approach carries over into the regular season, it's going to cost Portland valuable games, which they can't afford to have happen in the stacked Western Conference.