With many of the recent Trail Blazers headlines surrounding the shrewd business regarding Toumani Camara and Shaedon Sharpe, there's renewed pressure on them to deliver at levels exceeding last year's play. Pundits across NBA media have weighed in on whether or not these extensions are worth the money and how either player steps up their respective games. While those are valid questions, the fulcrum to their collective lever is a different player: Donovan Clingan.
Camara and Sharpe made great strides in 2025; both players have improved year over year since being in the league, and the inking of extensions signals the front office's faith in that trend continuing. Both stars averaged close to 32 minutes per game that year, and the absence of several players from last year's team might nudge that up a bit, but both players also started when available and closed out important games without being gassed down the stretch. This is when the idea of "quality minutes" comes into play—how might their play be impacted if fatigue were a factor?
Donovan Clingan is ready to give Portland more quality minutes
Clingan averaged a mere 14 minutes per game last season before February 10, Ayton's last game with the Blazers. After that, he averaged 24.5 minutes per game. At UConn, Clingan played 22.5 minutes per contest at a slower pace. Because of the NCAA's longer shot clock and offensive rebound clock resets, coupled with shorter periods, the overall pace of NCAA basketball is about 11 possessions slower in the same amount of NBA minutes.
Overall, this means that Clingan was forced into more minutes at a faster pace than he played at UConn, meaning fewer quality minutes for Clingan, i.e., minutes in which fatigue was less of a factor. And as the post-Ayton (and Robert Williams III) season unfolded, those quality minutes slowly diminished. With just one traditional backup in Duop Reath, Clingan was called upon to play more, including 34 minutes in a game against the Knicks, where he was forced to chase Karl-Anthony Towns around the court for the duration.
While Clingan's timing and rim protection are already borderline elite, the biggest room for improvement is his stamina and conditioning. Indeed, Clingan showed up to press conferences and preseason games looking noticeably slimmer, and he played nearly 29 minutes in the final preseason game against the Utah Jazz. As teams use these games to experiment with lineups and ramp up to "regular season mode," it is encouraging to see Clingan play so many minutes in the finale.
Eclipsing that 29-minute mark during the regular season may be a rarity, but Clingan's improved conditioning ensures that the minutes will be of a higher quality by cutting down on stamina lapses. With rookie Yang Hansen's playing time just as much of a question mark on opening night as it was on draft day, Clingan is locked in to playing a sizable chunk of extra minutes with respect to last season.