Ranking the 10 Blazers who need to play the most minutes the rest of this season

Which young players should get the most run down the stretch and where do the vets fit in?
Jabari Walker, Portland Trail Blazers
Jabari Walker, Portland Trail Blazers / Alika Jenner/GettyImages
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 10
Next

The 2024 NBA trade deadline has come and gone. Malcolm Brogdon and Jerami Grant are still in Portland, while the Trail Blazers added Delano Banton from the Boston Celtics and called up Ashton Hagans from the Rip City Remix and signed him to a 10-day contract.

The lack of activity from Portland General Manager Joe Cronin has some Blazers fans perturbed; regardless, this is the roster head coach Chauncey Billups has to work with for the rest of the 2023-24 season (Hagans and other potential 10-day signings notwithstanding).

The Trail Blazers are not postseason-bound; at 15-37, Portland is headed for a top-5 draft pick and will likely siphon minutes away from Brogdon, Grant, Matisse Thybulle and other veterans over the final two months and allow Scoot Henderson, Anfernee Simons and other young, potential cornerstones take the reigns.

Still, those vets have their place in the pecking order. Cronin kept them on the roster for a reason.

So how does Billups' rotation shake out between now and the Blazers' final game on April 14?

Ranking the 10 Trail Blazers who need the most minutes the rest of the 2023-24 season

Here are the Portland players who should get the most run down the stretch of this regular season, ranked from 10 to 1.

10. Toumani Camara

Despite being a rookie, Camara is a relatively finished product as a four-year college starter who will be 24 years old at the beginning of next season.

Make no mistake: He may be the best on-court asset Portland landed in the Damian Lillard trade. He's been more than a pleasant surprise. Camara played his way into the starting lineup for 31 games and has proven to be a reliable defender at 6-foot-8 and 220 pounds. He's going to be a part of the rotation for as long as he's in Portland.

But he's an already well-rounded player who fits a role. The likelihood he turns into anything more is slim. All Toumani needs to unlock now is a respectable 3-point shot - he's shooting just 29.1 percent from deep - and that's a skill he can work on during the offseason.