Portland Trail Blazers’ Recent Struggles & Damian Lillard’s Future
What is going on in Portland with the Trail Blazers? This team has made the playoffs each of the last eight seasons and while they may make it nine straight years this season, the Blazers are looking far away from being a real playoff threat.
Currently 22nd in the league in net defensive rating, Portland is still trying to figure things out on defense and their overall upside is limited because they are just simply missing talent. CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard are two elite-level scoring talents, but relying on Jusuf Nurkic, Robert Covington, and Norman Powell to be their secondary scorers is a recipe for disaster.
All three guys play their roles great for Portland, but this team is not close to being a championship contender like Damian Lillard wants them to be.
There were a lot of rumors in the offseason about Lillard possibly requesting a trade and while he has remained firm on his stance of remaining in Portland, the question being presented now is: “How long?”
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How long is Damian Lillard willing to wait around and lose in Portland, especially since he is in the prime of his career?
He can point his finger at what needs to happen all he wants, but at the end of the day, for this team to reach its full potential, Dame himself needs to be better.
Damian Lillard is only averaging 19.3 points, 8.3 assists and is shooting just 25.5% from three-point range this season. He is not the sole reason for his team being very shaky to begin the year, as they have a lot of problems to fix both internally and on the floor, but him complaining about the referees and bad calls is not helping the situation.
Portland has plenty of time to turn things around and they do have the talent to be a playoff team in the Western Conference again, but if they are to win a first-round series and possible make a run back to the Western Conference Finals for the first-time since 2019, they are going to need to make some big moves via trade.
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This team is assembled to win in the regular season right now, but not assembled to win when it matters most in the postseason. Damian Lillard’s situation moving forward still remains very cloudy, as the All-Star could request out at any time.