The Trail Blazers Have 'Unlocked' Deandre Ayton

Another dominant night powered Portland to a win over the Hawks.

📸: Alika Jenner, Getty Images

📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — Deandre Ayton’s introduction to the Trail Blazers, all the way back in October, set all of this up, for better and for worse.

At media day, less than a week after he arrived in Portland from Phoenix as part of the three-team Damian Lillard trade, Ayton was asked one of the classic softball questions: what do you bring to the team?

“I bring dominance,” Ayton said that day. “My name is DominAyton.”

It was a good icebreaker, but even in the moment it was clear he was setting himself up for ridicule in what everyone knew from the moment Lillard requested a trade was going to be a difficult rebuilding season. Because of how his Suns tenure ended, he was always going to be an easy target. Giving himself that nickname—which he has inked across his upper back—didn’t help.

When Ayton picked up four fouls in the first half of his Blazers debut against the Clippers, or had a generally up-and-down November and December, or missed a game in January because an ice storm kept him from leaving his house, the “DominAyton” line was going to be thrown back in his face, and he only had himself to blame for it.

It’s been a little less of a joke in the last six weeks, though. Starting with the Jan. 24 road win in Houston, and with few exceptions, Ayton has been what the Blazers hoped they were getting when they pursued him during the Lillard trade talks.

He’s knocking down midrange shots (53 percent from the long midrange, in the 90th percentile on Cleaning the Glass), rebounding at a high clip and playing solid interior defense. In an ugly first half against Atlanta on Wednesday, he singlehandedly kept Portland close and, along with Anfernee Simons, led the way in the second half as the Blazers picked up their 19th win of the season.

A season-high 33 points on 15-of-20 shooting along with 19 rebounds, less than a week after a 30-point, 19-rebound performance in a win over Toronto, earns you the right to be the one making the “DominAyton” jokes.

“Coming into these games, I’m trying to do everything,” he said Wednesday night. “Not only do my requirements, my role for this team, but do a lot more. That’s where I’m at. I’m more dominant. People like to laugh at it, but it’s the truth.”

Ayton was then asked why he thought it was that people laughed at him calling himself “DominAyton.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just be trying to bust that ass. I listen and I hear it and I love it. I thank these haters for it. It’s making me approach this game the right way. Carry the PDX on my back all the way. I thank them. I’m wearing the cape all the way.

“That’s why I’m in the position I’m in. I go through the extent of it. Whether I look like the bad guy or not. I’m trying to be great. I’m trying to be a winner in this league. I’m trying to be known as that guy. You’re around me, you’re gonna learn how to win.”

The Blazers haven’t been doing much winning—they’re 4-13 in February and March, with two of those four wins coming against a Memphis team even more banged-up than they are—but as they’re getting healthier, they feel like they’ve found something consistent with the way Ayton has been playing.

“I think we’ve unlocked him,” Chauncey Billups said. “We’re getting the best version of him. He’s been a monster.”

In particular, after both were out with injuries at different points, Ayton has been getting extended run with Simons, and it’s benefitted both of them.

“I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty lit right now,” Ayton said. “We watch film together and we do our little whispers and our ‘one-two punch’ talks. He’s number one and I’m number two. That’s kind of fire right there.”

That right there is who Ayton is. He’s loud and boisterous, and can be moody at times. His focus can come and go—it’s mostly been there this season, but there’s a reason that was his rep in Phoenix. But in the time I’ve had to know him since the start of training camp, he’s been everybody else’s biggest cheerleader. He credited Matisse Thybulle’s late block of a Bogdan Bogdanovic jumper and Toumani Camara’s rebound of his missed free throw with saving the game. He’s lately taken to calling Kris Murray a “two-way superstar.” And not for the first time, in discussing his chemistry with Simons, he compared him to a former Suns teammate he co-starred with on a 2021 run to the Finals.

“In the pick-and-roll, I just kind of feel him out,” he said. “I’ve been playing against Ant for quite some time, since we’ve been in the league, and I knew his game. I played with D. Book back in Phoenix, and that’s similar to his style of play. Setting screens and knowing what he wants. Sometimes, he wants to be on the ball, and sometimes he wants to be ball-dominant. I’m just reading him, whether he wants me in the pocket or not.

“Everything’s flowing. We have this little language going on. It’s like our body language. Eye contact and things like that. We know what the defense is giving us, and it’s like music. It’s just good chemistry. Making good music. He knows what I want, I know what he wants.”