📍DENVER — The Trail Blazers' marathon early-season road schedule continues. I just got into Denver earlier today, and they play the Nuggets tomorrow, followed by the Suns and Lakers before coming home for a week and then heading out on another six-gamer.
When the schedule came out in August, I wrote that it was one of the worst I had ever seen, and the really tough part is about to begin in earnest. But the Blazers, despite losing Ja Morant for at least the next month, are 4-1 on the season and have a lot of things to be happy about.
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The big story: The NBA's injury crisis comes for the Blazers
The following is a non-exhaustive list of star players who have gone down with major injuries in the first week and a half of the 2026-27 NBA season:
Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace (both likely out for the year) and Chet Holmgren (out at least two months).
Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton (out at least two weeks).
Utah's Jaren Jackson Jr. (out six to eight weeks)
Minnesota's Anthony Edwards (out at least two months).
Toronto's Kawhi Leonard (out three to four weeks).
Until Thursday, the idea of three of the Blazers' four fellow Northwest Division teams dealing with major injuries meant the door was wide open for Portland, with good health, to overachieve in the regular season and potentially compete for a top-four seed.
But on Thursday night, in their first and only loss to the season at home against the still-undefeated Memphis Grizzlies, Ja Morant exited with what Nori described as a "twinge" in his left hamstring. The following day, the team announced that Morant had been diagnosed with a grade 2 strain, which would sideline him for at least four weeks.
Now, the Blazers and Morant are added to the growing list of injuries around the league that have defined the opening part of the season and marred what was looking like a strong start. Morant was fitting much better than expected in the starting lineup next to Damian Lillard through four games, and was arguably the Blazers' best player in the first half of the loss to Memphis before he got hurt.
Now, the Blazers will have to get through the next month-plus without Morant, whose durability has been a knock against him over the past three seasons. This was always one of the risks of trading for him, and it's why Portland didn't make a trade to free up their logjam in the backcourt.
"I don't know if it's called the pundits or whatever," Nori quipped on Saturday before the Blazers' win over the Jazz. "When they were kind of on us about having all these [guards], they're fading quickly. I mean, with no Shaedon and no Ja, 40 percent of the five that they said we had too many are fading. So good job."
It's a big spot for Scoot Henderson to fill in for Morant as a starter, and the first run of it was a mixed bag. It's also a big spot for Nori, who has to find a way to manage these rotations over the next four-plus weeks while keeping minutes down for Lillard and Holiday.
The Blazers' schedule coming up is tough, with games against Denver, the Lakers, New York, Philadelphia, and two each against San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Minnesota before the end of November. If they can get through Thanksgiving still on the right side of .500, they're in good shape. Banking these early wins helps immensely.
Other notes
Lakers coach J.J. Redick spoke before Tuesday's game about Matisse Thybulle: “I haven’t asked him this yet, but I feel like Matisse is the type of guy that, when the season ends, a lot of guys probably go to Vegas, Turks and Caicos, Miami. He finds a cabin in Montana to go be by himself and meditate for two weeks.” Redick was joking, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.
Free-throw shooting was an inexplicable issue for the Blazers all last season. There were at least a handful of games they lost by only a few points, where they missed double-digit free throws. That trend is continuing this year: in the win over the Lakers, they missed 15 free throws and nine in the loss to Memphis. Even Lillard, a career 89.8 percent foul shooter, missed four in the Lakers game and two in the Grizzlies game. Something to continue monitoring.
With Robert Williams III missing games for injury management and Donovan Clingan frequently in foul trouble, the third-string center spot has become even more important. And after Branden Carlson and Micah Potter both struggled in the Grizzlies loss, Nori praised Yang Hansen's minutes in the win over the Jazz. Something else to monitor.
Toumani Camara's longtime girlfriend, Jane Lopez, revealed yesterday on Instagram that the two of them are now engaged. The proposal took place in Spain, according to her post, so it must have happened before training camp started and they're just going public with it now. Either way, congrats to them.
Speaking of Camara, I wrote earlier in the week about his hot start shooting the three, and he hasn't cooled off since then. He shot 3-for-8 in the loss to Memphis and 4-for-9 in the win over Utah. He's now 20-for-39 from deep on the season.
Fire offseason updates
🔥 The WNBA finally announced the date, time and odds for next year's draft lottery. The drawing will air on ESPN on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 4:30 p.m. Pacific time. The Fire, having finished with the fifth-worst record in the WNBA (and the two expansion teams only having this season count towards the two-year cumulative odds), will have a 5.2 percent chance at landing the No. 1 overall pick and a 10.1 percent chance at moving into the top two. 🔥 The four teams ahead of Portland in the lottery odds are the newly relocated and rebranded Houston Comets and Portland's sister 2026 expansion franchise the Toronto Tempo (each with a 32.9 percent chance at the No. 1 pick); the Washington Mystics, who own Chicago's pick from one of the Sky's many ill-advised and shortsighted trades (16.1 percent); and the Seattle Storm (9.3 percent). The Los Angeles Sparks own the two picks after Portland, their own at No. 6 (2.4 percent) and the one they got from Phoenix at the deadline in the Kelsey Plum trade at No. 7 (1.2 percent). 🔥 If Portland doesn't land in the top two and get the opportunity to take Juju Watkins or Madison Booker, it's going to be interesting to see what they do. Their biggest roster need is size and rim protection, and the 2027 draft class is very guard-heavy at the top. 🔥 As the Indy Starfirst reported, the Indiana Fever are hiring Sheri Sam as assistant GM. Sam, who played in the WNBA for 10 seasons from 1999 to 2008 and was part of championship teams in Seattle and Detroit, worked in Joe Cronin's front office for four years as scouting manager. She was one of the 70 Blazers employees let go in May as part of the new ownership group's massive budget cuts. She then spent the Fire's inaugural season working as a studio analyst on Rose City SportsNet's pre- and postgame show. The timing of Sam's hiring is unusual—the Fever fired GM Amber Cox last week, and are hiring Sam as AGM before hiring the person she'll report to. In her new gig, Sam is expected to focus on scouting and analytics, similar to her role with the Blazers. 🔥 Megan DiLeo officially launched her new business, The Inspired Bookshelf. Details to come. 🔥 Finally, thanks to Saturday's Blazers-Jazz game being an early-afternoon tip, I was able to get back to my hotel in plenty of time for Game 7 of the WNBA Finals between Atlanta and Golden State, which the Valkyries won on the back of an absolutely unreal two-way performance from Gabby Williams, who scored 28 points in the second half and made some huge defensive plays. Seeing an expansion team win the title in their second season of existence has to make the Fire's front office think about what's possible in year two and beyond. They didn't make the playoffs in their first season like Golden State did, but they won 17 games, which is more than most people (including me) thought they would as an expansion team. They have two bonafide franchise stars in Carla Leite and Bridget Carleton, and the controversial and unconventional hiring of Alex Sarama as head coach has worked out very well so far. It's worth pointing out that Fire GM Vanja Černivec was VP of basketball operations for the Valkyries in their inaugural season before taking this job, and built much of the roster that just won the title along with GM Ohemaa Nyanin.
This week
✈️ Monday: at Denver (6 p.m., Ball Arena) ✈️ Wednesday: at Phoenix (6 p.m., Mortgage Matchup Center) ✈️ Friday: at L.A. Lakers (7 p.m., Crypto.com Arena, Amazon Prime) 🏠 Saturday: vs. San Antonio (7 p.m., Moda Center)
Jersey of the week
Rip City Remix legends Ashton Hagans and my guy Ibou Badji. The bar has been set very high for the rest of the season.
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Sean Highkin
Sean Highkin
Sean Highkin
Sean Highkin
Sean Highkin
