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📍MINNEAPOLIS — The Trail Blazers made it here unscathed, and so did I.
Friday's win over the Sacramento Kings was the first game all season I've missed, and that turned out to be a good decision given the airport chaos that day. The Blazers were unaffected, having flown to Sacramento the day before. I dodged the ground stop by a day, too, and made it to Minneapolis without issue. I'll be with the team for the rest of this six-game road trip: the games today and tomorrow against the Timberwolves, Thursday in Milwaukee, Saturday in New York and next Monday in Philadelphia.
After that, this insanely road-heavy schedule calms down for a little bit. The Blazers have five games in a row at home leading into the gap in the schedule for the Emirates NBA Cup™️ knockout and makeup games.
When the schedule was released, I wrote about how brutal the Blazers' early schedule was, heavy on road games and matchups with contending teams (including four coming up on this trip). Eleven games into that stretch of 12 of their first 17 games being on the road, the Blazers are 8-3 with a good chance to get, at the very least, a 3-3 finish of this first marathon road trip. They took care of Sacramento on Friday and play the similarly awful Bucks on Thursday. If they beat the Bucks and split this back-to-back in Minnesota, that guarantees at least a .500 road trip even if they lose to both the Knicks and 76ers. Then, they come home to one more game where they won't be favored (against the Spurs the day before Thanksgiving) and two more where they should be, against the Stephen Curry-less Warriors and the 4-10 New Orleans Pelicans. Closing out the month of November with a 13-7 record at the quarter mark of the season is very much on the table.
That's also right around the time Ja Morant could return from the hamstring injury that's sidelined him since the fourth game of the season. The Blazers have gone 5-2 in his absence despite Scoot Henderson struggling in his move to the starting lineup. If they can get through the next two weeks before they potentially get him back, they're in great shape.
This is the last road trip I'll be going on for a few months—I made the decision when I saw the schedule to devote the bulk of my travel budget for the season to this early gauntlet, because that will tell us the most about where this team is. So far, they're passing every test.
If you've been on Blazers Twitter for the past several years, you've undoubtedly seen that acronym. It stands for "The Blazers Are Going To Win The Championship." It was used ironically for years during the rebuild.
Now, it doesn't seem that far-fetched.
The Blazers have started off hot before, most notably their 10-3 opening run to the 2022-23 season that went off the rails with injuries. Because of that, I've held off on declaring this team to be "actually good" as I waited to see more.
I fully believe now.
There isn't much about this start that feels fluky or unsustainable. Micah Nori seems to be hitting all the right notes and has gotten complete buy-in from everybody. Damian Lillard and Deni Avdija are a perfect fit together, Toumani Camara is taking an offensive leap and their depth (Jrue Holiday, Robert Williams III and Sidy Cissoko) has come up big. Morant should be back soon, and once they get through this road trip, the worst of that nightmare schedule will be over.
I still don't believe, on paper, that this team is a legitimate title contender. But I went into the season expecting another play-in finish, and now I think it would be a disappointment if they don't finish in the top six in the Western Conference. From there, all bets are off. Could they get a top-four seed and home-court advantage in the first round? I don't see why not. Everyone outside of San Antonio is pretty close together, and the Blazers have already beaten the Lakers once. Could they win a first-round series if they get the right matchup? It's definitely possible.
This is what Adam Silver was hoping for with the so-called "parity era." Teams like the Blazers, who are talented but lacking in top-end star power like Victor Wembanyama or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, get to say, "Why can't we be this year's Pacers and make a run?"
Other notes
Friday's win over the Kings was the Blazers' second Emirates NBA Cup™️ game, following last Friday's loss to the Lakers. They're now 1-1 in group play with a point differential of +7. The Spurs are the overwhelming favorites to advance at 2-0 with a +53 point differential; the Kings are all but out of it, and the Blazers are tied with the Lakers and the Warriors in the standings but are the only one of those three teams with a positive point differential, should it come to that. Next Wednesday's game against the Spurs will be the decider. If they win that one, they at least have a shot at advancing. If they lose, it's probably a wrap.
One of my favorite stats of the year, and the most emblematic of how this team is playing: despite being third in the league in points per game (119.6) and tied for second in offensive efficiency (120.4 points per 100 possessions), Avdija's 34-point performance against Sacramento on Friday was the first time all season that any individual Blazers player scored at least 30 points in a game. It goes to show that all the talk of unselfishness and sacrifice with these guys isn't just talk: they genuinely don't care who gets the stats as long as they're winning. The Blazers aren't winning games because of outlier scoring performances by players who can't sustain it; they're doing it collectively.
Robert Williams III played both ends of the back-to-back against Oklahoma City, the first time he's played two days in a row since he was a Celtic. Nori said they felt comfortable playing him in the second game because he only played 15 minutes in the first game and he felt good afterwards. It sounds like it's going to be a case-by-case situation moving forward depending on how many minutes he plays on the front end. We'll see what happens tomorrow and Tuesday against the Timberwolves.
The third-center spot is something Nori is still experimenting with. Yang Hansen had his first career double-double in last Saturday's loss to San Antonio, and Nori went with Branden Carlson in the two Thunder games. Carlson played well and looks to have the spot for now.
The team issued an official update on Vít Krejčí's status after he fractured his left ankle in Phoenix last week. He underwent surgery on Wednesday and will be re-evaluated in eight weeks, which is a lot shorter of a timeline than you'd expect for an injury that serious. Relatively good news, all things considered.
Speaking of averting disaster: the right foot injury Chris Youngblood suffered in the first Thunder game is just a bone bruise. In the moment, there was fear that it was a fracture like the one that sidelined Blake Wesley for three months last season. Instead, Youngblood is day-to-day and avoided anything serious.
Ownership and arena drama has been largely out of view since the season started, with Tom Dundon's central thesis that most fans will overlook anything if the team is winning proving to be true. But on Friday, The Oregonianreported that the Blazers and the city of Portland are all but certain to miss the December deadline to complete a 20-year lease agreement to unlock the $365 million in state bonds that make up over half of the combined $586 million funding package for Moda Center renovations. I have many thoughts on how this has played out and what it could mean going forward, but I'll save them until it's official that there's no deal at the end of the year. My overall read of the situation hasn't changed since I wrote about it at length in August.
Semi-related: In an appearance on Inside the NBA this week, Shams Charania reiterated what's been known for a while, that the NBA plans to have a decision on expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle by the end of the calendar year. There are three groups still in the running for Las Vegas, and the primary group in contention for Seattle is headed by Kraken owner Samantha Holloway and also includes Melinda Gates. The two groups that lose out on the Vegas team may still want to own an NBA team and will have over $10 billion each in raised capital. If nothing else, worth filing away.
🔥 We are hours away from finding out where the Fire will be picking in the first round of the 2027 draft. The lottery will take place tonight at 4:30 Pacific time on ESPN, with ping-pong balls being drawn for the top two picks and the other five slotting in by record. Portland, with the fifth-worst record in the league in its inaugural season, will have a 5.2 percent chance at the No. 1 overall pick and a 10.1 percent chance of moving up into the top two; otherwise, they'll pick fifth, sixth or seventh. Not high odds, but not zero. 🔥 The Fire's onstage lottery rep will be assistant coach Sylvia Fowles, so if the basketball gods are factoring in vibes in any way, they're in great shape. 🔥 Also among the team lottery reps: another WNBA all-time great and Hall of Famer, Tina Thompson, representing the newly relocated and rebranded Houston Comets. Thompson spent the last four years as a scout for the Blazers before being among the 70 organizational layoffs in May. This would be a sign that she's going to have some kind of front-facing role with the new iteration of the Comets, where she was the WNBA's first-ever No. 1 overall pick in 1997. The presumptive top pick in the upcoming draft, Juju Watkins, plays at Thompson's alma mater, USC. 🔥 Another Thompson-Blazers connection in addition to her four years working for the organization: she and Lillard have been close friends for years (they're both clients of Aaron Goodwin) and Lillard, in his role as general manager of the men's basketball team at Weber State, recruited Thompson's son, Dyllan, in the transfer portal. Dyllan previously played at Georgia Tech under a head coach whose name you might also know: Damon Stoudamire. 🔥 In addition to tonight's lottery, some other upcoming WNBA dates were revealed at this week's league meetings. With no labor talks holding things up, the league is going to have a normal offseason. Opening day will be May 7, and the latest possible date for a Game 7 of the Finals is Oct. 24. Free agency should start in late January or early February, and players will report to training camp in April. Look for the schedule to be released sometime in December or January. The league hopes to have a new commissioner to replace Cathy Engelbert by the end of the calendar year. 🔥 If the Blazers and the city do indeed miss the deadline to get a lease deal done by the end of the year, that will mean the renovations almost certainly won't start this summer as planned, and the Fire could play the 2027 season at Moda Center instead of having to relocate to Veterans Memorial Coliseum. 🔥 Serah Williams has joined a Polish team, Wisła Kraków.
This week
✈️ Monday: at Minnesota (5 p.m., Target Center) ✈️ Tuesday: at Minnesota (5 p.m., Target Center) ✈️ Thursday: at Milwaukee (5 p.m., Fiserv Forum) ✈️ Saturday: at New York (4:30 p.m., Madison Square Garden)
Jersey of the week
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Sean Highkin
Sean Highkin
Sean Highkin
