Trail Blazers Update Injury Return Picture for Several Players
The latest on Jrue Holiday, Matisse Thybulle, Scoot Henderson and Jerami Grant.
The Blazers brought Greg Oden back to Portland this season. It's time to finish the job.
The Trail Blazers can't do anything else to control the outcome of May 12's draft lottery.
With the regular season over, there are no more games to lose and no more standings-watching to engage in. Earlier this week, they lost a tiebreaker drawing with Phoenix and will be slotted 10th, rather than ninth, in odds, with a 3.7 percent chance at landing Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick and a 16.9 percent chance of moving into the top four.
Those odds are set in stone. The Blazers' chances aren't zero, but they also aren't great.
All they can do now, while they wait to learn their fate, is try to shift the vibes in their favor by other means. The easiest way to do that is nailing the selection for their lottery representative, the person who will stand onstage in Chicago during the ESPN broadcast where the draft order is revealed.
With their odds not as high as expected after a 36-46 season, it's more important than ever for the Blazers to get this right. And there's a clear choice.
The following is a collection of facts: