The Blazers Are Back to Being Fun

Armed with talent on either side of the ball and a healthy Damian Lillard, Portland is once again an intriguing team to watch. Plus, the rookie class is making noise.

It would be more than fair to say much of last year was dismal for the Blazers and their fans.

The details and particulars of the Chauncey Billups hire came into question, and the executive who made the hire—and urged people to trust he’d done all the necessary due diligence into the matter—was then terminated following an independent investigation into the workplace culture he fostered.

There was often a lack of fun on the court, too. Early on, franchise player Damian Lillard looked like a shell of himself while dealing with an abdominal injury that would later require surgery. CJ McCollum, a longtime fan favorite despite the team’s core having been held together for too long, was dealt to New Orleans a couple days before the February trade deadline.

But for how joyless things were in Rip City last season, this campaign has been a different story altogether.

The Blazers became the league’s only 4-0 team Monday, drilling Denver, 135–110, all while featuring six scorers who finished with more points than Nikola Jokić, the reigning two-time MVP.

Lillard finished with a game-high 31 points, but the most electric moments of the contest belonged to 23-year-old Anfernee Simons, who logged a dominant 22-point quarter in the third, hitting six triples in that window to send the Portland crowd into a tizzy.

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Damian Lillard and Ant Simons have led the Blazers to a 4-0 start.  :: Jaime Valdez/USA TODAY Sports

That’s part of what’s been so fun about the Blazers to this point. Simons, one of the only true bright spots from a dark 2021–22 campaign, had a chance to spread his wings last season. He took advantage, more than doubling his scoring output to 17.3 points per game on better than 40% from deep. It put him in a better position to occasionally lead alongside Lillard. And Lillard—for all he’s accomplished individually as a star—has trusted Simons to take that role.

In the team’s home opener last week, with a tie game against Phoenix and the clock ticking down into single digits, Lillard opted to hand the ball over to Simons. It didn’t matter how many game-winners Lillard had notched throughout his career. It didn’t matter that Simons had Mikal Bridges, a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year last season, guarding him on the perimeter.

The result was Simons penetrating into the lane in overtime and hitting a tough hook shot on Bridges to beat the club that logged the best record in the league last season.

“I told him: I trust you,” Lillard said of the game-winning sequence with Simons. “Put your big boy pants on. You got the big contract. You got the game. You put the work in. We spend a lot of time together. And it comes down to trust. I had it going [against the Suns], and I felt really good tonight. But I told him: I trust you, and I’m gonna look at moments like this and show you that I really trust you—I’m not just saying it. And he came through for us.”

Having Lillard and his leadership back makes a world of difference, as does the fact that the Blazers are getting to the line 25 times per night, 55% more often than they did last season.

Above all else, though, the current roster is far more versatile and disruptive than it was before. Jerami Grant has been a fantastic fit on both ends. The oft-injured Justise Winslow has undoubtedly been a boon for the defense. And Josh Hart, who came over in the McCollum deal and has long been one of the league’s best transition players, jumpstarts the team in the open floor. (He’s also averaging 10.3 rebounds per game while standing just 6’ 5”.) None of this even touches on offseason pickup Gary Payton II yet, as he’s on the mend from an injury to his core.

We’re even seeing glimpses of exactly what made Shaedon Sharpe, the No. 7 overall pick, such an intriguing gamble for this team to take. The athleticism is there. The range was on display Monday night. He makes good use of ball fakes and has incredible body control in traffic. Billups trusted Sharpe enough to make him the first player off the bench in the win over Denver.

It’s too soon to know what all of this means. But the Blazers are armed with talent on both sides of the ball, and if they stay healthy, they’ll be both highly entertaining and intriguing as we head into April and May.

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Meat and potatoes: Good reads from SI this past week

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

• Chris Mannix has you covered with respect to the reigning Eastern Conference champion Celtics. He penned today’s Daily Cover feature: an exclusive sitdown with Boston’s interim coach Joe Mazzulla, who opened up not only about his checkered past, but the moments in his life that ultimately led up to this one.

• Mannix also wrote a feature on Celtics star Jayson Tatum, and the inevitability of him taking over the league at some point in the near future.

• Howard Beck had a Daily Cover last week on Golden State’s James Wiseman, the former No. 2 overall pick who returned to the court after missing the entirety of his second year in the NBA.

• Rohan Nadkarni was in San Francisco and wrote on the Warriors in the aftermath of their ring-night victory to begin the season.

• Jeremy Woo, SI’s draft analyst, wrote on 7-foot-4 phenom Victor Wembanyama and the Race to the Bottom he’s prompted.

• With one week of the season in the books, Kyle Wood helped formulate our first iteration of NBA power rankings.

Some love for the rookies

Rookie Paolo Banchero has joined elite company after scoring 20 or more points in each of his first four games :: Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports

It’s so tempting for some to look ahead to next year’s lottery. But it couldn’t be clearer that there’s ample value in watching the Magic, Pacers and Pistons, among others, because of the youngsters they already have on the roster.

• Orlando’s Paolo Banchero finds himself in elite company after having smoothly notched 20 points in each of his first four games—an enormous bright spot given that the Magic have started 0–4. What stands out about him is what often stood out about LeBron: he creates so many of his own opportunities—and so many for his teammates—despite being the new kid on the block. And that’s highly unusual. His comfort level jumps off the screen from night to night. At just 3-for-16 from three, Banchero has struggled from deep. But if and when he gets more consistent from there, it’ll be even more of a conundrum for defenses as to how to defend him.

• Bennedict Mathurin, my preseason pick for Rookie of the Year, looks set to be a scoring machine for the next decade plus. Monday marked his worst game of the season, and he still managed to shoot 6-for-9 and drop 15 points in just the second half of the Pacers’ loss in Philadelphia. Mathurin is averaging 22.3 per night on 48.4% shooting and certainly isn’t shy with the ball. He’ll get plenty of opportunities playing next to a point guard like Tyrese Haliburton.

• Keegan Murray has been a total natural in Sacramento. His first NBA basket, a triple, came off a pass that wasn’t even intended for him. He consistently manages to find soft spots in the defense and, much like someone like teammate Harrison Barnes, looks like the sort of player who would fit with any team. Don’t get it twisted, though: it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if the guy becomes a star as opposed to someone who merely fits in. He logged 19 points in his debut, then followed it up with 16 in his second outing.

• We certainly can’t leave out Jaden Ivey, who’s been fantastic for Detroit thus far. What stands out about him is that he looks really comfortable playing alongside Cade Cunningham, but also seems at ease when he has to make something happen for someone else. His first regular-season basket as a pro stemmed from an intuitive cut he made after a Cunningham drive. He’s logging six assists per game to go with the 17.6 points he averages on 50% shooting, fantastic efficiency for a rookie guard.

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