The Portland Trail Blazers made some solid improvements during the offseason and this might be the best team Damian Lillard will play on since he was drafted in 2012.
Lillard was masterful last season, willing the injury-riddled Blazers into the playoffs before losing to the eventual champion Lakers. However, this season everyone seems to be healthy and the Blazers may be primed for their best season in recent memory.
On the Locked On Blazers Podcast, host Mike Richman answers listener questions about the Trail Blazers season and how Damian Lillard should be a top MVP candidate this season.
Mike Richman: Damian Lillard was the best player in the NBA for about 11 games last year, for two and a half weeks. From the end of January to the beginning of February last year he was just on an absolute tear and that included a game where he had 60 points against the Warriors because the Blazers desperately needed him to bail them out. They're better than that this year. If he is about as good as he was last year, if he averages 30 points, pushes up towards nine assists per game, shoots the three at an incredibly high level as he did a year ago… There are going to be guys who have better statistical years than him, let's just get that out of the way. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, probably James Harden are going to have these crazy monster stat years that Dame just can't touch because he doesn't play that way. He doesn't dominate the ball in the sort of same way that Harden does, he's not the rebounder that Giannis and Luke are, the counting numbers just aren't going to be there.
If the Blazers are a 55-win team, I think that's about the threshold, Dame is going to be a top-three MVP candidate. If the Blazers finished second in the West, Damian Lillard is going to be top two and maybe your MVP. The bar is really high, and he's certainly capable of clearing it but what he did last year is an MVP-type season. He just needs to play on a team that wins 55 games. That's it.
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