The holiday season is in full swing, but the Portland Trail Blazers haven't exactly enjoyed much good cheer.
They're 13-19 over the first nine weeks of the regular season, tumbling to 11th in the Western Conference after losing 11 of the last 14 games. Even Portland's recent hopes of a quick turnaround proved short-lived. Chauncey Billups' team followed up impressive back-to-back wins over the Charlotte Hornets and Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday with a dispiriting double-digit loss to the New Orleans Pelicans.
The holidays can be a time for revival, though, and it never comes easier than in the form of gifts under the tree. Here are the three most important things on Damian Lillard and the Blazers' Christmas wish list.
A full stable of rotation players
Portland has been extremely fortunate to not have a single player enter health-and-safety protocols this season. While that's likely bound to change given the rash of positive COVID-19 tests across the league and worldwide surge of the Omicron variant, the Blazers have been subject to multiple non-virus absences for weeks ongoing regardless.
Lillard returned on December 12th after missing five games while resting his sore midsection. C.J. McCollum has been sidelined since December 6th due to a collapsed right lung, and will be out at least another week despite the team announcing Thursday that he was fully healed. Cody Zeller's missed the last seven games with a small fracture to his right patellar; like McCollum, he's set to be re-evaluted next week.
Nassir Little, Tony Snell and Dennis Smith Jr. have each missed one recent game. Hamstring tightness had Lillard initially listed as questionable for the New Orleans game, while Jusuf Nurkic was also questionable on several injury reports of late—with a right finger sprain and left rib contusion—before ultimately taking the floor.
The entire league is being forced to manage with sudden, lengthy absences of multiple players. The Blazers are lucky to have avoided a COVID-19 outbreak, not to mention endured fewer missed games due to injury or health-and-safety protocols than most teams in the NBA.
NBA injury plot. Games missed by injured players versus team wins. Bubble size represents cumulative quality of players lost (Lost-ws metric) https://t.co/gYG4FmPH33 pic.twitter.com/6pkswMiq7r
— Man Games Lost NBA (@ManGamesLostNBA) December 21, 2021
Continuity has long been this team's strength, though, and overhauling the bench while implementing the two-way schemes of a completely new coaching staff was always going to ensure Portland lacked it compared to years past. But as Lillard and Billups suggested after the loss to New Orleans, the Blazers' revolving door of available players on a nightly basis has made mustering a lasting sliver of that continuity even more arduous.
Luckier opponent three-point shooting
Portland has obviously yet to master the aggressive, help-based defensive system Billups prefers. Even if that was possible, questions would no doubt remain about this roster's ability to maximize an approach on defense that's normally been reserved for teams with the length, athleticism and versatility it so sorely lacks.
But even the most talented defensive outfits don't have much control over opponents' accuracy from beyond the arc, and that's where the Blazers could use a helping hand from Santa. They're allowing 38.1% three-point shooting this season, per Cleaning the Glass, 24th-worst in the NBA. Opponents are shooting a league-high 39.6% from deep when there isn't a Portland defender within 4-6 feet of them, too, according to NBA.com/stats.
As hard as the eye test often makes it to believe, Portland isn't hemorrhaging triples in 2021-22. Opponents are taking 37.9% of their shots from three against the Blazers, an essentially league-average rate. The bigger problem is that those long balls have fallen at a problematic frequency thus far, and data analysts deemed long ago that defenses—even ones permitting higher number of open threes and relying on close-outs from guys like Lillard, McCollum and Anfernee Simons—have little to no bearing on opponent three-point shooting.
Maybe teams shoot a bit colder from three against Portland as the New Year comes and goes. Barring personnel changes, there just isn't much hope elsewhere for the Blazers' 26th-ranked defense to get stingier as the season continues.
A team-changing trade
This is at the top of Portland's holiday wish list, and nothing's transprised since interim general manager Joe Cronin all but guaranteed it during his introductory presser to think a significant trade isn't coming.
The Blazers, shocker, aren't real contenders as currently comprised. Even an alternate universe where Lillard and McCollum were fully healthy and playing at their peaks since the regular season tipped off wouldn't change that. Portland isn't winning the Western Conference with one of the five most porous defenses in basketball, or even an elite offense that remains overly reliant on the shot-making whims of two dribble-heavy guards.
Recent reporting suggests the Blazers are most likely to try and move Nurkic and Robert Covington, but trading McCollum should remain a priority for Cronin and the front office. They shouldn't be afraid to include Little, Simons and future first-round picks in a deal that could net Portland an impact player like Jerami Grant or Myles Turner, either.
The win-now trade that vaults Portland to even a puncher's chance at a title this season doesn't exist. This team is another bonafide superstar or a series of impact additions away from truly competing at that level. But the Blazers have to start on the path toward revamping the roster around Lillard sooner or later, and there's no reason to believe the value of incumbent trade pieces will get any higher from here.
Portland needs change for the holidays more than anything else. Here's hoping Santa Cronin provides it.
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