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The Portland Trail Blazers just missed out on the first winning month of 2021-22, finishing January an even 8-8 after losing back-to-back games to the Chicago Bulls and Oklahoma City Thunder earlier this week. Unfortunately, the reinforcements needed for Portland to finish above .500 in at least one of the season's last three months don't appear to be coming.
In a sprawling Q&A with Mark Medina of NBA.com, Blazers interim general manager Joe Cronin clarified the state of Damian Lillard's prospective return from surgery on his midsection, doubling down on what the best player in franchise history told reporters a couple weeks ago.
“We’re going to be patient and make sure he’s fully healed physically and mentally,” he said of Lillard. “I think the break for him is really good. These years really ran together the last three. The weight that he carries, that’s a lot. The way he carried through that injury. Physically, we want to make sure he’s good. Mentally, we want to make sure he’s refreshed and ready to go whenever he comes back.”
Cronin's comments echo Lillard's from January 22nd, nine days after going under the knife to address abdominal tendinopathy that had nagged him for years.
“I'm not in a rush,” Lillard said. “My No. 1 goal is to win a championship, and like I said, I have to be the best form of myself to make that happen and to be a part of that, so I’m not in a rush. We will talk about whatever that timeline is when we get to that point.”
The Blazers went a stunning 7-4 in their first 11 games once Lillard was sidelined again after the New Year, buoyed by the breakout performance of Anfernee Simons. But Portland faltered from there despite C.J. McCollum and Norman Powell having returned to the lineup, winning just one of its last six games to dash budding hopes of a full-scale midseason turnaround.
At 21-31, the Blazers sit at tenth in the Western Conference, just one-and-a-half games up on the New Orleans Pelicans for the final spot in the play-in tournament. Cronin faces a series of major decisions at the February 10th trade deadline, most notably whether to break up Portland's longstanding core before this summer and tank for a draft pick or make more ancillary moves that would allow owner Jody Allen to duck the tax and keep the team competitive for long-shot playoff push late in the season.
Lillard will be healthy enough to return this season should his rehab continue progressing as planned. But he's already blanched at the prospect of coming back if the Blazers are prioritizing lottery balls over moving up in the standings, making it a real possibility Lillard has played his last game this season.
