On Wednesday, the Portland Trail Blazers suffered another disappointing defeat, this time at the hands of the defending champs, the Toronto Raptors, 114-106. That's now back-to-back losses for the Blazers, following a 107-99 defeat against the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday. What's even worse is the fact that the team has lost all but one out of the seven games it has played in the month of November, leaving them with a miserable 4-8 record to start the new season.

Nevertheless, despite the less than stellar start, there is still a fair amount of reasons to remain optimistic for the Blazers. Today, we present the three most compelling ones.

CJ McCollum's Shooting Slump

Right now, CJ McCollum 20.1 points per ballgame, which is actually not that far from last season's tally (21.o). However, the concerning disparity is with his shooting clip, which is down to 40.7 percent, from a career-high 45.9 percent last year. The former Most Improved Player of the Year winner is also taking 20.1 shots per contest, which is a significant bump form last season (17.8), and this certainly has a lot to do with his decreased efficiency. Moreover, McCollum is also currently knocking down just 1.7 3-pointers per game (down from 2.4 last year) on a career-low 31.3-percent clip.

All in all, this points to the fact that McCollum has started the new season in a bit of a slump. We all know how potent a scorer this man is, as well as how capable McCollum is of getting hot at any given time. The good news here is that presumably, he has nowhere to go but up, and that it will only be a matter of time before he starts knocking down shots at an increased efficiency rate.

Whiteside's Redemption

Another silver lining in Portland's current dry spell is the outstanding play of newcomer Hassan Whiteside. The 30-year-old looks like a man renewed in Portland, and is currently averaging a career-high 14.8 points (on 57.4 percent shooting), 12.2 rebounds, 1.0 assists, and 1.7 blocks in 27.5 minutes of action.

More importantly, the oft-injured big man has only missed one game for his team thus far, and while there has been a number of injury scares of late, Whiteside has been able to stay on the court for his team. Needless to say, the change in scenery appears to have worked wonders for the 7-foot big. If he is able to keep this up, then the Blazers should be able to string up wins sooner rather than later.

Dame Time

Finally, we have to take into consideration Damian Lillard's MVP-worthy level of play of late. Right now, the four-time All-Star is putting up career-best marks in scoring (30.5), field goal percentage (48.2), 3-pointers (3.7), free-throws attempted (7.8), assists (6.9), steals (1.3), and blocks (0.7). Sure, one can say that the sample size is still small, but our counterargument to that is this: what makes us think that Lillard is not capable of maintaining, if not even improving these numbers?

Lillard has been the main reason why Portland has stayed afloat this season, and the 29-year-old appears to be completely locked in. He still remains to be the team's most important player, and so long as your best guy is playing this well, then it can't be all bad.

It's going to be a tough year ahead for the Blazers, and they haven't done themselves any favors with their slow start. Nonetheless, the season is anything but done at this point, and surely, there's a lot to remain positive about moving forward.