The Portland Trail Blazers are coming off of a 2018-19 NBA campaign in which they won 53 games, nailed down the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference and made it all the way to the conference finals, where they ultimately lost to the Golden State Warriors.
Now, the Blazers are entering the 2019-20 NBA season in a very similar fashion to how they entered last year: as relative afterthoughts.
That's not meant to disrespect Portland, which is a good basketball team, but when you share a conference with the Clippers, Lakers, Nuggets, Jazz, Rockets and Warriors you will tend to get forgotten about, particularly when you don't appear to be as good as those other teams.
The Blazers' place in the West is debatable. They may end up being better than Houston and a banged-up Golden State squad, for example. But it doesn't seem like they have the oomph to mess with the Los Angeles clubs or even Denver and Utah.
And yes, I am fully aware that the Blazers just beat the Nuggets in the playoffs, but Denver will likely be better, while Portland essentially went horizontal (if not south) this offseason.
The Blazers lost several key players this summer, most notably Al-Farouq Aminu, Enes Kanter and Seth Curry, all of whom signed elsewhere in free agency because Portland didn't have the cap room to retain them.
It's not like the Blazers didn't add anybody. They traded for Hassan Whiteside. They picked up Anthony Tolliver and Kent Bazemore.
But how those guys fit in remains to be seen.
We know the deal with Whiteside by now. He is a big body who can dunk, rebound and block shots, but he is an offensive liability most of the time, and while he protects the rim, he actually is not a great defender.
Of course, Portland is waiting on the return of Jusuf Nurkic, who suffered a gruesome leg injury back in March, but he probably won't be back until February. When he does come back, the Blazers will have an interesting dilemma on their hands about what they'll do up front, but in the meantime, Whiteside is expected to hold down the fort.
Tolliver brings some nice floor spacing to the table as a backup 4, but that's about all he can do.
Bazemore is a good defender, but he had a really rough 2018-19 campaign, making just 40.2 percent of his shots and 32 percent of his three-pointers. The Blazers are obviously hoping he can get closer to his career average of 35.2 percent from deep.
Portland will have an interesting starting lineup, one that will obviously be led by Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, both of whom make up one of the most dynamic backcourts in the NBA.
Rodney Hood will probably start at small forward and is coming off of a nice stretch with the Blazers after arriving in a midseason trade. Zach Collins seems to be on track to start alongside of Whiteside up front and may actually be the biggest X-factor on this team.
Collins is a very talented and athletic young big whom Portland is hoping is everything now-former center Meyers Leonard was supposed to be: a guy who can play inside and out offensively while also grabbing some boards and representing a rim deterrent on the other end.
He took a pretty big step forward during his second season this past year, so he could be a potential breakout candidate going into 2019-20 NBA season.
The Blazers have a decent roster and should be good offensively. Their defense could potentially be a bit problematic, especially with the versatile Aminu gone, but perhaps having Whiteside and Collins on the interior could make life difficult for slashers.
Another concern I have for Portland is its questionable depth, particularly up front. Outside of Tolliver, the Blazers don't really have any reliable backup bigs. Pau Gasol is done, and Skal Labissiere has simply not materialized.
It should be noted that that issue should resolve itself once Nurkic returns, but, again, that might not happen until the second half of the season.
Portland is suffering from the same problem that a lot of Western Conference clubs are dealing with: it is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It's not like the Blazers could have done much to improve their team this offseason, either, as they were strapped financially, and while Portland has some decent trade pieces like Anfernee Simons and Gary Trent Jr., it's simply not enough to acquire a star, and let's remember that there is also the issue of having to match salaries.
Portland will probably win around 50 games again, because, well, it is a solid ballclub. But in an improved conference, the Blazers seem to have “first-round exit” written all over them.
This squad just does not have enough talent. Not in the West.
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