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Good people of Willy Week Nation, I have a confession to make to you.
I am a cynical man. I support Hillary Clinton. I dislike inspiring movies. I went into this Portland Trail Blazer season with nothing short of nihilism, and hoping they'd spend the season losing games and trading players so they could make a big splash in next year's NBA draft. I wished for tank in my heart.
Was I wrong? It is literally impossible to know. All I know is that the Blazers have come up from dark perdition and grabbed an uncharacteristically weak Western Conference by the neck, lifting themselves to an above .500 record, an NBA-best six-game win streak, and a lovely tie for the sixth seed in the Western Conference Playoffs.
How did it happen? How did a team sporting the lowest payroll in the NBA, whose only extraordinary offseason assets were a ton of cap space—which they still have, along with an extra first round pick acquired for facilitating a bigger trade, and Brian Roberts, a decent, bench-y pick-and-roll guard—and a young but not that young all-star, grab the whole damn NBA by the face, like some kind of starving dog?
I will break it down:
C-JUICE: Considering the early stages of his career, CJ McCollum emerging as the second leading scorer on a playoff team is probably the most shocking thing that could have happened to the Blazers this year. A 22-year-old guard from a non-factor college basketball team, who spent his first year flipping between being injured and being terrible and his second season riding pine, isn't exactly a prime candidate for a breakout. He had "bust" scrawled all over him.
But, here we are! During the Blazers' ignoble playoff mauling at the paws of the brutal Memphis Grizzlies, Terry Stotts, facing elimination and looking to try anything to get back in the series, stuck McCollum in there. Returned from bench exile, he excelled, operating pick-and-rolls and flashing a consistent three-point shot no one was sure he had.
When the team got back from summer break, McCollum, who has something of a point guard's skillset and physical frame, was named the starter alongside Damian Lillard. He has flourished in this new role, scoring more than 20 points a game on a respectable .541 True Shooting Percentage and helping the Blazers fulfill the promise of the 2013-14 Suns' dual ball-handler half-court attack.
AMINU!: "If only he could shoot!" was the line on defensive ace Al-Farouq Aminu for, like, ever. Amazing defender, with length, skills and instincts, but his sub-30 percent three-point shooting and tendencies toward misguided drives always put a cap on his ultimate usefulness in a league that was inching further and further outward.
But no more! Aminu did something—no one is quite sure what—to rework or juice his shot, and now he shoots 34 percent, fundamentally respectable enough to make him a tenable contributor on both sides of the ball. The Blazers' other young wings, fast break leak-out specialist Allen Crabbe and mysterious black box of potential Mo Harkless, have also stepped up their game, giving the team something they haven't had since Gerald Wallace was around: tenable wing depth.
STOTTSMANIA: You know that, once upon a time, Terry Stotts was regarded as an average, somewhat retread-y hire? This sentiment was wrong. Stotts has, in less than a year, managed to convince a team full of young players to play with the a more energetic heady-ball-movement-and-guard-penetration style as the veteran Blazers cores of recent vintage. Coming in, the expectation for the year was chaos, back-biting and ugly basketball; Stotts, Olshey and Lillard have headed that nonsense off and built a feasible winning structure instead. Kevin Durant will be impressed by this discipline and sign with the Blazers next year. He know a true leader of people when he sees it.
ALSO THE WEST IS KIND OF BAD THIS YEAR: Uhh, look. I would be straight up lying if I didn't mention the Western conference going from top-to-bottom death juggernaut to a shakier, more top-heavy, Warriors-dominated collection. The Rockets, Memphis, New Orleans and Phoenix all took major steps back, and other teams expected to make some forward progress, like Utah and the Denver, also aren't quite playing up to expectations. Their bad fortune has undoubtedly been good for a Blazer team facing no expectations.
All in all, it's been fun! The Blazers have managed to be not depressing in a year when every team is cast in the shadow of Golden State's singular dominance. So celebrate appropriately! It's deserved.
Willamette Week