Fans of the Portland Trail Blazers have heard this song before.
It feels that the Blazers struggle to break through the rest of the West year after year.
It also feels that they refuse to change their plans year after year.
Their plan is as follows: they say they will stick with Damian Lillard and attempt to build a team around him and then make small, promising changes that don’t bring them to the next level.
The Trail Blazers have no plans to tank and are committed to putting together a contending team around Damian Lillard, per @ChrisBHaynes pic.twitter.com/S9FFnXKFCG
— NBA Retweet (@RTNBA) January 24, 2023
Now we are hearing this all over again.
Chris Haynes is reporting that the Blazers have “no plans to tank” and are committed to creating a team that can contend around Lillard.
No one can blame the Blazers for putting their faith in Lillard: he is averaging 29.3 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 7.4 assists a game.
He’s been especially impressive lately, showing that he is still one of the most powerful guards in the league.
But the team is again floundering, sitting in 13th position in the West.
If the Blazers continue to follow their regular game plan in the weeks and months again, they will likely make minor trades and changes and hope that Lillard doesn’t demand a trade when summer rolls around.
Is there any chance they will deviate from what they’ve always done?
Will the Blazers trade away a bunch of their young talent in hopes of landing another All-Star to play alongside Lillard?
Will they actually shake things up and swing for the fences?
Fans of the team have grown increasingly tired of watching this entire process play out again and again over the years.
Perhaps this will be the year that the Blazers really do build around Lillard.
That would make their followers happy but it would also please Lillard as well and that’s really the most important thing for this team.
