The Portland Trail Blazers are walking into training camp with real buzz and a long list of things to sort out.
After going 42-40 and reaching the playoffs last season, Portland has reshaped the roster by bringing in Ja Morant, getting Damian Lillard back in the rotation, and hiring Micah Nori as head coach. That gives the Blazers upside. It also gives them a roster packed with injury questions and, somehow, about 47 guards who all need touches.
So the excitement is real. The uncertainty is, too.
The biggest issue is obvious: how does all of this backcourt talent actually fit?
Portland reportedly wants Lillard and Morant in the starting lineup together, which makes Nori’s first job a complicated one. Both players can bend a defense, just in different ways.
Lillard has been showing off his comeback with three-point shooting videos, and there’s a real sense he could spend the season firing away from deep. Morant, meanwhile, can rip apart coverages with isolation drives, especially if his athletic decline turns out to be overstated.
But there’s only one ball. Morant is most dangerous with it in his hands, while Lillard has built his career on running pick-and-roll offense. Deni Avdija also stepped into a bigger playmaking role, and Scoot Henderson and Jrue Holiday will want chances to create as well.
There should be enough minutes to distribute, especially with Shaedon Sharpe now sidelined. The harder part will be figuring out who gets the offense when, and that’s the issue everyone will be watching in camp, preseason, and early in the season.
Lillard’s return brings the kind of emotional lift Portland wanted, but the basketball version is still a question mark.
He missed the entire 2025-26 season while recovering from a torn left Achilles. Even before that, his health had started to become a concern years ago, though some of that was tied to team tanking. Now he’s 36, and expecting him to carry an offense the way he once did probably isn’t realistic.
The good news for Portland is that he shouldn’t have to.
This roster is crowded enough that Lillard can be used more selectively. Avdija’s usage will probably fall from last season, but the Blazers still want the ball in his hands, and that should take some pressure off Lillard. Morant and Avdija can create advantages, which should let Lillard save energy and work as a weapon off the ball.
That means catch-and-shoot threes could become a major part of his game, and Portland would love to see him add a Stephen Curry-esque “relocation” shot. What camp and preseason should help clarify is how much explosiveness he has left, whether he can handle regular defensive work, and what kind of minutes load the team thinks he can manage.
The Blazers do not need vintage Dame every night. They do need a version opponents still have to respect.
Sharpe’s injury adds another layer of pressure to an already crowded and complicated picture.
His torn right meniscus takes away another scorer from an offense that already sent Jerami Grant to Memphis. Sharpe put up a career-best 20.8 points per game last season, but he will be re-evaluated six months after surgery, which puts most of the regular season in doubt.
Portland has plenty of ball-handling without him. What it loses is his size, athleticism, and scoring punch.
That could mean more offensive responsibility for Camara. Scoot should also get more second-unit chances. And Vit Krejčí and Sidy Cissoko may now be fighting for wing minutes that looked out of reach before Sharpe went down.
The bigger concern, though, is what this means for Sharpe himself. He had a career year, but it came with a jump shot that wavered, defense that came and went, and playoff minutes that disappeared. He has always been something of an enigma for Portland, and this latest setback only adds to that.
Avdija’s health may end up being just as important as anything else.
His breakout last season changed the direction of the team, and now Portland needs to know whether that production can work alongside Morant and Lillard. Before any of that, though, the Blazers need him available. Avdija called the back injury that kept him from representing Israel over the summer “complex,” which leaves at least some uncertainty heading into camp.
Back injuries are not the kind of thing anyone casually brushes off, and that goes double when the player in question is a crucial All-Star-level piece for the team.
Then there’s the new coach and the turnover problem waiting for him.
Nori takes over a team that was careless with the ball last season, finishing with an NBA-high 1,418 turnovers. Portland averaged 16.1 turnovers per game, which was 1.4 more per game than the 29th-ranked Washington Wizards.
For perspective, that same 1.4-turnover gap also separated Washington from the No. 15 Sacramento Kings.
That kind of sloppiness has to get cleaned up fast.
Better structure, both with and without the ball, should be the first order of business. Lillard gives Portland another steady decision-maker, but Morant and Avdija are aggressive creators who can also bring volatility with them.
Nori also has to decide how much of last season’s defensive identity he wants to carry over. Camara, Holiday, Donovan Clingan, and Robert Williams III give him the pieces to build a disruptive defense again, but he may also need to cover for the weaknesses in his starting backcourt.
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Jrue Holiday Enters Blazers Camp With More At Stake Than Expected
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The uncertainty comes from the same place the Blazers new optimism does, with the return of Damian Lillard and the addition of Ja Morant crowding the backcourt picture and forcing a difficult conversation at point guard. Micah Nori has made it clear the final lineup will come down to performance and fit once camp starts, and Holidays willingness to adapt gives Portland some flexibility, but it also leaves the team with a real decision to make about how all of its pieces will actually work together. [Read more 🡒]
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A lot of the attention now shifts to Jakub Krejci, whose arrival gives Portland another perimeter option to monitor closely. The Blazers are banking on him to bring more stability to the arc, because if he can get back to the form he showed before, he could ease some of the shooting burden on a roster that still feels thin in the places that matter most. [Read more 🡒]
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Batum also carved out a significant international legacy with France, helping the national team capture silver medals in both 2020 and 2024. His decision to step away comes after a long final stretch in the league, and for Portland it serves as another reminder of how much value he brought to the franchise beyond the usual box-score numbers. [Read more 🡒]