Damian Lillard is back where he says he belongs, and he arrives with the kind of certainty that only comes after sitting out the whole season for one reason: to make sure the comeback was complete.
Lillard told Marc J. Spears of Andscape that he did think about returning during the 2026 postseason after the Achilles tear, but he passed on that option and instead used another offseason to make sure he was fully ready.
“The reason I sat out the entire season was because I wanted to check every box,” Lillard said. “I didn’t want to come limping back or having second thoughts about, ‘Man, can I do this?
Can I do that? What should I stay away from?’
I checked every box and I cleared every box, so that was my priority in that process, and I did exactly that.”
New head coach Micah Nori believes the Blazers are seeing the payoff. Speaking to Spears, Nori said there’s no real drop in Lillard’s quickness and pointed out that the guard’s game doesn’t hinge on pure athletic burst the way some others do.
“There’s really no loss of his - I’m not going to say explosiveness, but his quickness,” Nori said. “But the other thing is, like I tell people: He hurt his lower body, not his upper body.
He can still shoot the thing, so his game is not reliant on all that quickness. It’s just more of him getting shots and us finding space for him.
“And the one difference that you’ll see with Dame now is he’ll be off the ball a little bit more than what he was earlier in his career. We can still play him, obviously, in the pick-and-roll.
… He doesn’t have to do all that to be able to find him open shots more so in the flow. And you see him competing at the defensive end as well.”
Lillard’s return carries another layer, too: he says Portland never stopped feeling like home. In an Athletic story centered on former teammate Meyers Leonard, who was drafted five spots after Lillard in 2012 and will be in Portland on Wednesday to watch the reunion, Lillard said he “should have never left” Portland. He also said, “I never saw (being traded elsewhere as) being part of my story,” before adding, “The fact that it worked out how it did - I’m back here, with a really good team, and I’m healthy - it just feels right.”
There’s uncertainty around another key piece of the roster. Deni Avdija landed on the Blazers’ first injury report of the season, and Joe Freeman of The Oregonian reports that he’s questionable for Wednesday’s game against Phoenix because of right ankle soreness.
Scoot Henderson enters the season with a different kind of pressure after the Blazers did not reach a rookie scale extension with him before Monday’s deadline. Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report wrote that the third overall pick in the 2023 draft now goes into his fourth NBA season needing to show even more.
Still, recent reports around camp have been glowing. Jrue Holiday called him the MVP of camp, and Nori drew a striking comparison by likening him to prime Russell Westbrook.
“There would be nothing happier for me than if next year we had to pay Scoot a ton of money to keep him,” Nori said. “He knows that he’s an NBA player.
He knows he’s going to get another contract. We just hope it’s with the Portland Trail Blazers.”
Nori has also outlined how he wants to manage the group. According to Jason Quick, he plans to use a 10-man rotation, with Lillard, Ja Morant, Toumani Camara, Avdija, and Donovan Clingan as the usual starters.
Quick listed Holiday, Robert Williams, and Henderson as the top reserves, with Sidy Cissoko likely handling the ninth spot. Vit Krejci, Micah Potter, and Branden Carlson are competing for the remaining regular minutes.
Off the floor, the arena situation remains unresolved. Bill Oram of The Oregonian reported that talks between the Blazers and the city of Portland over Moda Center continue to revolve around the lease language requiring the team to keep the building in “first-class” condition.
According to Oram, owner Tom Dundon pushed city officials to assign a dollar figure to that requirement, and they came back with a number “upwards of $1 billion,” which Dundon rejected. One meeting between Dundon and city officials is set for this week, though Oram said it’s unclear whether any more will follow.
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That is where Portlands guard logjam starts to matter. With Damian Lillard, Ja Morant, Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson all in the same backcourt mix, the Trail Blazers have a roster setup that could draw attention before the trade deadline, especially from a team like Detroit searching for help on the ball. Portland does not have to move anyone right away, but its collection of proven guards gives rival front offices something to keep filing away as the season develops. [Read more 🡒]