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Portland Trail Blazers’ Bench Not Reliable

By Chris St. Jean

Dec 23, 2014; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Reggie Jackson (15) drives to the basket against Portland Trail Blazers center Chris Kaman (35) and guard Steve Blake (25) during the fourth quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 23, 2014; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Reggie Jackson (15) drives to the basket against Portland Trail Blazers center Chris Kaman (35) and guard Steve Blake (25) during the fourth quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Portland Trail Blazers have spent the last nine months attempting to upgrade their bench.  They started by signing Chris Kaman and Steve Blake in free agency, continued with Meyers Leonard and C.J. McCollum getting expanded roles, and was capped off by the Arron Afflalo trade.

But no matter what they seem to do, the Portland Trail Blazers’ bench is not reliable and tremendous pressure on the starting lineup to perform well.

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Last season, despite the 54-28 record and a trip to the second round of the playoffs, Portland had the worst bench in the NBA scoring only 24.7 points per game per NBA.com.   The starting five played almost 70 percent of the team’s possible minutes last season, according to Basketball Reference. That increased to almost 80 percent in the playoffs last season.

After the eventual NBA champion San Antonio Spurs dispatched of the Blazers in the second round of the playoffs, 9.7 of those 24.7 bench points left the team in the form of Mo Williams.  The Blazers’ attempted to counteract that loss by bringing in Steve Blake and Chris Kaman, two veteran backups.

Although at the time, Blake was regarded as the better acquisition, Chris Kaman has arguably been the Blazers’ most consistent bench player over the entire season.  His 8.8 points per game is the lowest it’s been since his second year in the league, but he’s doing it in much fewer minutes and his per 36 rebounding numbers are the best in his career, according to Basketball Reference.

That’s been important for the Blazers who have prided themselves as one of the best rebounding teams in the NBA this season.  He’s shooting 50 percent  from the field on the season, including 44 percent from 10-16 feet, and is as turnover prone as he’s ever been.  He’s the Chris Kaman we all have come to know over his 12 NBA seasons with a slight uptick in his rebounding.

Steve Blake has been merely average for the Blazers. His shooting numbers (.381/.359/.757) haven’t been quite as good as Mo Williams’ were last season (.417/.369/.862). It’d be easy to say that he brings a steadying influence to a bench unit that otherwise had a lot of inexperience, but the truth is he’s had his highest turnover rate of his career, according to Basketball Reference.

Although Kaman’s rebounding and defense may have been better than expected, these two moves didn’t have the dramatic impact that Portland may have been hoping for to increase their bench production.

Once it was clear that Kaman and Blake weren’t the answer, Terry Stotts looked farther down the roster for someone who could contribute to the bench unit. After playing a total of 121 minutes in November and December combined, Meyers Leonard played 282 minutes (more than 20 per game) in the month of January.

It was Leonard’s newfound ability to shoot from the outside, 39-of-90 (43 percent) from long range after taking only 13 in his first two seasons, and rebound (10.1 per 36, according to Basketball Reference), that likely led Stotts to trust him with an expanded role as the season went along.

However, it’s his negative impact on the defensive end that has likely led to Meyers’ minutes being reduced to 15 per game in February and then 10 per game in the month of March.

Coinciding with Meyers Leonard’s reduced minutes, C.J. McCollum’s role was expanded. There is no doubt McCollum can score.  Three of his 10 double-digit scoring efforts have come in the last 10 days, including a 23-point effort against Golden State.

He’ll be a likely candidate to have a 20-plus point game in the playoffs should Portland have enough opportunities, but McCollum is prone to making mistakes and opposing guards attack him on defense often.

What he has in length and speed, he gives up in poor defensive positioning and strength.  Giving him too much responsibility could be dangerous.

The play above is a great example of McCollum’s high risk-high reward play.  He gets a great steal, but in transition he misses the easy pass to a wide-open Steve Blake on the left wing and instead tries to force the ball to Damian Lillard.  Of course it gets stolen and leads to a Utah fast break the other way.

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    • Terry Stotts even began experimenting with some small ball recently playing Dorell Wright at the power forward position.  This has been a fairly recent development that was catalyzed by LaMarcus Aldridge missing a few games and Nicolas Batum as well.

    Wright is averaging the more playing time in the month of March than any other month this season, he’s played 27 percent of his minutes as a power forward (more than the last four seasons combined by percentage), according to Basketball Reference, and he’s shooting 39 percent from the 3-point range on the season.

    The Blazers’ bench as a whole shoots the best 3-point percentage of any bench in the league, according to NBA.com. Leonard, Wright, and McCollum are all a part of that.

    However those three are never played together, because that would expose the Blazers defensively to an extent that Stotts isn’t comfortable with.

    The one bench player that Terry Stotts completely trusts defensively is Joel Freeland.  For a long time now and often, Stotts has listed Freeland as one of the Blazers’ best defensive players and he’s usually sure to keep Freeland on the floor with either Leonard or Wright for that exact reason.

    When you have two superstars like Damian Lillard and Aldridge, you probably should be playing them the 35 minutes a game that they get.   Because of that Portland will probably never have an exceptional bench it.  But at the same time, Portland has been reshuffling that unit since free agency began and haven’t been able to find a consistent answer.

    The Blazers’ bench is 29th in the NBA bench scoring this season, according to NBA.com.

    Just like last year and just as we thought, the Portland Trail Blazers will be relying heavily on their starting five to make any advance in the playoffs.

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