Why The Portland Trail Blazers Should Not Try To Make The Playoffs

The Portland Trail Blazers are 1.5 games back from the eighth seed in the Western Conference, but they owe a lottery protected first-round pick to the Denver Nuggets. This year the choice is clear: Don’t try to make the playoffs.

The Portland Trail Blazers have a dilemma as they enter the second half of the season. They’re at best an average team (19-26, -1.4 point differential) yet are only 1.5 games out of the playoffs. As part of the Arron Afflalo trade last year, the Blazers owe a first round pick to the Denver Nuggets.

The Blazers’ first round pick is owed to Denver, lottery-protected in 2016 and 2017, but if the pick is not conveyed as a first rounder in 2016 or 2017 then Portland will convey two second round picks to the Nuggets in 2018. This creates a clear incentive to miss the playoffs in order to keep their draft pick.

Finishing with the seventh or eighth best record in the conference is often discussed as a pointless endeavor but in a year where two historically great teams in the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs are probably going to finish with the top two seeds in the Western Conference, it would appear to be even less beneficial to strive for those last two spots just to get beaten down by a powerhouse.

Damian Lillard is 25 years old and C.J. McCollum is 24 years old. They are both entering what will likely be the best years of their careers. The Trail Blazers are going to be building around at least one and probably two of those players so it is imperative to acquire players who will be at their most productive points in their careers (their primes) so that the talents of Lillard and McCollum aren’t wasted.

When a roster is constructed around players who are at very different stages of their career it can be very easy to end up on the “treadmill of mediocrity.”

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The best example of this issue right now is the Washington Wizards. The Wizards have a star backcourt in John Wall (25) and Bradley Beal (22) and a talented young wing in Otto Porter (22). If you were to try to maximize the Wizards’ chances of being a contender it would make sense to surround that trio with guys who are around the same age and in a similar stage of their careers.

Instead the Wizards have surrounded that trio with Marcin Gortat (31), Nene Hilario (33), Jared Dudley (30), Kris Humphries (30) and Kelly Oubre (20). Excluding Oubre (who looks super promising) the Wizards are spending about $33 million this year on guys who are 30+ years old.

Those guys were very productive players when they were in their primes and still have value now but they’re at vastly different stages of their careers than the core of their roster. John Wall is just starting to enter his prime and Bradley Beal probably won’t hit his prime for another couple years. By that time all of the previously mentioned older frontcourt players will either be washed up or on the backend of their careers.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the Wizards are a very average team this year (20-21, -1.6 point differential), pretty average last year (46-36, +0.7 point differential) and pretty average the previous year (44-38, +1.3 point differential). The Wizards have gotten to the second round a couple times, which has obvious benefits for the fans, franchise, players and everybody who’s invested in the team, but none of those teams had any real chance of winning the title.

Most teams never have a real chance at winning the title but the issue is that if the Wizards had been patient instead of acquiring Nene and Gortat in 2012 and 2013 they could have picked up some more young assets and had a much better chance at being a real contender.

The Wizards still have a good outlook, but I would like them so much more if they had kept their first round pick for the 2014 NBA draft instead of trading that pick for Marcin Gortat and grabbed another young asset (Jusuf Nurkic, Rodney Hood, Clint Capela or even lottery picks like Aaron Gordon and Noah Vonleh).

The situation with the Trail Blazers isn’t exactly the same but the same logic still applies. There’s a significant difference in Portland’s outlook if they get swept by the Warriors or Spurs and don’t get anybody in the first round or if they miss the playoffs by a few spots and draft somebody like Jaylen Brown, Jakob Poeltl, Ivan Rabb or *insert your favorite draft prospect here*.

This situation for Portland isn’t an archetypal case of determining whether or not to tank. The Blazers aren’t weighing whether a shot at the eight seed is worth getting some lottery ping-pong balls. They have to decide whether shooting the eighth seed is worth getting no first round pick at all this year.

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This year’s first round pick for the Blazers holds additional importance because this year’s draft pick will probably be closer to Lillard and McCollum in age and development than draft picks in the following years. The Blazers probably won’t make the playoffs this year regardless unless they make a win-now move (which is both unlikely and ill-advised) but it’s crucial that the Blazers ensure they acquire young talent in the next year or two.

This doesn’t require a Hinkie-esque tank jobs, but Terry Stotts can make subtle changes to minutes that are beneficial to the development of their young players but may marginally hurt their on-court performance.

Increasing the minutes of their young talented players like Noah Vonleh (20 years old, 15.6 MPG) and Mo Harkless (22, 17.6 MPG) could give the Blazers a better opportunity to see what they have in Harkless and Vonleh, who have the potential to be high-level defensive players — exactly the type of players that should surround Lillard and McCollum (I’d also like to see Cliff Alexander get some run when he’s available again).

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It’s a hard pill to swallow for both teams and fans but this year (and maybe next year too) the best (realistic) scenario for the Blazers is probably to miss the playoffs.