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Portland Trail Blazers: Has the current roster hit its ceiling?

By Raymond Simms

Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images)
Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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The Portland Trail Blazers are having another up-and-down start to a season. Is this current roster capable of turning a corner?

The Portland Trail Blazers suffered a tough loss to the San Antonio Spurs 93-91 on Wednesday night. It’s their second consecutive loss, and their seventh in the last 10 games.

The Spurs loss also dropped the Blazers to 0-4 against the top four teams in the Western Conference, having now faced each of them once. They are 6-9 against the top eight teams in either conference. Portland is currently on a seven-game losing streak against such teams.

Portland is now 16-15 on the season, as the team continues to be tethered to the .500 mark. Last season, the team fell 11 games under .500, but fought their way back to finish 41-41. This year, the Blazers were 13-8 before dropping five consecutive games. The team improved to 16-13, but have lost two games since.

But this is the case for a team with a limited roster. Certainly, the team’s defensive improvement has been impressive. The Blazers now sport a 101.6 defensive rating, fifth-best in the NBA and an improvement of 6.2 points per 100 possessions compared to last season.

However, their stagnant offense is the new bugaboo. Their 102.7 offensive rating is a drop of 5.1 points per 100 possessions from last year. They went from 11th to 22nd in the league between seasons. Portland can still knock down 3-pointers, shooting 37.3 percent from outside (10th-best). But they don’t take nearly enough: their 24.8 attempts per game are sixth-fewest. Also, their 18.2 assists per game are the fewest in the NBA.

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    • These issues, coupled with the tangled mess between fifth and eighth in the West, makes it hard to pinpoint where the Blazers will ultimately fall. But the picture could become clearer when taking precedent and analytics into account.

    Basketball-Reference gives the 2017-18 Blazers a Simple Rating System (SRS) rating of 1.24. The number is based off of average point differential and strength of schedule. The closest comparison to a team from last season is the Oklahoma City Thunder. They garnered a 1.14 SRS rating, finishing with a 47-35 record for sixth place in the Western Conference.

    Expanding the comparison back to 1967-68, the first year of the 82-game schedule, their 1.24 rating matches the 1979 Denver Nuggets. That team, led by Hall-of Famers George McGinnis, David Thompson and Dan Issel, also went 47-35 and placed fourth in the West out of 11 teams.

    Lastly, NBA Math’s FATS Calculator intends to match teams based off of the Four Factors. It compares Portland to the 1981 Washington Bullets (39-43) and the 1974 Capital Bullets (47-35). The calculator also projects the Blazers to finish 46-36.

    A 46- or 47-win season would be Portland’s best record since their 51-31 campaign in 2014-15. However, that record would likely land them somewhere between fifth or eighth in the conference. That’s the same place that they’ve been over the last few years, finishing fifth in 2016 and eighth in 2017. If they end up there again, have they really grown as a team?

    As currently constructed, this team can not compete with the Western Conference’s upper tier. The rotation consists mostly of players that are far enough in their careers to have settled into their roles. 23-year-old Jusuf Nurkic and rookies Zach Collins and Caleb Swanigan are among the few players with substantial upside.

    Despite the front office’s desire for continuity, they will likely have to make a move ahead of the Feb. 8 trade deadline if they want to jolt the Blazers into the next tier. That level would see them competing for home-court dates in the first round, either as a third or fourth seed. However, even in this hypothetical tier, it would be too much to expect them to compete with the Golden State Warriors or Houston Rockets anytime soon.

    Next: 2017-18 Week 10 NBA Power Rankings

    Until then, the Portland Trail Blazers will likely continue to yo-yo between ultra-competitive 3-and-D team and stagnant offensive team with some defensive push-back. As the new year approaches, we will see if the team can turn a corner with who it has or make a necessary roster move.

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