Portland Trail Blazers: 3 players facing the most pressure in 2019-20

The Portland Trail Blazers are stuck in the middle of seriously contending for an NBA championship and being good enough to make noise in the playoffs.

When the Portland Trail Blazers advanced to the 2019 Western Conference Finals to meet a Golden State Warriors team that was without an injured Kevin Durant, it looked like the franchise’s best chance in a long time to make its first NBA Finals since 1992 and perhaps win its first championship since 1977.

Those dreams crashed and burned in particularly agonizing fashion. Not only were the Blazers swept by the short-handed Warriors, but in the last three games of the series, Portland also blew three double-digit leads on its way home for the summer.

This version of the Blazers — led by All-NBA point guard Damian Lillard and head coach Terry Stotts — has proven capable of getting up to the proverbial hump, but can’t seem to get over it just yet.

Three of Portland’s last four postseasons have ended in a sweep. Three of its last four postseason exits have come at the hands of the Warriors. The Blazers are consistently one of the better teams in the West, but it seems no one outside of Rip City honestly buys them as a threat to capture the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

Going into the 2019-20 season, the Blazers are bringing back most of the core group that won 53 games and earned a No. 3 seed in the conference. They went a step farther this summer and locked their top two stars into lucrative contract extensions to ensure things stay intact.

As the faces of the franchise for the foreseeable future, Lillard and McCollum will shoulder most of the blame — and receive most of the credit — for the Blazers’ playoff fortunes. They are not, however, the only players on the roster under scrutiny.

Here are three Blazers facing the most pressure in 2019-20.