Portland Trail Blazers: Who is the team’s third best player?

Anfernee Simons

Anfernee Simons‘ potential is palpable, but it says a lot about Portland’s injury woes that he ranks as the team’s fifth-best player this season. The Trail Blazers selected Simons out of high school (IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida to be exact ) with the No. 24 overall pick in 2018. As a raw teenager, Simons only appeared in 20 games as a rookie.

This season, however, was an entirely different story. It’s worth pondering if Stotts would have played Simons as much as he did — 21.5 minutes per game — had so many key players not been shelved by injuries, but it’s fair to say that the 20-year-old guard secured his spot in Stotts’ rotation for years to come.

In 65 appearances (4 starts), Simons was a reliable scoring threat with the second unit when one of Lillard or McCollum was resting on the bench. For the year, he averaged 8.8 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game, with shooting splits of .406/.338/.826.

Those numbers won’t necessarily jump off the screen, but they aren’t too shabby for a youngster thrust into a prominent role on a team fresh off an appearance in the Western Conference Finals the season prior.

Expect Simons to take another leap in Year 3, and to continue to impress if/when the NBA season resumes.