Portland Trail Blazers
The 2021-22 Portland Trail Blazers can be defined by the fact that they finally broke up Dame and CJ — and then put on a tanking masterclass for the ages.
What did we learn?
It was a brutal beginning of the season slump for Dame.
He was colder than a polar bear’s toenails. There was a stretch of shooting an absolutely putrid 3-of-35 from 3.
Turns out that he had an abdominal injury all along. Dame ended up having surgery and shutting down, playing his last game of the season on New Year’s Eve, a 33-point loss to the Lakers.
CJ had a rough injury of his own, a punctured lung that healed just in time for the Blazers to trade him down to NOLA at the deadline. And so, after nine years together, the backcourt duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum is no more.
Josh Hart won Blazers fans over in about 2 seconds, and the new-look Blazers embarrassed the shit out of the Lakers (New Year’s Eve revenge!) before also beating the Bucks and the Grizzlies on the road.
That’s precisely when Portland FULLY embraced the tank, shutting everybody down.
After the All-Star Break:
The Blazers went 2-21 with the #30 offense and #30 defense.
They lost to both the Rockets and Thunder twice, including in OT vs. the Thunder at home.
The Blazers lost 14 games by at least 30 points. That’s the most 30-point losses in NBA history for one season. And the Blazers did it in a month and a half.
Tanking. Masterclass.
But this Blazers season did feature a most significant silver lining: The rise of Anfernee Simons, who played so well that we wondered if Dame had given Simons his powers. Simons has been learning and working with Dame for four years now, and it shows.
Simons put on a tremendous Dame impression in January, averaging 26.3 points per game (top-10 in the NBA for the month) and 4.8 made 3-pointers, second behind only Fred VanVleet’s 5.3. For the season, he increased his scoring average by nearly 10 points, up from 7.8 last year to 17.3 points per game. Simons shot 40.5 percent from 3 on staggering high-volume of 7.8 attempts per game.
In his first three seasons in the league, Simons had only five games of scoring 20 points or more. From Jan. 1 to his last game of the season on March 5, Simons had 16 games of 20+ points.
The other Blazers budding young talent, Nassir Little, was also having his best season yet, but he suffered a left shoulder labral tear in January, causing him to miss the remainder of the season. The seemingly always injury-bugged Blazers bad luck continued once again.
Unfortunately for Blazers fans, all that end of the season glorious tanking didn’t even land them a top-5 pick.
The fact that Dame actually wants to stay in Portland might have used up all of their luck.
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Additional Notes
Neil Olshey really had the audacity to say on Media Day that this was the best Blazers roster since Dame got to Portland. Olshey was fired two months later. (Another silver lining to this Blazers season.)
Sent to Portland in the Norm Powell trade, the forgotten Justise Winslow played some of the best ball of his career before dealing with an Achilles.
The jury is still out on Chauncey Billups, but at least he was brutally honest: "I've never seen a team that needs its bench to inspire the starters. That shit is crazy to me. It's supposed to be the other way around." (To be fair, he could have been talking about the 2021-22 Knicks.)
If you actually tuned in to Blazers games after All-Star, then you got to know some likely unfamiliar faces: Brandon Williams, Keon Johnson, Keljin Blevins and C.J. Elleby’s hair. Didi Louzada as well. (Yeah, it was a WHO HE!? clinic.)
Reggie “The Fridge” Perry is here now, too!
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Did our preseason Over/Under prediction hit?
We prefer to ride with Dame, and it’s hard to believe that the Blazers will be 4 percent worse than last season — yet the writing is on the wall with Olshey. Under 44.5 wins.
Blazers 2021-22 record: (27-55)
Oh yes. This was about as Pure of a Lock as it gets.
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What’s Next?
The #7 pick in the 2022 draft. Portland might want to package that in a trade for some win-now piece(s). Defensive-oriented players seem to be ideal for helping Dame and Simons.
After filling in as interim GM after the firing of Olshey, Joe Cronin has been hired as the official newest Blazers General Manager.
Nurkic (T-shirt All-Star!) is an unrestricted free agent while Simons is a restricted free agent. Both are likely at the top of Cronin’s off-season to-do list.
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Favorite Blazers Highlights of the 2021-22 Season:
Simons this season was smoother than a smoothie.
Also:
