Blazers are losers —And they’re tryin’ to be

Sports

Apr 2

It has been the strangest of seasons for the Trail Blazers, who have been around longer than Rubik’s Cube, push-through beer can tops and the digital camera. So it really is Twilight Zone bizarre.

After Friday’s 130-111 loss at San Antonio, Portland stands at 27-50 with five games left on the schedule. The Blazers are in 13th place among the 15 Western Conference teams and hold the sixth-worst record in the NBA. They will finish with their poorest regular-season record since the end of the Jail Blazer era (2005-06), when they were a league-worst 21-61. This will be the first time Portland has missed the playoffs in nine seasons.

Remember that four-game win streak before the All-Star break that left the most optimistic fan with grandiose thoughts? Then the Blazers shut down Jusuf Nurkic, who will sit out the last 23 games of the season with “plantar fasciitis.” Over his last eight games, as he “played through” the injury, the “Bosnian Beast” averaged 17.6 points and 13.3 rebounds. In his final outing in a 123-119 win over Memphis, Nurk scored 32 points — one shy of his career high — with eight rebounds and four assists in an All-Star-worthy performance.

Four games later, the Blazers shut down Anfernee Simons, who will sit out the last 19 games with “knee tendinitis.” In the last 27 games in which he played, Simons averaged nearly 24 points per game and shot 42 percent from 3-point range. In his final outing in a 135-121 loss to Minnesota, he scored 38 points, making 9 of 17 shots from beyond the arc in an All-Star-worthy performance. Then, we are to believe, the knee began to act up big-time.

Seven games later, the Blazers shut down Josh Hart, who will sit out the last 12 games with “knee tendinitis.” In his last five games, Hart averaged 29 points while shooting .591 from the field and .571 on 3-point tries (20 for 35) to go with 5.6 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game. The streak began with a 44-point explosion in a 127-118 win over Washington in which Hart was 15 for 21 from the field, 6 for 9 from 3-point range and 8 for 8 from the foul line in an All-Star-worthy performance. In his final outing in a 129-98 loss to Indiana, he scored 26 points and 11-for-13 shooting. Then it was time to give the knee a rest.

And, of course, there is Damian Lillard, whom the Blazers have chosen to have sit out the rest of the season following January 13 abdominal surgery.

Without that quartet, first-year head coach Chauncey Billups has been left to fend off the opposition with the likes of youngsters Brandon Williams (22), Reggie Perry (21), Keon Johnson (19), CJ Elleby (21), Trendon Watford (21), Elijah Hughes (23) and Greg Brown (20). Vegas odds have it “pick ‘em” between these fledgling Blazers and the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

Sometimes, the Blazer babes have competed well. Other times, it has been embarrassing. Since the All-Star break, there have been losses by 37, 32, 43, 30, 31 and 37 points, not to mention back-to-back setbacks by 19 and 17 points to Houston, the team with the worst record in the West.

And the educated fan amongst you ask, “So what?”

The goal this season is to not make the playoffs, the strangest of the strange-isms in this unsavory campaign.

If Portland were to finish as one of eight playoff teams in the West, it sends its first-round draft pick to Chicago, a result of the lottery-protected trade that brought Larry Nance Jr. to Portland last August. So the Blazers, while not admitting it publicly, have wanted to lose every game they have played for some time.

Portland has dropped six games in a row and 14 of its last 16. TV analyst Lamar Hurd’s “four keys to victory”? Let’s modify that to “four keys to defeat.”

To be clear: The players are trying to win. Billups, to a degree, is trying to win. Portland’s front office, by limiting Billups’ on-court options to mostly the Kiddie Corps, is intentionally setting him up for failure.

In explanation of my “to a degree” qualifier with Billups, let me introduce Monday’s game against Oklahoma City, another team chasing losses that can result in more ping pong balls in the upcoming draft lottery.

Portland led 115-112 after Williams made a pair of free throws with 8.9 seconds left. OKC had no timeouts left.

The obvious move for the Blazers was to intentionally foul before the Thunder could launch a 3-point shot, limiting their maximum to two points on the possession. They didn’t, allowing Isaiah Roby to hit a 3 to tie the score with 5.4 seconds to go. A poor coaching decision by Billups, or a calculated coaching decision?

Fast forward to the end of overtime. With 9.2 seconds remaining, OKC was inbounding the ball in backcourt with a 130-129 lead. The Blazers lined up man for man in the backcourt, looking like they were going to try to steal the inbound pass. When OKC’s Aaron Wiggins broke toward the mid-court line, no defender went with him until far too late. Wiggins took a pass and went for an uncontested dunk and a 132-129 lead with 7.3 seconds left.

The Blazers called timeout and huddled. With such little time remaining, they had to go for a 3, right? Nope. Williams went to the basket and his layup was blocked, but Drew Eubanks scored on the put-back to cut it to 132-131 with 3.4 seconds on the clock. After a quick foul, Wiggins made both foul shots to make it 134-131 with 2.4 ticks left.

With no timeouts left, Portland couldn’t advance the ball to front-court. So you make a baseball pass to at least mid-court and give yourself a chance for a miracle, right? Nope. Eubanks inbounded the ball underneath the basket, Williams tossed up a no-chance shot from 80 feet and the Blazers had successfully snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Two nights later, the Blazers found themselves in an odd spot against New Orleans, currently sitting in ninth place in the West and battling for playoff position. If the Pelicans fail to make the final eight in the West, Portland gets their first-round draft pick (as a result of the CJ McCollum trade). So in that game, and in next week’s visit to New Orleans, the Blazers wouldn’t mind getting a win or two to hinder the Pelicans’ postseason chances.

(Before the game, incidentally, Hurd told viewers that McCollum had told Nurkic his goal to scored 60 points. He tallied 25, but it tells you how much respect he has for the team representing Portland on the court these days.)

Mostly, the idea for the Blazers is to play hard, play well and lose. Under the circumstances, I can understand, though it hits a sour note on a number of levels, especially in terms of the integrity of the game. Trying to lose is against everything the NBA stands for — or used to, before it embraced gambling of the masses.

And how about the fans who shell out four figures of their hard-earned dollars for season tickets, only to see a piecemeal group wearing Blazer togs on game nights at Moda Center? Or the fan who can’t afford season tickets but lays out $500 for a family of four for a single game, only to need a roster to recognize the players representing the home team in what almost always results in a defeat?

And what about the players being told to sit? Nurkic, who turns 28 in August, is beginning the prime years of his career. He was healthy and playing well in the final year of his contract. And then: We need you to sit, Nurk. For the rest of the season.

Simons, to become a restricted free agent soon after his 23rd birthday in June, was emerging as one of the game’s bright young stars. Now he will miss a quarter of the season, which means at least a small chunk of his career.

Hart, 27, is also going to miss the final piece of a season that could have fortified his standing in the league. At least he has another year on his contract.

I’m sure interim general manager Joe Cronin has explained the situation to Nurkic, Simons and Hart. The former two have surely been promised they will be offered a lucrative deal with a portion of the room the Blazers will have under a salary cap that has been increased to $122 million for the 2022-23 season. Hart has been assured he will be an important piece of the Blazers’ roster moving forward.

Portland owns only four players with contracts of more than $5 million next season — Lillard ($42.5 million), Eric Bledsoe ($19.38 million), Hart ($12.96 million) and Simons, who is on the books for $5.76 million but will reap maybe four times that with the extension Portland will sign him to this summer. Cronin will likely do what he can to get something of value for Bledsoe — at 32 on the downside of his career and said to be recuperating from an Achilles tendon injury — this summer.

Talk about a heavy work load for Cronin, 46, who took over for the deposed Neil Olshey in December after 16 years as a member of the organization. Joe has paid his dues, starting as a basketball operations intern for Kevin Pritchard in 2006. Cronin has been the team’s salary cap expert for more than a decade and spent eight years as the director of player personnel, giving him a wide range of experience for the job he is now learning on the fly.

This is a spot Cronin wishes he weren’t in. He feels bad for the fans, who deserve a respectable product on the court but aren’t getting it this season. He would love for the Blazers to be able to put their best foot forward every game, but is determined to do what is right for the moment.

Behind the scenes, he is getting to know the Blazer players better, developing relationships, building trust between the front office and the team’s personnel. He respects Billups for his competitive nature, his leadership, his communication skills, his passion for the game.

Cronin has until next February to use the $21 million trade exception acquired from New Orleans in the McCollum trade. Olshey allowed several trade exceptions to expire. Cronin can’t guarantee he will use this one, but intends to put it into play at some point if it can help swing a good deal for Portland.

Rarely, if ever, has an interim GM been thrust into a situation like Cronin. He has some assets to work with, but with how much time? Owner Jody Allen and her right-hand man, Bert Kolde, have given no indication about Cronin’s future. For now, “Mr. Clutch” will keep working on the job until he hears otherwise.

He would like the time and the opportunity to add on to his front-office staff during the upcoming offseason, though he is not sure what position or duties they would fill. He wants good people, smart executives who can help with the renovation project he has started.

If New Orleans misses the playoffs, the Blazers could be looking at a pair of top-10 draft picks for the first time since 1978, when Mychal Thompson went with the top pick and Ron Brewer was chosen at No. 7. If that happens, they might be able to add two players who can contribute right away.

With Lillard — healthy and more rested than he has been in years — Simons, Nurkic, Hart and Nassir Little providing the foundation, some immediate help from the draft and perhaps a major acquisition or two through free agency, Cronin believes he can put together a playoff competitive roster right out of the gate next season.

That’s the big picture, even if today’s picture is undeniably the size of one of those old 13-inch black-and-white RCA Victors.

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