Some ‘bumps in the road,’ but Clingan is one of Blazers’ important Young Guns
Clingan ranks second in the NBA in blocked shots per 100 possessions, behind only San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama (courtesy Bruce Ely/Trail Blazers)
Updated 1/28/2025 3:10 PM
UPDATE TO SHAI GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER NOTE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PIECE:
The boy’s name is Joseph Roady. His grandfather is John Roady. They both live in Vernonia. It was Joseph’s 12th birthday on Sunday. What a birthday gift he received from his favorite player!
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On a Sunday afternoon when the best in the West came calling, some of the Trail Blazers “Young Guns” rose to the challenge.
Oklahoma City prevailed 118-108 to extend its win streak to five games and end Portland’s rather surprising four-game skein of its own, but not without a fight.
Deni Avdija, 24, scored 19 of his season-high 28 points in the first half to go with eight rebounds and eight assists for the game. Toumani Camara, 24, hit his first eight shots from the field — including five 3’s — en route to a career-high 24 points to go with nine boards and four assists. Scoot Henderson, still a week away from his 21st birthday, knocked down five treys and scored 25 points in 30 minutes off the bench.
It wasn’t a big day for the other Portland youngster, Donovan Clingan. The 7-2, 280-pound rookie from Connecticut got his 10th start of the season in the absence of (evidently) injured Deandre Ayton. Clingan — 20 days younger than Henderson — went scoreless on 0-for-4 shooting, though he grabbed six rebounds and blocked a pair of shots in his 20 minutes.
“Didn’t get a lot done, but every game is another chance to gain experience,” Clingan said as he prepared to grab a green blended drink and his pink rookie backpack and head out of the locker room at Moda Center and into the night.
Two days earlier, in a 102-97 win at Charlotte, Clingan had contributed four points, 13 rebounds, four assists and four blocks in 18 minutes off the bench.
“He makes us better,” Coach Chauncey Billups told me before the OKC game. “The minutes he played against Charlotte, he dominated the glass. He had some big blocks in the first minute of the game to set the tone for us. We like to pressure defensively, so having him clean up the mess is big for us.”
Clingan is averaging 5.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.66 blocked shots while shooting .521 in 16.8 minutes in his 33 games. He has missed 13 games with knee and ankle injuries for the Blazers (17-29) but has shown he can be an asset on the boards and on defense.
“There have been some bumps in the road,” Clingan told me after the game against the Thunder (37-8), the team with the NBA’s best record. “I started off just getting adjusted to the level of play and the faster pace of the (NBA) game. Then I settled in and got into shape. Got injured a couple of times, which slowed things a bit, but now I am starting to feel great again.”
Among rookies, Clingan ranks first in blocks, fourth in rebounds and fourth in field-goal percentage. Among all players, his rebounds per minute (4.0) would be tied with Karl-Anthony Towns, Domantis Sabonis and Ivica Zubac if he had enough minutes to qualify. Clingan is second in blocks per 100 possessions at 4.7, behind only San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama at 5.9. The Blazer center ranks sixth in blocks per game despite playing by far the fewest minutes played of any of the leaders. The next player on the list with fewer minutes is Memphis’ Jay Huff at No. 31.
A comparison with other front-line rookies drafted in last year’s lottery:
• Zaccharie Risacher, 6-8, No. 1 pick, Atlanta. Averaging 10.5 points and 3.5 rebounds while shooting .403 from the field and .281 from 3-point range in 23.7 minutes and 39 games.
• Alex Sarr, 7-foot, No. 2 pick, Washington. Averaging 11.7 points and 6.8 rebounds while shooting .400 in 27.1 minutes and 39 games.
• Tidjane Salaun, 6-9, No. 6 pick, Charlotte. Averaging 4.7 points and 4.1 rebounds while shooting .318 and .280 in 18.4 minutes and 34 games.
• Zach Edey, 7-4, No. 9 pick, Memphis. Averaging 9.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.1 blocks while shooting .582 in 20.6 minutes and 31 games.
• Kel’el Ware, 7-0, No. 15, Miami. Averaging 8.3 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.0 blocks while shooting .569 and .375 in 15.6 minutes and 28 games.
Ware, who played his freshman year at Oregon and as a sophomore at Indiana before declaring for the draft, is among the favorites to win Rookie of the Year along with San Antonio guard Stephon Castle and Memphis forward Jaylen Wells, the latter the 39th pick in the 2024 draft out of Washington State. Wells is averaging 11.8 points and 3.2 rebounds while shooting .440 from the field and .390 from 3-point range in 26.3 minutes and 45 games.
Clingan seems ready for more minutes, but he is at a crowded position on the Blazers’ roster. Veterans Ayton and Robert Williams need playing time, in part to showcase their talents for a potential trade. Clingan isn’t complaining about his minutes, though.
The Trail Blazers are hoping rookie center Donovan Clingan is their big man of the future (courtesy Bruce Ely/Trail Blazers)
“Whatever opportunities come my way,” he says, “I will go out there and leave it on the floor.”
Clingan gave a glimpse of what he can do on November 13, when he collected 17 points, 12 rebounds and eight blocks in a 106-98 win over Minnesota.
“That was a confidence booster, to see the things I can do, the talents I have, and the upside,” he says. “But what I have to be able to do is stack those types of games on top of each other.”
Clingan was a key member of UConn’s national championship teams of 2023 and ’24. He came off the bench as a freshman to average 6.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in just 13.1 minutes, shooting .655 from the field. He was a starter as a sophomore, averaging 13.0 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in 22.5 minutes, shooting .619. Despite taking only 8.3 shots per game, he played the biggest role of anybody in the Huskies’ 37-3 season.
After Portland took Clingan seventh in the draft — and then rewarded him with a four-year, $31-million contract — general manager Joe Cronin explained why Clingan was so high on the team’s draft board.
“Donovan will be a great addition for this franchise for many reasons — because of who he is as a person, the type of player he is, the defensive prowess he has and the winning mentality he brings,” Cronin said. “What he does best is protect the rim, but his IQ and ability to navigate and react and play the right angles are just as deft. … rim protection has been a big hole of ours. Donovan helps solve that problem.”
When I ask Clingan about the keys to shot-blocking, he shrugs.
“It’s just anticipation and having the right timing to be able to go up and block shots,” he says. “And doing it without fouling.”
Offense will be Clingan’s biggest challenge. So far, it is mostly dunks and tip-ins, though he has made 6 of 21 attempts from the 3-point line. The Blazers don’t need him for a lot of scoring, but he must develop more of a back-to-the-basket game in order to become a complete player.
“I just want to get better every day, trying to help my team win, learning from my mistakes, learning from things I do well,” he says. “I am trying to develop into a better player every day.”
Clingan seems to fit in well with the Blazers.
“I love it here,” he says. “We have a lot of great people in this organization. We have a great coaching staff. They prepare all of us to play at our best physically and mentally. The guys in this locker room, we are all very close. We’re great friends.”
Clingan, who lives in Tualatin near the practice facility, says he is growing more accustomed to the city.
“I like to drive,” he says. “I have gotten around town, trying to pick out restaurants and stuff.”
He likes the outdoors but hasn’t had a lot of time for recreational pursuits outside of basketball.
“I sold my kayak before I left (Connecticut),” he says. “I am going to buy a boat or something and take my boy Justin out on the water,” he says, nodding to locker mate Justin Minaya.
The Blazers hope Clingan will one day develop into a starting center and inside force on a championship-level team. He is not as far along as Avdija, in his fourth NBA season, or Camara, in his second. Both have become starters and important players in Billups’ lineup. They were both terrific against the Thunder.
“Familiarity is happening,” Billups says. “They are learning to play off of one another and with one another, as well with as the guys that are around him. Both are young players discovering things about themselves that they hadn’t done before.”
Avdija is a native of Israel who played his first three NBA seasons with the Wizards. Camara is from Belgium, a former second-round draft pick in his second year with the Blazers after playing center at Dayton.
“Deni hasn’t had this much responsibility offensively before, especially with the ball,” Billups says. “(With Washington) he was more about getting his offense out of close-outs and kick-outs. This is new for him. Toumani is discovering some things about himself, too. We are all loving it with both guys. That is what discovery and development is all about.”
Avdija has emerged as Portland’s best player in recent weeks. He has become especially adept at playing downhill with the ball in frontcourt, bulling his way to the basket and either dishing to a teammate, scoring a basket or drawing a foul a la LeBron James.
“To be a playmaker, you have to be aggressive,” Billups says. “You have to play with force. Until you break the first seal of the defense, they haven’t had to rotate and pull triggers anywhere.
“Deni is so good at getting into the paint. When you get there, most defenses become undisciplined at that point, and then you are able to make plays. You have to get there first and then … the decision-making will slow down for you. That’s what is happening with Deni.”
Nice players, yes. But are they capable of one day leading the Blazers to championship level? Yet to be determined. What we do know is Cronin wants to land a top-three draft pick this season, adding Duke’s Cooper Flagg or Ace Bailey or Dylan Harper of Rutgers, to a youthful nucleus that includes Avdija, Camara, Henderson, Clingan and Shaedon Sharpe. That means losing a lot of games the rest of the way.
At some point soon — the trade deadline is February 6 — that also means dealing away veterans Ayton, Williams, Jerami Grant and/or Anfernee Simons to clear the deck for the “Young Guns” to develop. If it doesn’t happen until after the season, that development is stifled.
The odd man out is Billups, on the final year of the four-year contract he signed after the 2020-21 season. Blazers ownership/management chose not to give him an extension after last season, sending him into this year in lame-duck status while tanking for the fourth year in a row.
While management seeks as many losses as possible, Billups is between a rock and a hard place. For the most part, he is using the players he figures give him the best chance to win now. It’s the elephant in the room that everyone seems afraid to address. Chauncey will likely be gone after this season, sent off without ever getting a fair shake at trying to win with a full deck of players.
Strange happenings in Rip City, for sure.
One more thing: I witnessed a scene during Sunday’s game that was particularly memorable.
There was a young boy, maybe 11 or 12, sitting with his father adjacent to me courtside near the end of the game. The boy was wearing an OKC Shai Gilgeous-Alexander jersey. In the final minute, with SGA at the foul line, the boy yelled, “Shai! Can I have your jersey?” SGA looked at him, smiled and yelled back, “Anything for you!”
I thought that might be it — just a nice exchange and recognition of the youngster from a player who had just scored 35 points, a player who is right there with Nikola Jokic in the running for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award.
But when the final horn sounded, Shai walked over to where the boy was sitting. He took off his jersey, had the boy turn around, then signed it against his back and handed it to him. I don’t need to say that the awestruck boy was over the moon. A pretty cool moment that he will never forget.
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