The Portland Trail Blazers have been a consistent playoff team for the last few years, even making a Western Conference Finals appearance in the 2019 season. However, they have not been close to reaching that level this season.
The Western Conference is tough, with a lot of good teams vying to make the playoffs. The Portland Trail Blazers have not been able to be the playoff team they were last season, and they are currently 13-22 and 14th in the West.
11 of their 22 losses came in the month of December, and they only managed to win 2 games throughout that entire month. It is clear that something needs to change for the team.
The Blazers went 2-11 in the month of December 🥶 pic.twitter.com/GXl9AHwv3A
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) January 1, 2022
Damian Lillard has long been linked with other teams. Most notably, Lillard has been linked with the Philadelphia 76ers, who are in win-now mode as big man Joel Embiid is currently in his prime. Lillard has been steadfast in his loyalty to the Trail Blazers, but perhaps we’ll still see the team trade him at some point in the future and try to rebuild. There is no doubt that this has been a disappointing season, and it’s clear that hiring Chauncey Billups hasn’t helped the Trail Blazers improve.
With that being said, there’s still a chance that the Portland Trail Blazers make the play-in tournament, and make the playoffs via that route. However, it seems as though the writing has been on the wall for a while for this iteration of the Trail Blazers, and a lot of people believe that the best move for the Trail Blazers is to trade away their veterans and try to rebuild. We will see what course of action they decide to take moving forward, but things definitely don’t look good for them from the standpoint of being a competitive team.
