The good, the bad and the return of two bigs: A Blazers temperature check + a look at playoff trends
Discussing everything from Damian Lillard's torn Achilles to Portland seemingly entering the market for high-priced assistant coaching talent. Also: what the playoffs are saying about Deandre Ayton.
One of the great things about having a newsletter is the ability to opt out of the reaction industrial complex. Like many of you, I was taken aback by watching Damian Lillard tear his Achilles last week during Sunday’s Game 4 of the Bucks-Pacers series. And the moment made me more reflective than reactive. It was just the latest and most difficult bad luck moment in a string of them since Lillard joined the Bucks.
Former Blazers head coach Terry Stotts, who coached Lillard for nine seasons and was an assistant with the Bucks, was unceremoniously fired in the preseason only a few weeks after Dame arrived. Then the Bucks decided to fire Adrian Griffin and bring in Doc Rivers midway through his first season. All the while, the pick and roll chemistry between Giannis and Dame that looked so good on paper never developed because Giannis decided he was beyond setting screens after lobbying to acquire one of the greatest pick and roll guards the game has ever seen. Giannis got hurt right before the 2024 playoffs, leaving Dame to try and fend off the Pacers before he strained his calf. Exactly a year after Lillard strained his calf, he tore his Achilles in his third game back after a receovery from a blood clot in his other calf that his doctors had never seen before.
Technology and recovery from Achilles tears has changed incredibly in the past decade for pro athletes, but it’s impossible for me to block out the feeling that time waits for no man, even the strongest among us. Lillard will no doubt fight and recover better than most. But it’s hard not to feel like we lost an era on Sunday.
It reminded me of being in the Blazers locker room in 2013 with the rest of the local media cohort, watching Kobe Bryant tear his Achilles. It was only 48 hours after Kobe played 48 minutes in one of the most masterful basketball performance I’ve seen in person, against a young Dame. It’s at least tied with Dame’s 50-point performance to send Oklahoma City home as the most dominant individual performances I’ve ever seen.
Bryant was playing far more minutes than he should have, but the Lakers were fighting to make the playoffs. Like Lillard was last week, he was playing for more than just himself. And Kobe was dominating every facet of the game. Only two days after that masterful game in Portland, we all watched in disbelief in the Blazers locker room as he went down. And we were all silent waiting for the next player to speak. Until someone asked the locker room what was going on and Dame broke the silence.
“Kobe just tore his Achilles,” Dame said. And then it all set in what we were watching. The guy just always knows the moment.
Kobe eventually came back, but he was never the same after that. Knowing Dame, the Achilles injury won’t be the end of his NBA story.
But it also makes it set in the incredible career he has had. Baptized by Kobe to become one of the greatest killers the game has ever seen. He stared down all of the greats and went toe-to-toe with the legends of the game, becoming one himself, repping Portland on his chest. And it’s even more sad when you consider Dame saw this potential ending coming, far away from the franchise he calls home.
What hurts is that now all of that will be a memory. But those memories are strong. Ones that lives on and can teleport us to a place where there is no time. Only Dame Time.
And maybe, like Kobe, Dame will get the farewell he deserves. While wearing the uniform everyone associates with his greatest moments.
Blazers in the assistant coaches market
The Oregonian got the scoop that the Blazers were not renewing the contracts of three assistant coaches this week: Roy Rogers, Chris Fleming and Ryan Gomes. Among the three, Rogers was the longest-tenured coach, being an original member of Chauncey Billups’ staff when he was first hired in 2021.
Rogers had been a more vocal member of the staff in previous seasons, often serving as the team’s “defensive coordinator,” calling out different defenses from the sidelines. Whether it was due to NBA rules being harsher on assistants standing up during action or the hiring of Nate Bjorkgren, Rogers was not as vocal of a presence on the sidelines this past season. Bjorkgren was usually the conduit between the bench and Billups this season.
Fleming had been credited with helping Scoot Henderson turn the corner this season and he had also been praised for his work in helping Chicago guard Coby White become a more efficient player. Ryan Gomes, likely the more well-known of the three due to his college stardom at Providence, was a big-man coach who could be seen working on the court with Donovan Clingan.
What does this all mean? Ideally it means that Bert Kolde and Jody Allen are greenlighting a budget increase to pay for top tier assistant coaches. With Billups getting an extension, it at least signals the kind of stability that former head coaches might want in an assistant coach job.
Right now, Nate Bjorkgren is the only assistant on Billups’ staff with head coaching experience. But that is a bit generous given how poorly Bjorkgren’s Pacers tenure went. When you look at teams like Golden State or the Clippers and see how many former head coaches are on those coaching staffs, you start to see how an ownership group that really cares about winning can circumvent the salary cap to build the best team possible. Coaching is a part of that.
And the market is currently flooded with former head coaches that could be looking to take a tour of duty as an assistant to get back into the league. Whether the Blazers can close the deal is another thing. But by opting not to bring back three key parts of Billups’ bench, they’ve set the stage to spend more on the bench to bring in proven coaching talent. Anything less would be a disappointment.
Toumani Camara repping at the lottery
The 2024-25 season was really one long celebration and appreciation of Toumani Camara. His brand of tough, physical basketball helped create this team’s new, Post-Dame identity. And after receiving a couple of Most Improved Player and Defensive Player of the Year votes Camara will be the team’s representative at the 2025 Draft Lottery, according to friend of the program Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report.
The Blazers are surely hoping Camara’s inclusion at the lottery will be an unexpected boon for the franchise just like his inclusion into the Dame trade.
Playoff trends
Speaking of tough, physical basketball, how about these NBA playoffs? And what can we learn from them that could apply to Blazers? For the portion of the season that fell in 2025, the Blazers looked a lot like the kind of team that has had success in the postseason. Of course, you need to be able to make shots more than the 2025 Blazers did, but defense and rebounding are having a moment with the league allowing a more physical brand of basketball.
Teams playing physical defense are advancing and playing two big men at the same time is becoming more of a weapon than the liability it has been seen as for the past Warriors-dominated decade. Portland plays very physical defense and they have great big man depth. This playoff is making Portland’s selection of Donovan Clingan with the 7th pick look even more prescient.
The two best teams in the league feature two bigs often. Oklahoma City features a big men tandem of Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein while Cleveland starts the 7-foot duo of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. And then you’ve got the Minnesota Timberwolves making quick work of the Lakers with Rudy Gobert, Naz Reid and a bevy of physical wing players. The Pistons might have been able to upset the Knicks if Isiah Stewart didn’t have a bad knee, but without Stewart they were powerless when the Knicks played Mitchell Robinson and Karl-Anthony Towns together.
In the Houston-Golden State series, Ime Udoka has kept the Rockets alive by playing Steven Adams and Alperen Sengun together, pushing the series to a decisive 7th game. And that series might be over in Houston’s favor had Udoka trusted Adams to make free-throws in Game 4 when the Warriors employed their intentional foul strategy. He kept Adams in the game in Game 6, so the lesson was learned.
But this is all a long way for me to make this about Deandre Ayton. For as much as people want to send Ayton on the quickest flight out of Portland, these playoffs are suggesting that having multiple playable bigs is no longer a relic of your Dad’s NBA. And this is also where I mention that Ayton is a career 75% free-throw shooter, so hacking strategies are useless against him.
Having multiple bigs you can play at the same time has once again become a requirement to winning at the highest level. It just comes with the modern understanding that 3 > 2. Of all the extension elgible Blazers, Ayton becomes even more intriguing now against the backdrop of the 2025 playoffs. The teams with multiple playable bigs are advancing.
While the Blazers do need to add shooting, when you see players like Malik Beasley lead the NBA in 3-point shooting while making $6 million on a one-year deal, you hope Portland doesn’t get caught paying a premium for skills that can be found at more palatable prices (again).