The Portland Trail Blazers are no doubt excited about the upcoming 2025-26 season. The summer of 2025 has seen more roster change in Portland that any since 2023, when the Blazers bid farewell to now-returned point guard Damian Lillard. The roster is new-ish, growing, and above all, dynamic.

One of the things Portland’s rotation might not be is complete. They field a number of growing, recovering, and/or unproven players. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. The Blazers hope to put together some kind of savant-level chemistry experiment and watch it explode into the next wave of NBA success.

In the process, Portland has downplayed a couple of attributes traditionally valued among NBA franchises: distance shooting and star scoring. Instead they’ve invested in versatility, defense, and unself

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