Courtesy of Charles Anderson
Ever since trading superstar point guard Damien Lillard to the Bucks in 2023, the Portland Trail Blazers have been one of several teams in the ever-dreaded NBA limbo. The Blazers, previously a perennial playoff team, have found themselves too middling to compete for the play-in tournament but not quite abysmal enough to strike lottery gold in the draft and have their prospects change.
The team hoped this limbo, so to speak, would come to an end last year when they drafted exciting point guard prospect, Scoot Henderson, third overall in the 2024 NBA draft. The pick made all the sense in the world. Henderson was touted as a fast, athletic guard compared to MVP’s like Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook, with shades of young phenom Ja Morant. Henderson was also the clear second overall talent in the draft, next only to generational prospect Victor Wembanyama.
Much to Portland’s surprise, Henderson was available at the No. 3 draft spot only because fellow limbo team the Charlotte Hornets drafted the controversial Brandon Miller with the No. 2 overall pick. After a year in the desert, Portland hoped they could replace one star point guard with another. Henderson even wore double zero, a reminder of Lillard’s zero jersey number which is still seen everywhere around Portland.
However, Henderson did not manifest into some savior for the franchise, instead turning out to be just plain awful. At one point, Henderson recorded an impressive -58 box plus/minus, a stat that measures the player’s performance by estimating the points per 100 possessions a player contributes above an average player — anything below -2.0 is considered replacement level. At the time, this was the worst recorded game in NBA history. In the same 2024 NBA season, the Blazers won a pitiful 21 games out of 82, the worst team in the Western Conference. To be fair to him, Henderson was not the only reason the team was terrible. Questionable trades, big contracts to career role players like Jerami Grant and season-long injury struggles all culminated in a season from hell. To cap the season off, the Blazers failed to score even a top five pick in the NBA draft — despite their pitiful record.
Instead, the team fell all the way to the seventh overall pick, drafting shot-blocking center Donovan Clingan out of UConn. Over the offseason, the team made moves here and there, most notably trading for the somewhat promising Deni Avdija from the Washington Wizards with hopes of reviving his young career. Still, the team seemed doomed to once again spend another season in limbo.
Through the first part of the 24-25 season, the team seems to have entered a new gear. The team in 2025 alone had a stretch where they won 10 of 11 games, and at one point touted the league’s second-best defense since the new year. With starters like Anfernee Simons and the aforementioned Donovan Clingan suffering mid-season injuries, as well as other players throughout the season, the team was forced into atypical lineups. These lineups allowed bench players to shine and new heroes to emerge. Players like Duop Reath, Toumani Camara and Delanto Banton — who is nicknamed D.B. Hooper — have shown out in new playing time, using their athleticism for some truly fun basketball, filled with alley-oops and all.
The true breakout of this Blazer revival has been the aforementioned Deni Avdija. Avdija has been a monster of getting fouled on baskets, leading the league in and ones (a made basket plus a foul) since the all-star break. Since said break, Avdija is averaging an impressive 22.5 points, 9.6 rebounds and 5.2 assist on a solid 64.4 true shooting percentage.
“What Deni Avdija is doing for the TrailBlazers right now is ridiculous” NBA commentator Kenny Beecham said recently on the Small Ball Podcast. “That’s like an all-star player.”
Today, the Trail Blazers sit just a few wins out of the play-in tournament, with six games left to play. Though their odds are slim, the playoff window has not yet closed for this team. This being said, in all likelihood, this team will finish with a record that once again leaves them unable to reach the playoffs but not quite lowly enough to strike lottery gold, the same as the last two years. But what this team represents, if anything, is hope.
Whereas limbo once seemed this dreary place for the Blazers, this year’s time undeniably has a fun sort of spark to it. I even witnessed this in person in their March 21 blowout of the Denver Nuggets — though as a Denver resident, I should note the Nuggets’ superstar Nikola Jokić was not playing. The team played with such pace and such freedom that it was hard to even be mad about my home team losing. For a struggling team, this youth and excitement is about all you can ask for. Perhaps the Portland Trail Blazers still remain in the limbo of the NBA, but it seems that maybe, just maybe, winning is just around the corner.
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