Laurynas Birutis has emerged as Portland's best player
At one point in the season, the Portland Trailblazers were solidly in playoff positioning. But a recent 1-10 slide has plummeted them into the lottery ranks and there's reason to believe the team is now shifting to the rebuild. Nikola Mirotic might be dealt any day now - numerous teams have been calling and making offers, and sources say the Blazers are ready to move on and experiment with other players at the 4 as they prepare to build on what's working thus far.
At 27 games at the time of this writing, Portland is 10-17 and all stats/remarks come from that point.
Point Guard
Aaron Holiday (26) - 11 points, 5.7 assists, 4 rebounds, 1.6 steals - 45.1% shooting, 37.5% from 3
Holiday is continuing to have the best season of his career, though the recent combo guard role experiment the last six games yielded mixed results as he got his first action at the SG spot. The best lineups all still consistently feature him at PG and while there's still a possibility of a hotshot rookie or a glitzy free agent coming in to take over and shift him to the combo guard role more extensively, for now he's being moved back to the starting PG role. 13.6% PIE, 16.8 PER, 15.5 EFF stats all point to his being the second-best player on the team right now or in the conversation with one other player. The 1.03 PA/SF is okay for someone facing a lot of 3 point shots. Regardless, his presence alone points to the Joel Ingles trade being a Win-Win. At at 26, he's still young enough to be a key player once the Blazers are back to being a good team again.
Cameron Oliver (25) - 14.1 points, 4.4 assists, 3.1 rebounds - 42.2%, 35.4% from 3
Posted 4 straight 20+ games in his first four starts at PG with two 30+ point outings, but despite the volume of scoring, he's been an individual net negative in every contest. His shooting has overall improved since coming over from the Lakers, but it's likely he needs to shift to a wing role - perhaps SF next season - to be more effective. For the time being, however, he'll be playing PG because Vasilije Mcic and Austin Rivers are expiring and have no future on the squad.
Shooting Guard
Hamidou Diallo "The Younger" (22) - 15.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, 1.1 steals - 42.7%, 32.1% from 3
While the shooting doesn't look great as a whole (49.1% TS is third-worst, 46.2% EFG is fourth-worst teamwise), it's worth noting that his 42.7% from the floor is the best so far of his career and it appears he's turned the corner from a sub-40% drain on the offense to a mediocre volume shooter as the team's leading scorer. That's an important step forward and there's reason to believe he still has upside to become better in his form.
But the real reason his +3.0 ON is second-best on the team? He's been an absolute force defensively - a team-high 96% Drive Stop Rate with a staggering for a guard 0.89 PA/SF on 8.3 shots faced/game - second only to shots faced behind Birutis. And he quite simply doesn't turn the ball over - his 9.2% TO is behind only Leonard, who has a lot fewer touches per game.
While there's still a ways to go, there's every reason to believe that Diallo the Younger is on his way to becoming a quality two-way player if he can continue to develop his efficiency. The defense is already clearly there. In fact, the better offense has translated into his PIE climbing up to 11% - a key development and a sign that he's on the verge of becoming a legitimately good player.
As far as shooting guard backups go, there isn't really one to comment on extensively. Austin Rivers is out of the rotation since he won't be back next season and teams aren't interested in him currently as a 6th man combo guard and 3 point sniper off the bench. So the Blazers have been auditioning various other possibilities there.
Small Forward
Patrick McCaw (28) - 4.7 points, 1.1 steals - 49.3% FG, 37.5% from 3 point
McCaw has been the starting SF since coming over in a small trade with the Pelicans and he's been exactly what the Blazers hoped for - a low-usage player who can shoot and play quality defense (94.2% Drive Stop Rate, 0.97 PA/SF, 1.4 TOFC). His turnover numbers have likewise been quietly impressive on an advanced metric stats level - enough so that he's going to get some run at the backup SG spot while the coaching staff experiments with putting another player as the starting SF (more on that in a bit).
His +4.6 NET also points to his value, as does his 55.7% TS and 53.5% EFG. Will he ever light the world on fire? No. Is he a player who might get a multi-year contract on a cheap deal to serve as a reserve role this next summer? Yes. Especially with the next player on the list likely to retire after this season if he doesn't decide to hang on for one more year. The former UNLV star/Jestor late first round draftee in a bad class is proving exactly what this roster needs.
Kawhi Leonard (35) - 8.1 points, 4.2 rebounds - 45.5%, 47.4% from 3 point range
The faded great actually started the season as the SF and in fact has a better lineup rate than the one featuring McCaw and was only bumped down to the second unit to try and bolster what was porous defense there. He's no longer capable of being a disruptive force in terms of turnovers but he's still good enough for spot minutes there. It wouldn't be a shock to see a contender pick him up as a rental to come off the bench but it's also just as likely he plays out the string before sailing off into the sunset.
Power Forward
Nikola Mirotic (30) - 14.4 points, 3.1 assists, 6.4 rebounds, 1 steal, 0.9 blocks - 38%, 33% from 3 point range
Many preseason prognosticators predicted Mirotic would have an explosive season now that Marcus Smart was out of the way - especially since the yet another former Jestor draftee was the team's lone 3 point gunner threat. But that hasn't happened - instead, he's experiencing the single-worst shooting season of his career.
That said, his 13.6% PIE, positive ON (+0.6), 50.9% TS, 48.5% EFG, 93.8% Drive Stop Rate, 0.91 PA/SF, and 1.7 TOFC are all advanced metrics that suggest he's not actually hurting the team despite his abysmal topline shooting numbers. He's still playing quality two-way ball and the numbers are a function of his being forced to shoot 8.5 3s a game (Aaron Holiday at 3 treys a game is the only other starter whose numbers come in the vicinity and Cameron Oliver's 3.6/game point to a similar scenario).
Chances are high, just as many predicted, that he eventually finds a new home - most likely with a Western contender, as the Eastern teams who have offered have made proposals that don't mesh with what the Blazers are looking for, whereas two teams in the West have either made offers that would be acceptable or are considering putting together more palatable packages.
Finn Delany (20) - 4.7 points, 0.6 steals (44.3% FG, 34.4% from 3)
The bloom has worn off the second round Kiwi's torrid shooting to start the season, but his 60.5% TS, 56.2% EFG is still noteworthy as a blossoming shooter threat, but they're still going to feed him some minutes to develop with because the upside is definitely there to become a Mirotic-style player. And with the Blazers already apparently headed for making this a rebuild year with an opportunity for a quick turnaround next season, depending on the draft and free agency, it doesn't make sense to cut bait on him.
Center
Laurynas Birutis (24) - 14.4 points, 9.9 rebounds, 1.4 blocks - 49% shooting
You might want to say Birutis is having a disappointing season. But the truth is, he isn't. The Portland organization never saw him as a #1 option on offense - they saw him as a #2 player who could play both ways extremely well and be an anchor piece. 19.5 PER, 13.6% PIE, 17.6 EFF, 0.79 PA/SF on a second-highest 10.2 shots faced/per game all support that. Despite the lack of sexy top lineup numbers, he's being precisely what the Blazers imagined he would be and the advanced stats support he has actually been Portland's unquestioned best player. His +4.0 ON is also tops on the squad, just ahead of Diallo the Younger's +3.0 ON.
Domantas Sabonis (26) - Too soon to tell
The jury is still very much out on Sabonis - it's only been six games. What's clear, however, is much like Diallo the Elder, he's ill-suited to play backup CE, as the lineups with him occupying that role have been absolutely terrible. He'll instead get a look at the starting SF spot to see how he performs with the rest of the lineup of Holiday/Diallo the Younger/Mirotic/Birutis.
Jack Salt (23)
He's looked terrible so far, but he's only played 10 minutes in his entire pro career. Due to the rebuild mode, he'll get a long look as the backup CE, but will probably be a third string/emergency CE for the next few years before he washes out to the D-League.
Overall Thoughts
The team-wide stats point to this Blazers squad being bad overall from an underlying perspective, with only their ability to defend the 3 point shot as a standout metric. Still, the Blazers are performing better record-wise than some anticipated at the start of the season, and much of the bad showing is no doubt due to their recent ghastly form.
After just re-inserting Aaron Holiday in as the PG, they ran off a 105-101 road win in Charlotte, further bolstering the idea that Cameron Oliver as a full-time PG was a major culprit in their futile 1-10 streak.
Three things clearly stand out: 1) the lack of a reliable backcourt backup to provide better lineups, 2) the dearth of an impact shotblocker, and 3) a backup center who won't be absolutely awful on the second unit.
All versions of the starting five featuring Holiday/Diallo the Younger/X/Mirotic/Birutis have actually outscored their opponents taken in totality - whether it's Kawhi Leonard or Patrick McCaw. Even Finn Delany at the SF spot in limited minutes has posted a positive rating with the rest of those starters.
Said a Blazers source, "I think if you remove the Oliver at PG experiment, maybe we win enough of those games during the swoon to still be on the outside stalking in the playoffs at this stage in the season. We'll continue to experiment with different guys at SF, and obviously if Mirotic is traded, then you're looking at more things to test and see how it runs.
But right now, we're really confident that the Holiday/Diallo the Younger/Birutis core trio is one that's working well and gives us a baseline of players to build around. Especially now that Hamidou has his shooting largely fixed, and now it's just a matter of waiting to see what tweaks need to be made."
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