One Basketball, Three Stars: Portland's Great Backcourt Experiment Begins

Portland Trail Blazers media day arrives Monday, Sept. 28, training camp opens Tuesday, and the franchise has never felt more like a laboratory. New owner Tom Dundon, new head coach Micah Nori, and a backcourt rebuilt around two former faces of other franchises — the most consequential week of Portland's offseason is really the opening bell of a season-long experiment with no obvious blueprint.

The headline name is Damian Lillard. The franchise icon, traded to Milwaukee in 2023 and reacquired in 2025, spent last season rehabbing an Achilles tear. His return is the story Blazers fans have circled for a year, and it addresses the roster's most glaring weakness — shooting. Portland's never-ending spacing problems get a proven answer the moment Lillard is on the floor. The unresolved question is volume: at this stage of his career, on a team that no longer belongs to him, how many minutes does he actually play, and in what role?

Then there's Ja Morant, acquired from Memphis in a summer blockbuster that cost Portland Jerami Grant. Reports have framed the deal as a rushed Dundon move rather than a measured Joe Cronin one, and the roster math supports the skepticism. Morant averaged 19.5 points and 8.1 assists in 2025 — but in only 20 games, on 41 percent shooting and 23.5 percent from three. He remains a genuine offensive engine and a genuine availability risk at the same time.

Add Scoot Henderson, and Portland has three guards who all want the ball in their hands. Henderson's situation comes with a clock: Oct. 19 is the deadline for a rookie extension, and every contender around the league signing theirs only sharpens the contrast. The third overall pick in 2023 averaged 14.2 points and 3.7 assists in just 30 games last season, and the Morant trade pushed him further down the depth chart. If no deal comes by the deadline, Henderson plays the final year of his rookie contract as a trade asset in waiting — a distraction Nori inherits rather than created.

Jrue Holiday may be the stabilizer in all of this. Coming off 16.3 points and 6.1 assists across 53 games, he's the rare guard on this roster comfortable without the ball, and there's a real case that a bench role makes him a Sixth Man of the Year candidate while cleaning up the starting five's spacing.

The frontcourt quietly matters just as much. Deni Avdija's All-Star-caliber leap last season — 24.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 6.7 assists over 66 games — was partially obscured by a back injury, and the Morant addition risks crowding the touches that fueled it. Donovan Clingan (12.1 points, 11.6 rebounds, 1.7 blocks in 77 games) gives Portland a defensive anchor, and his reported shooting growth would unlock lineup combinations Nori couldn't previously run.

Context for the ceiling: this team went 42-40 last season and sat 16th in the power ratings at a near-neutral mark, already adjusted for injuries. The market has Portland's win total at 42.5 with championship odds at 8,000 — a long number that reflects a roster with real talent and severe fit questions rather than a contender.

The preseason opener against Golden State on Oct. 7 and the Oct. 21 regular-season tip against Phoenix won't settle anything. But they'll offer the first real look at whether Nori can turn a crowded, ball-dominant guard room into a functioning offense — or whether Portland's most intriguing storyline of the week becomes its most persistent problem of the season.