Portland Pre-season Presser 2024

[kucoach7]

Welcome to the beginning of another season of Blazers basketball. Today we start a new era of the Portland Trailblazers but first we need to review the past. Last season went about as well as we expected. We lost a lot of games but we saw the progress we needed to see. Frank Jackson far exceeded expectations as a rookie, becoming our go-to scoring option. Marvin Bagley joined him on the All-rookie first team and did well for a rookie. He's not particularly happy at the moment but some times these young budding stars need to eat some humble pie before they can reach their potential. James Yepez made the second All-rookie team and we brought back Leon Turner, a former second round draft pick that was supposed to be our backup point guard of the future. It will be interesting to see which of those guys prevails as the actual back-up this year. Joey Spann was one of the better sophomores in the league in his first season in Portland. The biggest story for us last year, however, was trading Doug Kimbrough back to the Pistons for Joe Reading. We really liked Slice and were expecting to keep him around but when Detroit offered Reading, we couldn’t refuse. We think Joe is going to be great. He’s 7’2”, he’s super strong, he can jump, he can finish inside, he can rebound, and he can defend. We’ll work on his rim protection but we think the future is bright for this kid.

With the addition of Reading, we felt we had a solid core in Jackson, Barrett, Bagley, and Reading. All we needed was a point guard… and then the draft file came out. With no point guards in the draft, we decided to draft another wing and pursue a trade of Barrett for a point guard. We were happy to bring back one of the premier point guards in the league in Small. He’s only 25 and honestly still has plenty of room to grow. We also wanted to pick up a small forward in his prime. The free agency class didn’t really offer this so we traded for Jaylen Brown. Jaylen is a really unique player and we are excited to see what he can do with our young squad.

We were and are really pleased with the personnel moves we made this offseason. We think we are set up for years to come. Unfortunately training camp was a disaster. Ronald Small got beat up pretty badly in some areas. Bagley had to be saved by insurance again. Zion Williamson got trashed. Meanwhile the guys we traded away, Barrett and Barger, got TC boosts. Alas, such is life when you are the Blazers. The computer hates you and never gets tired of reminding you.

This season our goal is to make the payoffs in a wide open west. We took two steps forward this offseason only to take one step back in camp but we still believe that we have laid the foundation for a team that can win for years to come.

[JNR]

GWR: With so much youth in your organization, where do you expect the leadership to come from?

[NOLa.]

Is this Blazers team ready to take advantage of a weak western conference?


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[kucoach7]

GWR: With so much youth in your organization, where do you expect the leadership to come from?

Ronald Small is young but he's experienced. He has never really had a team just hand him the keys and say "This is your team," but that is what we are doing with him. We expect him to be the leader to turn around this franchise.

[kucoach7]

Is this Blazers team ready to take advantage of a weak western conference?


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I sure hope so. The team is still young and has a ton of weaknesses but we think that we have enough talent to challenge for that 8th playoff spot.

[IamQuailman]

How excited are you about Reading?

[kucoach7]

How excited are you about Reading?

I'm super excited, especially since we're paying him less than $3 million a year for the next three years. He still has so much room to grow and he is already an efficient scorer. Look for him to be a bigger part of our offense this year. Once he reaches his full scoring potential and protects the rim, he will be one of the elite centers in the league.

[garbageman]

Do you have a starting 5 in mind for opening day?

[Soundwave]

If you had to pick one, what is the most important single attribute or skill of any lone player on your team?

[kucoach7]

Do you have a starting 5 in mind for opening day?

We're going with Reading, Bagley, Brown, Jackson, and Small starting with Spann and Garrido getting most of the minutes off the bench.

[kucoach7]

If you had to pick one, what is the most important single attribute or skill of any lone player on your team?

Probably Small's perimeter defense. We are not a stellar defensive squad. We need Small to be a legit stopper for us.

[WigNosy]

How long does Marvin Bagley III have to change his potential into production?