Portland Trailblazers Returning Preseason Presser

[Bowtothebill23]

Wow, it's nice to be doing this again. While this will be my second season since returning, it's my first press conference, and I couldn't be happier to be standing here today. A season ago, I made the easy decision to look into trading our best player, expiring Grayson Allen. Through a sequence of trades, that return has amounted to: Tasmin Mithcell, Nickolas Lynch, Winfred Phelps, the Bulls 2035 first rounder, the Rockets 2036 first rounder, and 24 points.

We struggled last year, but we were fortunate enough to receive two lottery picks, one of which turned into the #2 pick in the draft. We viewed Luguentz Dort in a tier of his own when it came to the draft due to his elite athleticism and scoring ability. When we had the opportunity to move up for him, we had to do so. In Dort, we believe we have a future max player, a guy who can be a star scorer as well as contribute through his passing rebounding, and defense.

In free agency, we tried to sign veterans who could help other teams who were trying to compete this year to good contracts. We were able to do so, and we are looking forward to trade packages for Haynes, Williams, Minter, Radke, Tagovailoa, and Copeland. We also have a trove of young assets that we're looking to consolidate at all times, guys like Lutes, Mitchell, Brooks, Blakemore, Lynch, May, Phelps, and Lujan.

This is going to be another struggle of a season in all likelihood, but there should be some brighter spots. Last season, we didn't have many young guys who could really contribute. Now, we believe we have 4+ who can get significant minutes right away. But we're most excited about our future. We have multiple picks in each of the next two drafts, we have a future star in Dort, and we have some very solid rookie contracts that we're excited to build around.

[MexicanMamba]

With so much youth on the roster, who do you see making the leap and grabbing control of the team this season?

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[Keepit100]

There is always a debate as to how to handle the #1 pick's first season - Lopez and Loredo barely saw playing time, Jordan Johnson and Wiseman immediately started, and Felicio was redshirted completely. Where do you see Dort fitting in this season?

[garbageman]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: You were in negotiations with a lot of veteran free agents and landed Erik Haynes, Michael Williams, and Thomas Minter. Yet, you still ended up with 50mm in cap space.

What was your approach to free agency, and how successful was your plan?

[NOLa.]

Dort went from looking like a fringe 1st option to full on foundational piece to build around after TC and even looked great in preseason. Although he looks like he still needs time to grow, do you feel you should invest in current trainings to push him up and possibly push up the rebuild time frame?

[ballsohard]

Will you continue to try and rename players to the 3rd best team in the country or go back to your usually method of #1 and switch to LSU names ?


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[Xist2Inspire]

Random Reporter: Much ado has been made about Dort, and rightfully so, but what are you hoping to see from guys like Lutes, Mitchell, and especially Brooks, who has a lot of buzz around him coming out of camp?

[Bowtothebill23]

With so much youth on the roster, who do you see making the leap and grabbing control of the team this season?

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Even just for this particular season, I think we are going to give Dort every opportunity to learn. We're not hiding the fact that all of our older guys are essentially up for auction, so it'll fall onto the shoulders of our young core to succeed. Dort has the athleticism and requisite talent to be a solid contributor right off the bat.

[Bowtothebill23]

There is always a debate as to how to handle the #1 pick's first season - Lopez and Loredo barely saw playing time, Jordan Johnson and Wiseman immediately started, and Felicio was redshirted completely. Where do you see Dort fitting in this season?

Dort had an incredibly good Training Camp which made this decision a little easier. He is going to get every opportunity to play and succeed.This is helped by the fact that he has little to no competition at his spot. He will certainly struggle, and if there were other options, we'd consider them, but he's going to get his shot to go for Rookie of the Year.

[Bowtothebill23]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: You were in negotiations with a lot of veteran free agents and landed Erik Haynes, Michael Williams, and Thomas Minter. Yet, you still ended up with 50mm in cap space.

What was your approach to free agency, and how successful was your plan?

A lot of that started last season. We really purged the roster of guys on multi-year deals who'd serve little to no purpose for us. I don't want to give away *too* many secrets, but my goal in UFA was to get to 15 players by signing useful veterans to value contracts to trade away. Signing someone to a $30MM deal just to have him play for my team but be a pain to trade was no use for me. I wanted to make sure I signed guys who could be traded for MLE or min guys with the trade still being legal, and I think that step was rather successful.

[NickMalone77]

Elliot Radke played extremely well for me last season off the bench after a short time in the starting role and I'm happy to see him earn the deal he got in the offseason. Do you see Radke as a guy that can take his PER and play well as a starter or 6th man type given some of the options you have in your front court?

[Bowtothebill23]

Dort went from looking like a fringe 1st option to full on foundational piece to build around after TC and even looked great in preseason. Although he looks like he still needs time to grow, do you feel you should invest in current trainings to push him up and possibly push up the rebuild time frame?

Being new, we don't have the points to spare unfortunately so we are more focused on making sure he can be as good a player as possible at his peak.

[Bowtothebill23]

Will you continue to try and rename players to the 3rd best team in the country or go back to your usually method of #1 and switch to LSU names ?


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We are looking forward to going back to Alabama #1 once LSU has to face life without literally the best player in college football history and has to fall back to being the 5th or so best team in the country as opposed to the best team ever.

[Bowtothebill23]

Random Reporter: Much ado has been made about Dort, and rightfully so, but what are you hoping to see from guys like Lutes, Mitchell, and especially Brooks, who has a lot of buzz around him coming out of camp?

First, we have to clear some more playing time for them. But right now, we're just looking for some preliminary scoring ability. They all have the potential to contribute in a variety of ways, but I think right now, if we can see some flashes of scoring ability, that'd really excite me.