Prior to the start of the 2012-13 season, the Trail Blazers seemed destined to be a lottery team for the second straight year. By December, though, the brilliant play of rookie sensation Damian Lillard, coupled with improvement from Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews and J.J. Hickson, had quickly dispelled that notion. The Blazers were in a fight for a playoff seed.
At times they looked fantastic, grabbing wins against the Lakers, Heat, Nuggets, Clippers, Spurs and Knicks. However, as the minutes piled up, the results were less impressive: Lillard is third in the NBA at minutes per game at 38.6, with Batum and LaMarcus Aldridge close behind at six and 11, respectively.
In early February, the Portland team was sitting right around .500, and its playoff hopes were fading quickly. The team was in very dangerous territory, risking missing both the playoffs and the chance at a first-round pick. The Charlotte Bobcats have the rights to the Blazers’ first-round pick, as long as the player falls out of the top 12. At the time, the Blazers were sitting right in the 12-to-14 range.
In the waning weeks of the season, the team and their fanbase received a blessing in disguise: an 11-game losing streak. With two games remaining against the Clippers and Warriors — both fighting for position in the Western Conference Playoff standings — the streak is likely to extend to 13 games, tying a franchise record set in the second year of Blazers’ basketball, the 1971-72 season.
Currently, with its Sunday loss to the Denver, Portland is tied with Philadelphia for the 11th-worst record in the league — but could get to the ninth.
For many fans, the notion of tanking to get a better lottery pick (or in this case, any lottery pick) is cheap and unsportsman-like. However, the Blazers don’t seem to be tanking — rather just feeling the effects of playing a high number of minutes manifesting itself in lethargy and injury. And while a late lottery pick normally doesn’t have a big impact, the would-be pick could potentially have huge implications for how the team plays next season.
The Blazers have the worst scoring bench in the league at 18.4 points per game, which is nearly eight points fewer than the second worst, Indiana, at 26.1 points per game. With the likely departure of Nolan Smith, Luke Babbitt, and Hickson, the team will desperately need improved production from their bench next season.
Furthermore, under the league’s new collective bargaining agreement, draft picks are possibly more important than they have ever been. Salary caps are dropping, and the luxury tax is becoming more and more crippling. Getting solid production from a player on a rookie contract is simply the best bargain available.
Take Lillard for example: Currently he is 12th in scoring at 19 per game, 17th in assists with 6.5 and fifth in the league in made three pointers — yet, he is making a little over $3 million per year on a four-year contract. In his fifth year, he will likely get a max deal pushing him above $20 million per year.
Another reason rookies can be valued higher than free agents is that once their rookie scale contract is up, the team can resign them without having to clear cap space since the league allows you to resign your own players without any cap implications. They will have to pay luxury tax, but it still gives them flexibility to spend excess money on the free-agent market rather than their young players.
The Blazers will likely have $13 million to spend in free agency in the off-season. If they can use that money wisely and draft well in the low end of the lottery, they can give their strong starting lineup — the only one in the league where all five players scored at least 1,000 points — the help they deserve and then look to the postseason.