NBA/Blazers 2025-26 Thread

[Boom]

I don't get why nobody looks stuff up before they post.

Memphis's best year - 2021-22 Team Stats

FG% .435 3PT FG% .365 eFG% .507

Portland 2025-26 Team Stats

FG% .453 3PT FG% .343 eFG% .534

I don't know how one defines 'high level shooters' but looking at their best year in terms of wins, their 3pt shooting was a little better, but overall fg percentage was worse than the Blazers last year. I mean, the main scorers besides Ja were Desmond Bane and Dillon Brooks. Brooks is certainly not known as a 'high level shooter' and Bane is a good player, but not an all-star or anything. If anything, that team was known for its defense more than its shooting.

Bane is a career 40% 3pt shooter at a high volume. They built the team around Ja with shooters before they blew it up for a rebuild. Ja and Deni are great downhill players. I don't think they fit well together, but regardless the Blazers should be surrounding them with knock down shooters. Otherwise defenses pack the paint and make it difficult on them. Deni has the size to play through and finish over the congested paint. Ja does not. He needs to the spacing to utilize his speed.

[Phalanx]

Bane is a good shooter, but he was the only one, and somehow Ja was able to do his thing. Obviously shooting is important, but good shooters can come from different places. Remember how Phil Jackson used to use scrubs like Steve Kerr, Craig Hodges, B.J. Armstrong and John Paxson to space the floor? So geriatric Lillard, Vít Krejčí and the new guy Potter can be used that way as well, and who knows, maybe Toumani and Shaedon have been working on their shooting. Or maybe it wasn't a fluke with Scoot in the playoffs. In any case, a team can always use a scoring slasher who passes well like Ja to break down defenses. Teams are going to figure out how to deal with Deni otherwise.

On another topic does anyone like the idea of retiring LMA's number 12? Apparently it has been floated by Lillard and others and nobody can use that number.

[pezsez1]

On another topic does anyone like the idea of retiring LMA's number 12? Apparently it has been floated by Lillard and others and nobody can use that number.

Gonna disagree with Dame on this one and say "hell no."

LaMarcus Aldridge was really good, and had he stayed with Portland I'd view him very similarly to Damian Lillard. But the fact of the matter is he took advantage of the organization's good will by saying he'd sign an extension, and instead he became a free agent and jumped ship. Not only did he leave, but he deprived the organization of getting anything for him in return.

Let's put aside our disagreements on Lillard for 5 minutes. There's no denying that Dame's era would have been significantly more productive if we could have possibly flipped LMA into assets that might have given Dame a wingman of similar caliber (who wasn't also a small guard). But LMA gamed the organization to prevent a trade so that he could choose his destination as a free agent. That doesn't make him a bad person -- from his own personal/business perspective, it makes sense -- but it was a non-personal dick move toward the Blazers.

Also I just don't think he earned it. He led the Blazers to five playoff appearances but only got out of the first round once. And then he left the team high and dry while in his prime.

All of that said, retiring his jersey would probably be the most Blazer thing ever. Hell they might as well build him a statue while they're at it.

Had LMA led the team deeper into the playoffs, or out of the first round more often, I'd say do it. Had he stayed with the organization through his prime, I'd say do it. But he did neither of those things. The retirement of jersey numbers should be an honor reserved for Blazer legends. He's not a Blazer legend. I'm not even sure he has a real signature moment. He had one high-scoring playoff game (in a series that I think we lost) but nothing special jumps out when I think about LaMarcus Aldridge. Heck, here's a hot take, I feel like CJ McCollum is more of a Blazer legend than LMA, and I wouldn't retire his jersey, either.

[Phalanx]

I just looked up who is retired for the Blazers. It's a bunch of guys from the championship team, Geoff Petrie (maybe for total service as player and front office guy), and Clyde Drexler. So basically, the philosophy was to get overly-excited about winning the one championship and retire everyone, and then be very sparing after that. So who are the best players in Blazer history besides Walton and Drexler?

LaMarcus leads the Blazers all time in rebounds. He is is also third on the list in points, although it is a distant third, way behind Lillard and Drexler. He played nine seasons for the Blazers before bolting for San Antonio and leaving the Blazers in a dive that they have still never fully recovered from. Because he left, Olshey went from a confident GM to a paranoid shadow of his former self. He handed the reins and the keys and the money and even personnel decisions to Lillard, scared that he would leave too. He started wildly overpaying sub-par players and trading draft capital away for player rentals, thereby preventing the team from ever acquiring another star that might wrest control away from the spoiled child that Lillard ended up becoming. It all started with LMA leaving and the recovery didn't begin until Cronin traded Lillard away. We are still in that recovery process now and I have come to view Lillard's return as another step in that process, like when Luke has to go weaponless into that cave to face Vader in order to come out a real Jedi. The team has improved, but the final step is to be good enough to leave Lillard on the bench, or maybe turn him into a positive contributor to a winner for the first time in his sad career, like how Annakin turns away from the dark side right at the end.

So anyway, from a stat standpoint LaMarcus is possibly as deserving as anyone not named Drexler since the championship era. There is a great argument also for Terry Porter who still leads the team all time in assists and is a close 4th in points behind LMA. Aldridge made a lot of all-star teams which might carry some weight. Still, the years of losing in the wake of his departure outweigh any contribution he made in my view. I would say retire Terry instead.

[pezsez1]

I wouldn't retire either of them. And man, I loved the Drexler era. I actually had a Drexler poster on my wall growing up! And Terry Porter remains an extremely underrated point guard... but that was Clyde Drexler's team. I'll always cherish that whole group. Has Portland ever had bench players as widely loved as Uncle Cliffy? But Drexler was so amazing, and got us so close to the mountaintop, that he earned his place in the rafters despite his messy departure.

Dame deserves it for his accolades, his leadership, and the amazing moments he gave us. (Phalanx, when he hit that jumper over PG, did you punch a hole in the wall in disgust?) Everyone I knew was jumping around screaming like we just won the lottery haha. Yeah, sucked getting swept in the WCF, but as a small market team with your second-best player being CJ McCollum, that squad will always have a special place in the heart of Blazer fandom -- and Lillard was that team's heart and soul, much like Drexler was the heartbeat of the 92 squad, or Brandon Roy was the heartbeat of his era.

Dame also has an emotional advantage that others don't have. He fully embraced Portland. Lamarcus eventually left to be closer to home (who can blame him for that), but Dame made his home in Portland. He could have gone anywhere after tearing his achilles and the Bucks extended his contract, and he chose to call Joe Cronin and return to the Blazers. Now, some (like you) think he may bolt at the first-available moment, and maybe he will. Who knows? Maybe Ja and Scoot/Sharpe explode this season and Dundon (who has no attachment to Lillard) tells him he'll accommodate a trade to his destination of choice if he agrees to go. The NBA is a business and there are a lot of variables here. But my money is on Dame staying home and retiring as a Portland legend. I don't think he would have signed for these final fleeting years of his "youth" unless he planned on staying put.

Anyway, his embrace of the city, his participation in social causes close to his heart (that largely align with Portland's values), his immersion into the local music scene, his charity work, his basketball camps, his local investments... it's not uncommon for Blazers players to come here and never leave. Porter, Kersey and Duckworth all became permanent Portland residents, as have many others over the years... but for someone most people say is on the Blazers' Mt. Rushmore to be so bullish about Portland is absolutely a factor.

And now I'll sit back and wait for your next anti-Lillard commentary, but it is what it is. I only talked about Dame here to draw a contrast against Aldridge, who was a less-talented, less-engaged, less-valuable player who actually won fewer playoff games/series, provided no real signature moments, wasn't ever really a locker room leader, AND he left Portland in a horrible lurch, whereas Lillard patiently waited through two years of tanking and allowed the organization to begin rebuilding around him (and suffered the pick of Scoot, who now everyone can agree wasn't worth the third pick) before asking for a trade. And Dame came back with the Bucks paying most of his salary, weirdly adding to the value of his own trade! LaMarcus jumped ship, sometimes talked about coming back, but never did.

Short answer, no to LaMarcus.

[bellsduck]

Loved them both, Porter more, but jersey retirements for either is a no vote for me.

[Phalanx]

Pez, if you can curb your Lillard adoration for one minute, the discussion is about players who have retired. Hopefully one day very very soon, we can talk about Lillard's merits, once he is done bleeding the franchise dry of as much money as he can possibly get. I have no doubt he will get his number retired. It would even be so Portland to do a statue of the guy who never won anything. Maybe they can do a statue of him taking the basketballs off that little cart and shooting them since he is so good at that when Curry isn't around.

I'm not really arguing to retire Terry - it feels like it should have been done already if it was going to be - as much as I am comparing LMA's resume to Terry's and saying it isn't really better. Terry's game went up a notch when the playoffs came around. He was a playoff star. LMA's game went stagnant in the playoffs and he visibly gave up in that last series before heading out of town. You don't retire LMA and not Terry.