Portland’s postseason ceiling remains capped by abysmal shooting and league-high turnovers. To evolve into a legitimate contender, the front office must target efficient scorers and reliable ball-handlers.
As the Portland Trail Blazers navigate their offseason and weigh roster moves in the form of draft picks, free-agent acquisitions and trade targets, the primary lens for the front office should be pretty clear: enhancing and improving the offense.
Despite being the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference last season and pulling off an impressive 42-40 campaign, the offense was very bad. In fact, among playoff teams, it was one of the worst.
Portland finished the regular season 21st in offensive rating, which is generally a strong indicator of overall offensive success. The Blazers were also in the bottom third of the league in true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage, proving they didn’t score efficiently. They finished 29th in field goal percentage and 28th in three-point percentage.
To make it worse, Portland didn’t just shoot poorly from the floor. The Blazers were the worst team in the league at taking care of the ball, finishing with the highest turnover percentage in the NBA.
There were some things that kept the team afloat holistically. Portland was one of the best teams in the league at crashing the offensive glass, ranked near the top of the league in three-point volume and found ways to get to the free-throw line. Even though the Blazers didn’t make threes at a high rate, they took a bunch of them, generated extra possessions and found enough pressure points to survive.
But overall, it’s just not good enough to be a bottom-third offense and expect to be a serious playoff team that can get out of the first round.
That’s why, while there’s no shortage of options to improve the roster, whether it’s a big superstar splash trade this summer or smaller tweaks around the margins, offense should be top of mind.
This team has quality defenders who, collectively as a group, can be good enough on that end of the floor for a playoff team. The defense can hover around the top third of the league or so. But as of right now, the offense is just flat out not good enough for Portland to be a team that can actually advance in the playoffs beyond the first round.
That should be the top priority this offseason.