It's OK to Enjoy the Trail Blazers' Unexpected Hot Streak

📍PORTLAND, Ore. — A 30-second stretch near the end of the first half on Thursday may stand as the moment it became silly to worry about the Trail Blazers’ lottery position.

With just under two minutes to go in the second quarter of what would become a 119-90 blowout win over the Orlando Magic, Toumani Camara blocked Paolo Banchero’s layup attempt.

The next time down the floor, Camara fouled Banchero on a layup. Then, Camara stuffed Banchero at the rim again. At that point, the Blazers led 60-53. They took a nine-point lead into the half and the gap only widened in the second half as they ran the Magic off the floor for the second time in seven days.

Thursday marked Chauncey Billups’ 100th career win as a head coach, and the Blazers’ sixth win in their last seven games. It was their 19th win of the season. They’re now two games away from equalling their win total from last year; it’s very possible they get there in the seven games they have remaining before the All-Star break.

Maybe the contingent of fans that were worried earlier in the season that this team was too competent, and had too much talent, to truly give themselves the best chance at landing Cooper Flagg were right. Maybe they are winning too much.

But maybe that’s OK.

With over half the season gone, the ship has sailed on the Blazers being at the top of the lottery. Right now, they have the seventh-worst record in the NBA, and are four games “behind” Toronto and Brooklyn in the win column. They don’t have a prayer of catching Washington, Charlotte or Utah, who have all understood the assignment from day one. They’ll likely end up somewhere between fifth and seventh in odds. That’s just where they are.

You can say that purgatory is the worst place to be for an NBA team, and you’re not wrong. Objectively, it is better for the Blazers’ future to have as bad a record as possible this season and have the highest percentage odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick. The Magic landed Banchero in 2022 by winning 22 games and having the second-worst record in the league.

But it doesn’t always work like that. A year ago, the Atlanta Hawks entered the lottery with the NBA’s 10th-worst record and won the top pick. I was in the room and watched it happen. Last season’s worst team, the 14-win Detroit Pistons, fell as far back as they could, to the No. 5 overall pick, for the second year in a row.

Maybe the Wizards, who have six wins as January comes to a close, will be rewarded with Flagg or Dylan Harper. But would you rather be them or the Blazers right now? However the lottery shakes out, do you like their collection of young talent better than what the Blazers have? There’s a reason half the league has called Joe Cronin seeing if he’d be willing to sell high on Camara or Deni Avdija. (The answer is no, by the way.)

Those very Wizards were the subject of a great ESPN piece by Dayna Evans from last April about the daily mental toll that constant losing takes on everyone on a team. The Blazers have dealt with plenty of that over the past few years: two 40-point home losses already this season, two 60-point losses last season, countless others.

Just two weeks ago, following a blowout loss at home to the Clippers, the rest of the season appeared headed that way. Now, the vibes have never been better. This hot streak almost definitely won’t last, but winning is a lot more fun than losing.

“It’s really important,” Billups said after Thursday’s game. “That’s the scary thing about young guys doing a lot of losing. You forget what it feels like to be successful and do it the right way. That’s always the fear. So this stretch for us is really important.”

Unlike last week, when Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant led the Blazers to a win in Charlotte, most of these wins have been driven by the players who will be here beyond this season. On Thursday, Grant was sidelined with an ankle injury and Simons played just 21 minutes. After defending Giannis Antetokounmpo well on Tuesday, Camara blew up everything the Magic tried to do all night. Scoot Henderson had one of his best all-around games of the season and may truly be turning a corner this month.

Billups is still getting booed loudly during introductions at every game. But the strongest pushback to the (largely fair) criticisms he’s faced is that the players still want to play for him. And the Blazers wouldn’t be winning this much, this late into a season with expectations this low, if he wasn’t doing something right.

“Togetherness and accountability,” Deandre Ayton said. “‘We’re the youngest team,’ whatever. You’re in the league. The coaches are getting the vets, guys like me, to get on some of these dudes. And they’re doing it right back at us, too. There’s no hypocrisy on this team. Everybody’s really locked in and loaded. We’ve got each other’s back and we’ve been having fun with it. Moving the ball generates everything. You can see the energy and the spirit has changed.”

“The way we fight for each other on both sides of the ball,” Henderson said. “Not really caring where the ball ends up. That’s fun. When you play like that, the basketball gods look out for you and they reward you.”

Maybe the basketball gods will look out for the Blazers in May, too. Maybe they’ll decide that it’s a better idea to gift a top pick to a team that’s actually got the start of a good thing already and isn’t trying to be purposely unwatchable to game the ping-pong ball combinations. The Blazers have done plenty of the latter over the past three years—in fact, it’s the only thing we know this regime is great at. Maybe it’s time to try the other approach, of just playing basketball and seeing where everything shakes out.

“I’ve always thought you learn so much more about guys when you lose, so we’ve learned a lot about all of our dudes,” Billups said. “And now, we’re starting to learn the other side of it. They’re having so much fun, and it’s fun for me to see it, too.”