MAILBAG: Will Deni Avdija Stay in a Bench Role?

Part one of the latest mailbag of subscriber questions covers Deni Avdija’s role with the Trail Blazers, whether the recent wins change anything about Chauncey Billups’ future and whether Shaedon Sharpe has shown enough to pivot fully into building around him.

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This will be the first of three parts of this round of the mailbag. The other two will run tomorrow and Wednesday, leading into the Thanksgiving holiday, and then they’re home from the road trip this weekend.

Is Deni permanently a bench guy now? Seems it will be tough to take Tou's spot. Unless Grant gets moved?

- Joshua S.

I don’t think anyone is permanently in any role right now. Deni Avdija’s demotion to the bench was just a numbers game. Chauncey Billups wanted to move Shaedon Sharpe into the starting lineup, so somebody had to come out, and that somebody wasn’t going to be Toumani Camara.

You nailed exactly how Avdija will get his starting spot back. If Jerami Grant gets traded at the deadline (very possible), the logical starters at 2-3-4 are Sharpe, Camara and Avdija. One way or the other, I expect Avdija will be back in the starting lineup before the end of the season.

If Billups gets these guys to somehow grind out 35 wins (what they're currently on pace for), does that make next steps more complicated?

e.g. draft pick sucks, is that a good enough coaching job to keep Billups around?, etc.

- Adam H.

First of all, I don’t think there’s any world where these guys are going to win 35 games. They may be on pace for that right now, but two of their seven wins so far have come against a New Orleans team with most of their best players missing, and four others were close at the end. They have the league’s fifth-worst point differential, which is usually a reliable indicator of how good a team actually is or isn’t. They’ve also had relatively good health so far, which is already starting to turn with several rotation players missing time, and there should be at least one trade at the deadline that will make the team less talented in the short term.

I don’t think their final record is going to have much bearing on what happens at the end of the season. Nothing so far this season makes me change my belief (which I’ve been predicting going back to April) that the Blazers and Billups are likely going to finish out the final guaranteed year of his contract and then (air quotes) “mutually agree to part ways” at the end of the season.

Now that Shaedon has proven he has the highest upside of any current Blazer, should the team pivot to building around him? How should the fact that Sharpe so clearly has the brightest future of any young Blazer alter the team's approach to trade deadline, '25 draft positioning and supporting cast player development?

- Tom S.

I agree that Sharpe has the highest upside of anyone on the team. I’ve felt that way for a long time, and the way he’s played since coming back from the shoulder injury this season is encouraging. But I don’t know if I’m all the way there yet as far as thinking he’s such a sure thing that they should reorient everything they’re building around him. To me, he’s still a level below a few players from his general age group that are having that kind of franchise-player breakout season, like Jalen Williams, Franz Wagner and Cade Cunningham.

If Sharpe keeps doing what he’s doing right now for the rest of the season, that could be enough. But he missed so much time last season that I’d need to see more than a couple of good weeks before making the declaration that he is the guy. The more likely guy the team will build everything around is whoever they get in this coming draft, assuming it’s a high enough pick in the lottery.

This season I’m going to two road games, already saw the Blazers in Phoenix and will be in attendance at MSG in late March. What are your favorite NBA cities and/or arenas?

- Jon B.

I haven’t been to every arena in the NBA, but I’ve been to a fair amount of them. I have a little bit of a skewed perspective because my view of whether I like an arena is usually colored by where the media seats are and what the accommodations for us are. Madison Square Garden has the worst media seats in the league, so I don’t love covering games there, but Knicks crowds are as good as advertised and you’ll have a great time seeing a game there.

I really like Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis and Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, and the crowds for both of those teams are great. I spent four years in Chicago and United Center crowds are great when the Bulls are good, but that’s not happening again anytime soon. One of my favorites used to be the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, before the Bucks moved into Fiserv Forum, which I haven’t seen yet. I haven’t ever been able to make it to a game in Memphis but I really want to.

This is cheating a little because it’s not technically an NBA arena yet, but I was really impressed with Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle when I went there for the Blazers’ preseason games in 2022 and last month, in terms of both the building and the crowd. I can’t wait for the Sonics to come back in a few years.