With the Portland Trail Blazers’ regular season ending tonight, and the postseason about to start this weekend, it’s time for the most cliché thing a blowhard behind a keyboard like me can think of: Player Grades!
To expedite the process, I’m going to take a look at the 10 players that played double-digit minutes per game this season. Those excluded are either little-used backups (Brian Roberts, Pat Connaughton) or are there just to provide veteran wisdom (Chris Kaman, or Air Sasquatch as I like to refer to him).
Normally, I’d do a starters/bench split over two days, but the lines between starter and reserve have blurred among most of the roster this year; everybody has started at some point. So, today will be a look at the five most used players this season for the Blazers, while tomorrow will feature the other five.
Let’s jump right into it! Stats provided by NBA.com and basketball-reference.com, and are current as of April 12.
Damian Lillard, Point Guard
Season Stats: 74 G, 74 Starts, 35.8 MPG, 25.1 PPG, 4 RPG, 6.9 APG, 42/37/89 shooting splits, 9 Win Shares, 22.1 PER
Thoughts: When the season started, Lillard knew he was going to be the sole focus of the defense. While CJ McCollum has relieved the pressure somewhat, the key to the Blazers’ offense is always going to be Lillard. And he’s responded with the best season of his young career.
For the first time, Lillard actually dealt with injury this season. With the burden he had to carry while Portland was coming together as a team, and the huge minutes he’d played in the past (remember, this is a guy that lead the NBA in total minutes played as a rookie), it’s not surprising that he’d get dinged up.
The field goal shooting is the lowest of his career, though not by much. That’s another sign of him dealing with being the first option. His three-point shooting recovered some from the nadir of last season though. The foul shooting part of the equation is the part that is most impressive; Lillard has set career highs in free throws made and attempted, as well as free throw percentage.
With more career highs set in assists, points, Assist Rate, and PER, this has been a banner year for Lillard offensively. The Blazers have sure as hell needed it.
Defensively, coach Terry Stotts has taken the Stephen Curry approach: hide Lillard on a player that can’t handle the ball or suck Lillard into one of those pick-and-rolls that just kill the Blazers. Lillard still has a tendency to get taken out of a play by a pick, though I haven’t seen him in many of those situations. That is Stotts’ strategy, but it could also be the result of opponents simply choosing to attack McCollum or Allen Crabbe instead; the Blazers don’t exactly have a plethora of defensive aces on the roster.
When teams have tried to post Lillard, he’s responded very well. Lillard is very strong for his size, and years of getting schooled by Wesley Matthews on the block in practice has taught Lillard some hard lessons. He’s been able to deny guys like Kevin Durant and Draymond Green position, men much larger than he is.
All in all, yet another special year for Rip City’s front man. Here’s hoping he somehow makes one of the All-NBA teams.
Grade: A
CJ McCollum, Shooting Guard
Season Stats: 79 G, 79 Starts, 34.8 MPG, 20.9 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 4.3 APG, 96 steals, 45/42/83 shooting splits, 5.9 Win Shares, 17.7 PER
Thoughts: What can be said about McCollum’s year? The one year he stays healthy and gets meaningful playing time is the year that he averages almost 21 points a game, and forms one of the most lethal backcourt duos in the NBA with Lillard.
Indeed, those two combine for 46 points per game, almost 44% of the Blazers’ total points per game. McCollum isn’t as adept at passing, but he still can make the right play when it happens for him, and he can be sneaky sometimes on defense.
His destiny still might be as a microwave off the bench, and there will be questions about whether he can score this prolifically in future seasons, but the accuracy from three and the slick ball handling should continue to carry over.
One thing McCollum’s proved this season is that he should be a major part of the Blazers’ plans for the future. Whatever that role may be, as long as he stays healthy, he should excel at it.
Grade: A+
Al-Farouq Aminu, Small Forward
Season Stats: 81 G, 81 Starts, 28.7 MPG, 10.2 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 1.7 APG, 41/36/73 shooting splits, 3.9 Win Shares, 12.7 PER
Thoughts: The Chief is one of those players you just can’t help but love as a fan. Like Ed Davis, Aminu came into Portland as a young veteran journeyman, bouncing from team to team and being very underutilized because his skill set isn’t conducive to the pace-and-space, Warriors-style of play that most teams are now very anxious to copy.
Perimeter players are asked to be at least competent from three-point range, and until he got to Portland, Aminu was garbage from anywhere beyond eight feet. Once he was ensconced in the confines of Rip City, Aminu suddenly found a groove. After never achieving even 30% from three since his rookie year, Aminu has shot a very respectable 36% from deep, including 39% from the corners.
His above-the-break percentage is 34.7%, decent enough to hopefully make opponents respect him from that range. If they leave him alone out there, Aminu has been given the go-ahead by Stotts to take those shots; an open three is always a good shot to Stotts, no matter who’s taking it. And if he makes a couple, suddenly Lillard and McCollum get more room to roam on the court, and the Blazers’ very good offense becomes great.
Defensively, Aminu has been the first line of defense against whichever superstar player Portland goes up against. He’s taken on the Wes Matthews role, and while he hasn’t scored at the rate Matthews did in Portland, nor shown the ball handling skills of Nicolas Batum, Aminu is a good enough replacement for those players. He’s maximizing his talent, and you can’t ever knock a player for that.
Grade: A
Allen Crabbe, Shooting Guard
Season Stats: 80 G, 8 Starts, 26 MPG, 10.2 PPG, 2.7 RPG, 1.2 APG, 46/39/87 shooting splits, 4.1 Win Shares, 12 PER
Thoughts: Yet another young guy who’s stepped up his game, Crabbe has been allowed to focus on the things he does well, like shooting, while he organically figures out the parts of his game that need work, like driving and defense.
Crabbe’s always been a great shooter. The things that led him to be taken in the second round of his draft class revolve around his supposed lack of potential; most NBA teams are forever trying to find a player with untapped potential, and draft him at the expense of more finished products like Crabbe. This is why so many teenagers are drafted into the NBA year after year.
While the shooting alone has been extremely valuable to a spacing-starved Blazer attack, Crabbe has also shown a handy driving skill. He’ll pump fake, dribble past the defender closing out on his three-point shot, and calmly stick an 18-foot pull-up jumper.
Defensively, he’s hanging in there…barely. Crabbe has the body type and profile of a future 3-and-D type of wing player, similar to Trevor Ariza or Khris Middleton. The D part is going to take a long while, though.
Like Aminu, Crabbe is trying to replace Matthews and Batum. And like Aminu, I’m not going to judge him harshly because he isn’t up to that standard yet. He isn’t as versatile or vital as Aminu, so his grade won’t be as good.
Grade: B+
Mason Plumlee, Center
Season Stats: 81 G, 81 Starts, 25.4 MPG, 9.1 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 2.8 APG, 52% FG%, 63% FT%, 6 Win Shares, 17.2 PER
Thoughts: Plumlee has had his moments, and like everyone else on the team, he was allowed to stretch his wings and abilities. Plumlee’s special talent? Passing.
Plumlee has great passing instincts for a big man; there have been times where he and McCollum would run a give-and-go that would result in two points or a foul, and Stotts has talked about featuring Plumlee at the elbow more often, letting him facilitate the offense like how Pau Gasol did for the Los Angeles Lakers’ last two championship teams.
Plumlee has no range and doesn’t score much, but he gets a few here and there rolling to the rim on pick plays or cleaning up after Blazer misses. He’s not the rebounder that Davis is, but sometimes being huge and able to jump really high is enough. The field-goal percentage could stand to be higher; if you’re only shooting layups, dunks, and very close jump shots, 52% is a poor percentage.
On offense, Plumlee can be used as a way to squeeze out more points, and the more ways you have to hurt a defense, the better off you’ll be in the games that matter.
Defense, though…ugh. There are at least a half-dozen instances per game where Plum is too late to protect the basket after a driver gets past the perimeter defense, and a half-dozen more where he just looks clueless as to where he’s supposed to be. It’s very painful to watch, and the main reason why the Plumlee-Meyers Leonard combination, which looks really good on paper, died in a fiery hail of opposing threes and free runs to the hoop before Leonard hurt his shoulder.
Plumlee has his virtues, but he gets hardcore Blazer fans upset with his poor defense. I can’t say I blame them; I see what they see, after all.
Grade: C+
Tomorrow is the second half of these grades, featuring the rest of the Blazers to average double digits in minutes per game.
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