Portland Trail Blazers, after tumultuous offseason, begin season with a new coach, new optimism and a new commitment from their star

Damian Lillard chats with Jusuf Nurkic as the Portland Trail Blazers open training camp at the team’s practice facility in Tualatin on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021.
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The Portland Trail Blazers enter the regular season Wednesday night against Sacramento coming off the most tumultuous offseason of the Damian Lillard era.

An offseason that saw Lillard question the future of the franchise and his role in it. One that saw the franchise part ways from coach Terry Stotts after nine seasons and eight consecutive playoff appearances, then turn around and hire a first-year head coach in Chauncey Billups. On top of that, CJ McCollum’s name was tossed around in numerous trade rumors while many fans on social media openly called for the splitting up of the team’s dynamic duo like never before.

Then the team put forth a winless preseason filled with lopsided losses. That ultimately could be the least of the team’s concerns. To put the preseason into perspective, Milwaukee went 0-3 last preseason and lost each game by double digits, then went on to win the NBA title.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to be champions,” Lillard said with a laugh following the team’s final preseason practice. “That won’t guarantee us a championship. But, I mean, it’s something to be said about that.”

Chances are that recent history won’t repeat itself with these Blazers, who last season exited the NBA playoffs after a disappointing first-round series loss to Denver, which was a precursor to the eventful offseason.

But there’s plenty of reasons to believe that this team will improve upon last season’s 42-30 record and have a chance to contend in the playoffs.

The Blazers are banking on Billups making an impact by holding the team more accountable on offense and defense to create a more consistently good product. The goal is to both take pressure off of Lillard and generate more victories, enough to earn a better seed in the playoffs and thus a better path toward success.

Parting with Stotts while keeping the same starting five essentially placed the blame for last season on Stotts. The offense was great, but the defense ranked 29th in the NBA.

Changing coaches, which Lillard supported, has created a new hope. But if Billups fails to elevate the team’s play, could Lillard once again express concern about the franchise’s commitment to winning a championship?

Yes, Lillard said Monday that he is committed to remaining in Portland and wants to be a part of Billups’ success. He also added that a slow start wouldn’t impact his position.

“There’s gonna be some tough times,” Lillard said. “If it starts off rocky, or if it starts off in a struggle, I wouldn’t be happy about it. Nobody would. But I’m not going to jump ship and bail out when that happens.

But expressed a strong commitment for years prior to the team losing to Denver in the first round of last season’s playoffs. Then his tune changed at least to the point of creating uncertainty about his desire to remain with the franchise long term.

If he is 100% all in, then there’s nothing for the Blazers and their fans to worry about. If he is at all taking a wait-and-see approach to his future beyond this season, then the pressure is on for the Blazers to at least show that they have the potential to win a championship in the near future.

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups speaks during media day on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021 at Moda Center.

The Blazers certainly have the makings of a playoff team. They went 42-30 last season despite losing center Jusuf Nurkic for 35 games and McCollum for 25. Both enter the season healthy and ready to go in Billups’ offense, which he said should spread the ball around more and produce higher-quality shots.

Norman Powell and Robert Covington also return. The Blazers’ starting five late last season had the fourth-best net rating (plus-13.3) in the NBA while on the court together. However, that didn’t help them against the Nuggets.

So, Portland clearly must elevate its play in all facets to have a realistic chance of finishing higher than the sixth seed and winning a first-round series. During the preseason, the Blazers showed little evidence that was going to happen as the team lost all four games in lopsided fashion. At the very least, growing pains should be expected early in the season as this team fine tunes its game.

“I’ve talked a lot in the preseason about us just kind of being realistic about where we are,” Billups said. “We’re trying to change things, ways that we do things. And there’s a process that comes with that.”

That process has involved looking pretty bad at times. But Billups made it clear that practices mattered more than the preseason games, and that progress was made there. He would have liked to have seen more evidence of that in the games, though.

“There were some times when we were making progress and there were some times when we were taking steps back,” Billups said. “And you’ve got to expect some of that as you’re trying to change habits. So, I’m not concerned with if we get off to a tough start.”

Instead, Billups is more concerned that the changes he seeks ultimately come to fruition. In the meantime, he won’t allow outside pressures or impatience to affect him.

“I don’t feel any pressure and stress at all,” Billups said. “I feel like we’ve put out there and stressed to our guys what we need to do. We keep the pedal down on that and then we just kind of see how it works out. I’m not a guy that thinks about pressure and stress. I do the work that I can to prepare our guys for what I can prepare them for and then see how it plays out.”

Maybe preseason games can be taken with a grain of salt. Failure to execute while learning new schemes makes sense. However, not giving maximum effort for a team that had its effort questioned internally last season would appear to be completely unacceptable. Yet, Billups did point to a lack of effort on some occasions during the preseason.

“I never expect effort to be an issue,” Billups said. “Even at times when it happened, we talked about it, we talked through it. So, if it happens again, we’ll talk about it. I always believe there are guys over there that are going to give you max effort. You’ve just got to make sure that everybody else falls in line with that ... So, I expect these guys to play extremely hard every night. Whoever is out there.”

Lillard appears convinced that the Blazers are on track. He sat out two preseason games to rest his body, a clear sign that he wasn’t too concerned about winning them.

“Camp is for getting better, growing, coming together, getting ready for a new season, and that’s pretty much what it was about,” Lillard said. “We had a lot of hard practices this year in camp. Camp hasn’t been this tough since my first year in the league. They were real long, active, competitive practices to where, in the Phoenix game, I felt practice. I was tired. Physically tired.”

Changes have been made. Directives laid out. A plan is in place. Lillard has bought in.

Now, it’s time to produce. But that will only happen when all that is being implemented finally takes hold.

“And when we actually do that,” Billups said, “I just know how good of a team we can be.”

-- Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).

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