With Labor Day now past, it\u2019s time to acknowledge that fall, September, and the ramp-up to the 2026-27 season are now upon us. It won\u2019t be long until Media Day, training camp, and preseason games start. Acknowledging that, we\u2019re going to update a Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag question submitted back in July. Check it out.<\/p>\n
Dave,<\/p>\n
How have the Blazers done so far big picture? I generally agree with each move they have made but I also question how it all adds up in the long term. I feel weird feeling optimism with each trade but pessimism when they\u2019re all added up. How about you? Can you solve this conflicted feeling?<\/p>\n
Jon<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t entirely, because I feel it too.<\/p>\n
Here is the complete list of transactions the Blazers made this summer:<\/p>\n
June 29th\u2014Traded Jerami Grant and Kris Murray to Memphis for Ja Morant<\/p>\n
July 1st\u2014Signed Branden Carlson<\/p>\n
July 10th\u2014Signed Micah Potter<\/p>\n
August 2nd\u2014Signed Jeremy Sochan<\/p>\n
Look, am I going to scream about these moves? I am not. There was one big splash, trading Grant for Morant. Then they made three smart, value-oriented moves with some potential for upside and little real downside. That\u2019s been their M.O. for the last 14 years, really. They play the smart game, not the big one.<\/p>\n
I think the Blazers do have to avoid the \u201cBaby on Board\u201d syndrome, though. Remember those yellow sticker-signs people used to hang in their car windows? I still see them every once in a while. They caught your attention. They announced to the world that you had reproduced and now had a child somewhere in that vehicle. The signs were obvious and easy to understand.<\/p>\n
What good did they do, though? That\u2019s what I always wondered. How many times have you been cruising along the city streets saying, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m gonna ram my car into this m$#&% f%$$&! Oh no, wait. Look at the sign! They have a baby on board. I probably shouldn\u2019t.\u201d The answer is approximately, \u201cNever.\u201d The sign is the ultimate example of, \u201cLooks like you did something, obvious what you\u2019re trying to do, actually does nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a few exceptions (drafting CJ McCollum, trading for Deni Avdija, snagging Toumani Camara among them), the Blazers have been a Baby on Board team since the 2012 NBA Draft when they changed their fortunes forever by selecting Damian Lillard with the sixth overall pick. That was the last foundation-rocking moment they experienced until this past season when Avdija ascended to NBA All-Star status.<\/p>\n
The problem is, even with their recent growth, Portland is still at the bottom of the Western Conference playoffs bracket, not the top. The conference is loosening up in the middle ranges. The Blazers could ascend amid the chaos. They did the same in 2019. But that wouldn\u2019t make them contenders. It would just make them the next team on the on-ramp to a road that doesn\u2019t lead to a title.<\/p>\n
None of the moves the Blazers made this summer qualify as more than \u201cBaby on Board\u201d quality, at least not to my vision. I think the team will be interesting. It\u2019ll certainly be different! But will they be excellent? They\u2019re going to have to prove that\u2014repeatedly and sustainably\u2014before anybody can believe that.<\/p>\n
I should also affirm that Portland isn\u2019t done necessarily. Personally, I\u2019m eyeing Jrue Holiday and thinking that he\u2019s a likely candidate to get dealt before February. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me to see him traded before the season starts, even. One could say the same of Scoot Henderson if Jrue stays. But the key question there isn\u2019t who the Blazers are sending out, but who they\u2019re getting back in.<\/p>\n
Either way, I\u2019d say the Blazers did fine during the Summer of 2026, but that I\u2019m not optimistic that their moves will lead to greater success in 2027 and beyond.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your assessment? When all is said and done, how did Portland do this off-season? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. And if you want to submit your own Mailbag question, you can send it to blazersub@gmail.com! We\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Labor Day now past, it\u2019s time to acknowledge that fall, September, and the ramp-up to the 2026-27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,46315,51192,590,85],"class_list":["post-884748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blazers-analysis","tag-blazers-mailbags","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}