Hey there, Last Night In Basketballers — I am, as I do every year, re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Some of them might be narrative-based, some might be stats, and some might include video. But they'll all be focused on the 2026-27 campaign.
The schedule for those posts will be as follows (podcasts previewing each division with Mo Dakhil are in parentheses):
- Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR) (Podcast)
- Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL) (Podcast)
- Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS) (Podcast)
- Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC) (Podcast)
- Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA) (Podcast)
- Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS) (Podcast)
So without further ado, let's get to the Portland Trail Blazers, a team whose owner is up to all kinds of shenanigans that threaten to overshadow the basketball team.
Damian Lillard, the return
Lillard missed the entirety of last season with a torn Achilles suffered during the 2025 playoffs. The last time we saw him, he was averaging 25-5-7 while shooting 45-38-92 across 58 games for the Bucks. He had his flaws, but he was still pretty damn good.
He'll play this season at 36 years old, though, and obviously it's incredibly difficult to come back from a devastating injury and be the same player you were before. He's not likely to have the same explosiveness or lateral agility, which were already likely to decline given that he is, again, 36 years old. There are, however, a few things that might in Dame's favor as he attempts his comeback. (Okay, really two things in his favor and one area where the injury probably doesn't make much of a difference.)
The first is that he's an elite shooter, and that doesn't go away just because you got injured. He may not be able to get his own shot quite as easily as he was before due to the combination of his age and injury, but I'd expect that he'll continue to shoot it quite well once he finds his rhythm.
The second is that he'll probably be able and asked to play away from the ball a bit more often than in the past because of the way the team around him is constructed (Deni Avdija and Ja Morant need the ball in their hands to be at their most effective, while Dame is probably the only guy in the projected starting lineup who can properly space the floor for them), so there won't be as much pressure on him to create his own looks. (It'll be interesting to see how he adjusts to playing off the ball more, though. He's also been at his best with the ball in his hands, leveraging the threat of pull-up threes to get into the paint and dish to teammates. He's not really been used as a catch-and-shoot, away-from-the-ball player all that often.)
The third is that he was already really bad on defense anyway, so it can't really get much worse on that end of the floor. He'll also be insulted by Toumani Camara and Donovan Clingan most of the time, as well as by Jrue Holiday and Robert Williams III whenever those guys aren't on the floor. The Blazers are going to have to cover for him (and Morant, and Avdija) defensively, but they at least have some guys that are capable of covering for some pretty glaring weak spots given their skill on the perimeter (Camara), interior (Clingan, Time Lord), or both (Holiday).
No matter what happens, though, it'll be nice to have Dame back in our lives. I look forward to his first crunch time explosion, when he'll tap his wrist to signify that it's Dame Time. That's when we'll know he's really back.