When healthy, Damian Lillard has proven that he is a worthy All-Star for the Blazers this season (@Trailblazers/Instagram).


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In a tightly packed Western Conference, where only a handful of games separate the first- and thirteenth-place teams, Sean Highkin of Rose Garden Report is encouraged by the Portland Trail Blazers’ start. Specifically, the Blazers have gotten All-Star-caliber, not to mention career-best, contributions from Jerami Grant and Anfernee Simons. Such stellar play from Portland’s secondary stars has enabled it to weather a difficult early schedule played about half of the time without franchise cornerstone Damian Lillard. Here are some Highkin highlights on how Portland was able to stay afloat, lottery pick Shaedon Sharpe’s early flashes, what’s ahead for the Blazers and much more:

6:15-7:07: “I don’t think they’re a title contender, and I don’t think they think they’re a title contender either; that’s the other part about it. Joe Cronin, the general manager, went into the season saying that he doesn’t think this roster is complete and he doesn’t think it’s good enough right now to contend and that it’s still kind of a work in progress. … Going into the season…I said they would probably make the playoffs as a 7 or 8 seed out of the play-in. At this point, I’m pretty comfortable saying that I think they’re gonna be Top-6 just because they’re currently in the middle of the toughest part of their schedule. They’ve had a ton of road games.”

13:03-13:45: “Every single one of their rotation players has missed at least one game at some point this season. … Between the injuries and just how hard their schedule has been – between how many good teams they’ve played and how many games they’ve played on the road – it is kinda hard to get a read on how good they are or are not, which is why I said at the beginning of the season if they could get through this stretch and get to Christmas at .500, they’re fine, and I still think that, and I still think they’re in a good position to do that.”

19:45-20:03: “Already, [Sharpe]’s way ahead of where certainly I thought and where I think a lot of people even in the organization thought he was gonna at this point, so that’s something everybody’s really encouraged by. And honestly, for Blazers fans that I talk to, they haven’t really had a rookie that was exciting like this since Dame.”

25:45-27:15: “Well, [Grant]’s just found the exact right balance. … This spot that he finds himself in in Portland is kinda the perfect middle ground between those two [Denver and Detroit] situations, where he’s not the first option most nights ‘cuz everybody knows it’s still Dame’s show, but he can be that guy. That game against the Knicks, Dame was out in that game and he was able to do that. He’s had a couple of other 30-plus-point games this season. He had that game-winner against Phoenix. He’s been able to do that stuff, and he can do that from time to time when you need him to. So this is like the perfect spot for him.”

28:10-28:30: “In those Dame-CJ years, they never had a third guy half as good as either of those guys. … This is easily the most talented team that Dame has had since those LaMarcus-Batum-Wes Matthews-Robin Lopez teams.”

33:10-34:12: Last year, [Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups] got kinda put in a tough spot as far as the team that he was given, where he came in talking about ‘I want a tough, defensive-minded team,’ and you still have this roster that has just a ton of undersized guards that aren’t really good defenders, and you are expecting him to try to play that style with those guys and he wasn’t gonna be able to do it. You look at all the guys that have been brought in really since Joe Cronin took over as the GM in the middle of last season, actually about a year ago. Josh Hart, they got at the trade deadline in the CJ trade. Justise Winslow, they got in that trade with the Clippers. Jerami Grant, they traded for this offseason. Gary Payton II, who is gonna play at some point, they signed as a free agent. They kinda realized that if you’re gonna have the two undersized guards as your two leading scorers, like they have with Dame and Simons now and they had with Dame and CJ for years before that, you pretty much have to just surround them with athletic wings that can defend multiple positions. And that’s kind of the way that Joe Cronin and Chauncey Billups have prioritized building the roster.”

Our previous episode with Sean:

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Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.