Playing Damian Lillard and Ja Morant in the same starting backcourt is a war crime against perimeter defense.
The Portland Trail Blazers are currently staring at a massive roster bottleneck, and the ego math is officially colliding with the basketball math. Last season, Deni Avdija evolved into an absolute All-Star by having the ball in his hands. You have a returning Lillard, fresh off an Achilles tear but still carrying immense scoring gravity whenever he steps on the floor. And earlier this offseason, the front office acquired Morant via trade.
The correct basketball decision is a simulation no-brainer. Start Avdija with Lillard, and unleash Morant to completely terrorize opposing bench units.
The players, naturally, reject the obvious. The status quo of the league demands that elite names start, and nobody wants to volunteer for the sixth-man demotion. During his training camp media availability on Tuesday, Lillard set the expectation out loud, saying he expects to start alongside Avdija and Morant this season.
I respect the swagger, but putting those two extra ball handlers next to Avdija completely nerfs the exact dynamic that turned him into a star. Morant needs the rock to breathe. Lillard needs the threat of the pick-and-roll to dictate his own spacing. Cramming all three onto the hardwood at tip-off guarantees someone is just standing in the corner wasting valuable possessions.
The Defensive Floor Is Lava
The spacing problem on offense is bad enough. The defensive reality is INFINITELY worse.
A backcourt featuring Morant and an older, post-Achilles Lillard would instantly become the most generous defensive turnstile in the association. Opposing guards would feast on them nightly. You cannot hide two undersized, offense-first guards simultaneously without watching your defensive rating completely crater. It turns every opposing point guard into a superstar.
Portland actually has the personnel to build a highly functional modern defense right now. They have Donovan Clingan protecting the paint and altering shots at the rim. They have Toumani Camara flying around the perimeter creating chaos. They have Jrue Holiday, a premium defensive guard, ready to take the absolute toughest assignment every single night.
Pairing Avdija with those pieces and Holiday provides serious insulation for Lillard’s well-known defensive gaps. It covers the holes and lets Lillard operate without bleeding points.
Throwing Morant into that starting mix destroys the balance completely. First-year coach Micah Nori clearly sees the train wreck coming from a mile away. The rookie coach is already signaling his resistance. According to The Athletic, Nori plainly stated that Lillard and Morant starting together would make little sense.
He is absolutely right. Forcing them together is pure rotational malpractice.
Morant Is a Primary Engine, Not a Spacer
The pushback against staggering these minutes comes directly from the players involved. Lillard wants the three-headed monster to start, and the strongest defense of that stance is that demoting a high-profile acquisition to the second unit immediately threatens his earning power and his hard-earned stature within the league.
My response requires looking at the actual roster geometry. The entire point of employing Morant right now is to let him generate maximum offense. He generates zero value playing off the ball while Avdija and Lillard run the show.
Staggering the minutes ensures Morant gets to dictate the pace when he is actually on the floor. It gives him the keys to the offense rather than making him the awkward third wheel in a cramped starting group.
Memphis built an entire system around Morant’s explosive downhill gravity. Portland simply cannot replicate that environment with Avdija and Lillard demanding heavy touches. And that calculation completely ignores Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe waiting in the wings for their own usage.
Morant’s shooting limits his ability to scale down into a complementary spot-up role. He is a primary engine. You run a primary engine when the other ones are resting. He has the dawg in him to single-handedly dismantle backup point guards and completely flip the W/L column on nights the starters look sluggish.
Bringing him off the bench allows him to maximize the exact minutes where he does what he does best. The raw volume drops, but the efficiency skyrockets.
Appeasing Egos Will Tank the Season
Nori has an incredibly massive hurdle in front of him. A rookie head coach asking a highly decorated, explosive guard to accept a bench assignment is the ultimate test of locker room command.
If the Blazers actually care about winning basketball games, they have to rip the bandage off immediately. Sacrificing your rotation to protect a player’s aura in October only guarantees a disjointed, frustrating product in November.
Morant and his teammates might not be excited to accept the reality of this depth chart, but harmony cannot come at the expense of a functional lineup. The team was assembled to compete, not to host a daily therapy session for displaced superstars.
The blueprint is sitting right there on the whiteboard, daring the coaching staff to execute it.
Portland has to choose between protecting feelings or protecting the paint, and only one of those things hangs banners.
