Lowe: “Portland Stinks”

ESPN senior writer Zach Lowe sat down today with fellow ESPNer Brian Windhorst on his podcast, The Lowe Post, and the Portland Trail Blazers were a frequent topic of conversation. The pair talked about the NBA’s new CBA, sprinkled in some trade rumors, and ended with a discussion on the NBA’s most disappointing teams. Lowe made his disappointment with the Trail Blazers clear, saying multiple times that the team “stinks.”

Regarding trade rumors, at the 34-minute mark, Windhorst suggested that the front office of the Blazers, along with the Orlando Magic and Sacramento Kings, should be “locked in a room” until they could figure out what kind of moves to make and how to help each other, noting that rumors between these teams have taken place for weeks now.

Portland was predictably designated as one of the league’s most disappointing team’s, with Lowe providing this grim outlook at the 44-minute mark:

Even Portland pessimists were like, ‘yeah, they’ll probably settle in and be a 42, 43-win team’. No one in their right mind thought ‘they’ll be 13-18 with the worst defense in the league.’

Windhorst suggested that the main reason so many teams are so mediocre this year is because of last summer’s free agency. He noted that outside of Kevin Durant signing with the Golden State Warriors, the player movement this past off-season featured “a lot of sound and fury over nothing.” He noted that, in particular, the signings of Evan Turner and Festus Ezeli have not worked out for the Trail Blazers.

Perhaps most discouraging, they did not offer a solution of how the team can improve or even offer any optimism that they will improve. It begs the question: Just many people are left out there that have any optimism remaining about the Trail Blazers season?