How Lillard and the Blazers found a brand-new ceiling

As the calendar flipped to 2018, the Portland Trail Blazers found themselves facing an existential crisis. They were barely over .500, the same place they had been stuck ever since Wesley Matthews' Achilles tendon ripped and LaMarcus Aldridge bolted. Their once-flowing offense had sunk to 27th in points per possession.

Something elemental was off, something beyond numbers. The veterans knew what it felt like when the offense hummed. It didn't feel that way anymore. It forced the level-headed among them to contemplate a worst-case scenario: What if the Blazers were just mediocre? What if they had capped themselves into oblivion to win 44 games every season?

Around that time, Terry Stotts, the…