A few weeks ago on the Dave and Marlow podcast, I proposed that nearly every season in recent Portland Trail Blazers memory has followed a distinctly-similar five-phase process. You’ve likely experienced it enough to know how it goes, but it generally the bingo board reads as follows:
- Phase 1: The “this team looks like it could make a lot of noise in the postseason” phase. Often, reality hits by late-November, though there’s normally a brief period in which the fresh-legged Blazers look like a true force to be reckoned with for a few weeks.