As some great historian probably once famously said: “It’s amazing how much can change in 365 days.” A year-and-a-week ago, the Portland Trail Blazers were heading into their sixth consecutive year with postseason success on their minds, and they were as unheralded and overlooked as ever.
Portland’s undersized star backcourt stood as the faces of the franchise, but just like every grade school picture day, they had some giant reinforcements behind them. A frontcourt of Jusuf Nurkic and Al-Farouq Aminu once held the fort then. By the time Portland reached its pinnacle, Enes Kanter and Zach Collins were among the most used on that front line.