Prior to this season, many fans and experts expected a top five seed from the Portland Trail Blazers. An upset over the Los Angeles Clippers and a hard fought solo win against the 73-9 Golden State Warriors shed hope for the future of this young team. Needless to say, those expectations were not met in the first half of the season. If the season ended today, the Blazers would watch the playoffs at home from a couch and would have the ninth overall pick.
Ouch.
There is, however, a lot of potential improvement. Portland recently traded Mason Plumlee to Denver for Jusuf Nurkiu0107 to finally acquiring a big, pure, low-post center who can score and defend the paint.