The Portland Trail Blazers didn’t have a shadow of a ghost of a chance in their final preseason game of 2023. The Phoenix Suns started their big three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal. The Blazers sat all of their veterans, including Deandre Ayton, Jerami Grant, Matisse Thybulle, and Malcolm Brogdon. The average experience of Portland’s starters hovered somewhere between 0 and 1 years. Even without center Jusuf Nurkic in uniform, the Suns’ lineup eclipsed them by approximately infinity. That made the 117-106 final score a complete non-surprise.
Despite that, the game showed off some of the strengths, and several potential weaknesses, of Portland’s lineup.