The Portland Trail Blazers finished the 2014-15 NBA season with a 51-31 record before bowing out in five games to the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs. Despite the relatively successful season, there was an exodus of All-Star and borderline All-Star level talent leaving the Pacific Northwest for greener pastures in the offseason as six of their top seven players as far as minutes per game started the 2015-16 season in a different city (LaMarcus Aldridge – San Antonio, Wesley Matthews – Dallas, Nicolas Batum – Charlotte, Arron Afflalo – New York, Robin Lopez – New York, Steve Blake – Detroit).

None of their major offseason acquisitions inspired much hope as Al-Farouq Aminu, Ed Davis, Maurice Harkless and Gerald Henderson all appeared to be downgrades and the Blazers were widely predicted to end up in the basement of the Western Conference, competing for ping pong balls in 2016’s NBA Draft Lottery.

Instead, however,  with one game remaining in the regular season, Portland finds themselves sitting comfortably as the fifth seed in the West, a notch above the fading Memphis Grizzlies and a notch below the four Western Conference contenders (maybe a few notches below the top two!), so how did they get here, and how does that offer hope to Nuggets fans?

It would be one thing if the Trail Blazers struck gold with a draft pick or found a diamond in the rough in free agency, but none of their rookies are averaging more than five minutes of court time per game and only Aminu is averaging more than 10 points per game, so clearly the boost came from somewhere else.

The source of that boost that launched Portland right back into the thick of the playoffs despite the majority of their roster skipping town is a couple of young players who made a significant leap between their second and third years in the league in C.J. McCollum and Allen Crabbe. Both McCollum and Crabbe have increased their productivity along with their increased minutes, allowing the Trail Blazers to “re-tool” without ever having to rebuild.

McCollum:

Crabbe:

Here are the Nuggets players finishing up their second year in the league that could make this leap and help vault Denver back into the playoff picture in the Western Conference next season:

 Gary Harris (32 mpg) won’t be seeing his minutes per game double next season, but it’s not out of the question that he improves his shooting along the lines of Crabbe and McCollum. Harris already has an outstanding FG% at 47.1 percent and is hitting three pointers at a 35.3 percent rate, so with more aggressiveness and some work on his outside shot, he could easily reach the level of effectiveness of McCollum as Portland’s second best player.

Jusuf Nurkic (16.4 mpg) should have the benefit of his first healthy offseason as an NBA player and will no doubt see an increased workload next year as he actually averaged more minutes (17.8) in his rookie season under former Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw. The Bosnian Beast has a terrible field goal percentage for a man of his stature (42 percent) and has nowhere to go but up as he works on finishing more aggressively at the rim. Things are looking up already for Juka as his shooting percentage is significantly higher since the All-Star break (48.3 percent vs. 35.4 percent) and his blocks per game have doubled for 0.9 to 1.8.

Joffrey Lauvergne doesn’t offer the ceiling of the other young frontcourt players on the Nuggets roster, but he is already providing consistent minutes for Denver and provides both rebounding and outside shooting, two things highly valued for power forwards in today’s NBA. Lauverge has shown the ability to hit shots from outside, despite shooting just 24.5 percent from 3-point range this season (I swear that percentage would be significantly higher if they counted shots where one foot was one the line) and he could teach Nikola Jokic and Jusuf Nurkic a lesson or two about using size to your advantage in the paint as he’s shooting 51.3 percent from the field, best of the three young bigs for the Nuggets, mostly thanks to the fact that he’s not afraid to take the ball straight to the rim when he gets it down low. Lauvergne isn’t flashy, but he is the type of player that fills out a roster on successful teams, not afraid to do the dirty work in the paint and hit an occasional jumper to help space the floor.

JaKarr Sampson is the other Nuggets player finishing up his second season and has certaily earned a long look from the team’s management with his energetic, defensive-minded play to close out the season. He is one of only four current Nuggets players with a positive Defensive Box Plus/Minus rating, and the only backcourt player of those four. If Sampson works on his 3-point shooting (just 27.6 percent) he could provide excellent value to the Nuggets going forward.

Rookie Rates

Other than the improved play of McCollum and Crabbe, the contributions that the Trail Blazers have gotten from players on rookie contracts has gone a long way towards allowing them to be successful without going into a full-on rebuild mode. Of their top 10 players as far a minutes per game, seven are still on rookie contracts (Lillard, McCollum, Crabbe, Harkless, Plumlee, Meyers Leonard and Noah Vonleh) with Lillard’s max extension set to kick in this offseason.

The Nuggets are certainly well stocked with rookie-level and team friendly contracts as Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic are still on their rookie deals, Joffrey Lauvergne, JaKarr Sampson and Axel Toupane have non-guaranteed deals all under $2 million and Will Barton is a steal at just $3.5 million. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see some combination of Faried ($12 million), Gallinari ($15 million) and Chandler ($11 million) on the move this offseason, opening up all kinds of options for Denver.

The All-Star Conundrum

The one thing missing from the Nuggets roster that hasn’t been mentioned above is a certified All-Star caliber player like Damian Lillard. With all of the negatives being tossed around about Portland’s roster coming into the season, they could always count on the man handling the ball being a bona fide All-Star night-in and night-out. The Nuggets have some veterans that have been close, but hurt by injuries or inconsistent play (Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Kenneth Faried), but none of them have been able to affect the game in the way that Lillard has.

With so many young, up-and-coming players on the Nuggets roster, it wouldn’t be surprising to see one or two of the three aforementioned veterans moved before the start of next season. It will likely be up to the Nuggets stable of promising youngsters and/or draft picks to provide the kind of star power that Lillard gives to the Trail Blazers.

Coaching Carousel

The last major factor that has helped the Trail Blazers defy expectations this season is a coach that has consistently been able to get the most out of his players. Terry Stotts, of the George Karl coaching tree, came to Portland in in 2012 and was able to turn the team into a perennial contender. After missing the postseason in his first year as head coach, the Blazers have reached the playoffs in three consecutive years. As ESPN’s Zach Lowe says in the first of his end-of-season awards columns:

Stotts placed cast-offs and unknowns around Lillard and forged a playoff team in Portland.

Stotts empowers players to stretch themselves in his whirring motion offense, knowing that if they feel involved on that end, they’ll buy into the grunt work. He stabilized the team’s iffy defense with some key midseason tweaks, including a few that nudged players into uncomfortable new challenges. Players embraced those challenges, in part because they thought their coach and their superstar had already embraced them.

The Blazers snagging the No. 5 or No. 6 seed after losing four starters is perhaps the happiest story of the season. No team plays, and lives, with a better spirit. Much of that gravitates from Stotts. He might win, and he’d deserve it.

Michael Malone may not be on that level yet, but the feeling around the team couldn’t be more different than it was when Brian Shaw was head coach. The records may be similar, but there’s no doubt that Malone has this team headed in the right direction and that he’s the type of leader that will get the most out of his roster, whether or not it’s filled with All-Stars.

Nuggets of Note (Draft Pick Edition)

• A Nuggets win could mean a higher first-round draft pick for the Nuggets as they will receive Portland’s first-round pick as it won’t be in the lottery. The Blazers entered Tuesday night’s games a half game ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies, who finished their season Tuesday night against the Los Angeles clippers and a full game ahead of the Dallas Mavericks who finish out the regular season at home on Wednesday night against the Spurs.
• The Houston Rockets are holding onto a playoff spot by the skin of their teeth, entering Tuesday night’s games tied with the Utah Jazz for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. It’s win and your in for the Rockets as they hold the tie-breaker with the Jazz and just need to take care of business at home against the Sacramento Kings to secure a playoff birth, and a third first-round pick for the Nuggets in the upcoming draft.
• The Knicks loss to the Indiana Pacers early Tuesday night (thanks Ty Lawson!) secures their position as seventh-worst record in the league, meaning the 15 percent chance of a top three pick and 4.3 percent chance at No. 1 overall are headed to the Nuggets. For their own part, the Nuggets enter their season finale tied with the Sacramento Kings and Milwaukee Bucks at 33-48. The best-case-scenario for the Nuggets on Wednesday is that the Kings beat the Rockets, but the Jazz fall to the Los Angeles Lakers in Kobe Bryant‘s finale, meaning the Rockets still make the playoffs and the Nuggets get their pick. The Kings win and Bucks victory over the Pacers (who lose on a missed last-second shot by Ty Lawson, thanks again Ty!) means that the last of the Nuggets’ draft lottery ping pong balls come down to their game in Portland. A back-and-forth battle finally ends in triple-overtime with a Portland victory and official passing-of-the-torch ceremony from the Trail Blazers to the Denver Nuggets as the surprise team of the 2016-2017 NBA season.