#CrystalBasketball: Ranking the Portland Trail Blazers After 2020-21

How does every NBA player stack up coming out of the 2021 playoffs?

That’s the question NBA Math staff members and contributors sought to answer, ranking each and every player in the Association on a 1-to-12 scale and then seeing who emerged with the highest averages. The distant past was irrelevant. Long-term potential doesn’t matter. Only the level at which we expected them to play right after the conclusion of 2020-21 matters, assuming health for those currently healthy and full recoveries from those presently injured, so long as they logged even a single minute during the regular season or playoffs.

All players—classified by the team for which they last appeared, even if they were since waived or released in some alternative fashion—were graded on the following scale by each evaluator, and ties between players with identical averages were broken by sorting the scores from best to worst and propping up the men who had the highest mark at any point in the top-down progression:

  1. Shouldn’t Get Minutes
  2. End-of-Bench Pieces
  3. Depth Pieces
  4. High-End Backups
  5. Low-End Starters
  6. Solid Starters
  7. High-End Starters, Non-All-Stars
  8. All-Star Candidates
  9. All-NBA Candidates, Non-MVP Candidates
  10. Lesser MVP Candidates
  11. MVP Frontrunners
  12. Best Player in the League (only one player could earn this grade on each ballot)

Now, for the Portland Trail Blazers:

Shouldn’t Get Minutes: 1.00 to 1.49

15. T.J. Leaf: 1.17 (0.54 down)

14. Keljin Blevins: 1.33 (0.13 up)

13. CJ Elleby: 1.46 (0.04 down)

End-of-Bench Pieces: 1.50 to 2.49

12. Nassir Little: 2.31 (0.16 down)

Depth Pieces: 2.50 to 3.49

11. Harry Giles: 2.77 (1.16 down)

10. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson: 3.0 (0.54 down)

9. Anfernee Simons: 3.43 (0.18 up)

High-End Backups: 3.50 to 4.49

8. Derrick Jones Jr.: 3.62 (0.69 down)

7. Carmelo Anthony: 3.69 (0.25 down)

6. Enes Kanter: 3.92 (0.32 up)

Low-End Starters: 4.50 to 5.49

None

Solid Starters: 5.50 to 6.49

5. Robert Covington: 5.62 (0.57 down)

4. Norman Powell: 5.92 (0.78 up)

3. Jusuf Nurkic: 6.08 (0.74 down)

High-End Starters: 6.50 to 7.49

2. CJ McCollum: 7.46 (0.05 up)

All-Star Candidates: 7.50 to 8.49

None

All-NBA Candidates: 8.50 to 9.49

None

Lesser MVP Candidates: 9.50 to 10.49

  1. Damian Lillard: 10.31 (0.02 up)

MVP Frontrunners: 10.50 to 12.00

None

Many thanks to the following people for their participation in this project: Marvin Barge, Jacob Bourne, Rory Bresail, Josh Eberley, Dan Favale, Adam Fromal, Grant Hughes, Bryant Knox, Jordan McGillis, Tom Rende, Bryan Toporek, Frank Urbina, Eric Spyropoulos, Matthew Way.