{"id":130578,"date":"2025-08-09T02:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130578\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T02:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:09:09","slug":"blazers-fans-must-officially-say-goodbye-to-polarizing-player-who-deserves-a-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130578\/","title":{"rendered":"Blazers fans must officially say goodbye to polarizing player who deserves a shot"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portland Trail Blazers filled out their 15-man roster with the signing of Blake Wesley. They have a final two-way spot remaining, but Dalano Banton is ineligible for that deal as he has more than four years of NBA experience. As a result, Blazers fans must officially say goodbye to the polarizing score-first jumbo guard. <\/p>\n

The Blazers had two players set to hit free agency this summer who were unlikely to return to give them more roster space and flexibility: Jabari Walker and Banton. Walker found a landing spot in Philadelphia, and the fact that the 76ers somehow got him on a two-way deal is an absolute steal<\/a> for them. On the other hand, there’s been little to no update regarding Banton’s status. <\/p>\n

“I have no idea what’s going on with Dalano Banton this summer. At this point, he might either have to go overseas or go to somebody’s training camp on a prove-it deal,” Sean Highkin recently wrote on The Rose Garden Report. <\/p>\n

Dalano Banton deserves another shot<\/p>\n

Walker and Banton were polar opposite players for the Blazers. Walker averaged 5.2 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, but his intangibles impacted winning beyond those stats. He was the ideal hustle guy that teams should want on the end of their bench; someone who knew his role and never tried to do too much. <\/p>\n

Banton was… not that. He averaged 8.3 points, 2.4 assists, and 2.0 rebounds on inefficient 39\/32\/73 shooting splits. <\/p>\n

Walker was Portland’s water, while Banton was the fire. Sometimes that led to random games where Banton was the X-Factor, particularly in the fourth quarter. His late-game play even led Blazers analytics insider Tom Haberstroh to write an entire piece breaking down Banton as the basketball equivalent of a closer<\/a>. Blazers broadcaster Lamar Hurd referred to him as Portland’s “Secret Weapon” — the kind of player that opposing fans can’t believe just single-handedly beat their team. <\/p>\n

But Banton was perhaps the most polarizing player for Blazers fans last season. He gave us incredible memories. He also gave us gray hair. Unfortunately for Banton, the frustrating stretches outnumbered the memorable hot stretches. <\/p>\n

Unlike Walker, Banton’s role didn’t scale down well as an end-of-bench type player. He’s at his best with the ball in his hands, but the reality is that no NBA team can effectively and consistently revolve its offense around that. That’s the difference between Walker and Banton as complementary role players, and the primary reason that one has already found a new home. <\/p>\n

Although Banton has his flaws, he deserves another shot in the league. Time will tell if another team is willing to live with the rollercoaster ride that comes along with his playstyle. Banton can still be valuable in a break glass in case of an emergency role. But that won’t be in Portland. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers filled out their 15-man roster with the signing of Blake Wesley. They have a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":130579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-130578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114996377376205012","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}