Ideally we\u2019d all like to believe that the Portland Trail Blazers will challenge the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, and Minnesota Timberwolves for supremacy in the NBA\u2019s Western Conference this season. Realistically that kind of run isn\u2019t on the table for Portland\u2019s crew just yet. The Blazers are on their way up, but the elevator might not reach the top floor in 2025.<\/p>\n
The Blazer\u2019s Edge staff was debating this matter internally and we\u2019re going to throw open the conversation to readers today.<\/p>\n
What teams (in either conference) would you name as Portland\u2019s real competitors this season? By \u201creal\u201d we mean, \u201cTeams you look at as barometers given the Blazers\u2019 status and strength right now\u201d. Trail Blazers vs. Thunder isn\u2019t a fair fight. Portland would be punching outside of their weight class. Who is in Portland\u2019s class though? What teams would you look at and say, \u201cIf the Blazers do well against them, we\u2019re getting somewhere\u201d?<\/p>\n
You can target specific opponents or name a range. For instance, I instinctively thought of the Phoenix Suns on the lower end of the spectrum. If the Blazers don\u2019t beat them out, something might be wrong. The Sacramento Kings formed the upper end of the wishlist. If the Blazers finish ahead of them, the Play-In Tournament is a really strong possibility and the playoffs aren\u2019t out of the question.<\/p>\n
Who makes your list of weight class rivals for the Blazers this year? Share your answers in the comment section below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ideally we\u2019d all like to believe that the Portland Trail Blazers will challenge the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":208782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[104111,104112,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-208781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-blazers-gameday-coverage","9":"tag-discussion-and-gameday-threads","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115165586404905894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208781","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=208781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}