Micah Nori has not named a starting lineup in Portland yet, and the reason is sitting right there in his backcourt. Damian Lillard said he expects to start alongside Deni Avdija and Ja Morant. Nori, in his first year running the Trail Blazers, said that starting Lillard and Morant together would make little basketball sense. Nori is the one who has this right.
Morant came over from the Memphis Grizzlies in an offseason trade after averaging 19.5 points, 8.1 assists and a steal per game. Lillard was reacquired last summer while rehabbing a torn Achilles. Avdija grew into an All-Star last season as Portland’s most reliable ball handler, and he is the only clear lock of the three.
The Math Only Works If Somebody Comes Off The Bench
Three guards who need the ball, one ball. Nori also has Jrue Holiday on the roster, plus two extension-eligible young guards in Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, who is working his way back from injury. Portland has no shortage of backcourt talent. The trouble is that nearly all of it wants the same job.
Nori has already flagged the wrong way to solve it. “What we don’t want is, just because Jrue may not care about starting, saying, ‘Well, Jrue will handle it the best, so don’t start him,'” he said. Translated: Portland is not going to pick a starting five based on whose feelings are easiest to manage. That is the correct instinct and it cuts against the obvious shortcut.
Why Morant Is The Right Answer
Of the three, Morant is the one who can run an entire unit by himself. A bench group built around him keeps the Blazers’ offense functional in the minutes Avdija and Lillard are resting, which is exactly what a team with a 2025 Achilles tear in its backcourt should be planning for.
Lillard’s recovery is the other half of the argument. A guard coming back from that injury belongs in lineups with the most spacing around him and the least defensive ground to cover, and in Portland that means the starting group next to Avdija. Asking Lillard to anchor bench minutes in his first season back would be a strange way to protect the investment.
Nori is honest about the risk in all of this. Asked how Morant would take a reserve role, he said, “On the outside, I think he would handle it great. On the inside … I don’t know.” That is a real concern, and it is still not a reason to make the worse basketball decision.
Preseason Is The Test, And That Is The Point
Nori has said he intends to try Lillard and Morant together in preseason games before committing to anything. That is the right sequence. You find out in October whether a two-small-guard starting look survives contact defensively, rather than spending December learning it the expensive way.
Portland has not announced a starting five, and no reporting suggests Morant has objected to anything or been told where he stands. My read is that Nori runs the experiment, does not love what he sees on the defensive end, and lands on Morant as the most dangerous reserve guard in the Western Conference. Used that way, Morant is worth more to this team than he would be as the third ball handler in a starting group that already has two.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
