Hardwood Knocks

Few teams in the NBA are as tough to forecast ahead of the 2017-18 season as the Portland Trail Blazers. They won just 41 games last year and are not appreciably better on paper, but their 20-tilt tear with Jusuf Nurkic suggests they're on to something. Can that small-sample detonation hold? After all, the Blazers' roster setup is officially wonky. They added to their dizzying number of frontcourt volume on draft night and pawned off Allen Crabbe onto the Brooklyn Nets. Though any team led by Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum will never want for offense, the Blazers' spacing feels iffy. Could they experience regression on the more glamorous end if Maurice Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu fail once again to shoot league-average clips from three-point range? How will they structure their frontcourt pecking order? Will Nurkic start beside Noah Vonleh? Have they given up on Meyers Leonard? Where does Evan Turner fit into all this, assuming he factors in at all? Equally important: Can McCollum and Lillard coax Carmelo