Despite Trail Blazers-Friendly Team Option, Young Breakout's Portland Future Unclear

Will he stick around next sesaon?

During a lottery-bound season loaded with depressing storylines for the 21-61 Portland Trail Blazers, one of the few exciting hoops narratives emerge from the Pacific Northwest was the emergence of young point guard Dalano Banton, who suddenly looks like a legitimate NBA player on his third team after being an afterthought on the Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics previously in his career.

Across 30 contests with Portland (eight starts), the 6'9" Nebraska product posted intriguing averages of 16.7 points on .408/.311/.780 shooting splits, 4.8 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 0.9 steals and 0.6 blocks per 29.2 minutes a night. Sure, they didn't win a lot of games, but that's more of a roster construction issue than a Banton problem.

Per Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian, it's not clear just yet whether or not the Blazers will actually want to pick up their $2.2 million team option on Banton, given how far back he'll rank on the team's depth chart at small forward and point guard, his two optimal playing positions.

“You’ve got to be open to what the situation is,” Banton allowed. “You’ve got to know the situation and you’ve got to take full advantage of it. I knew what I had here and I was able to do that.”

“I can’t express how thankful I am towards the whole organization, just accepting me with open arms from day one,” Banton remarked of his tenure with the Trail Blazers. “Coming in, putting me in a position to be aggressive. Making sure I had everything I needed. I feel like I never missed a beat when I came here. Obviously, trying to get into the flow of things takes some time. But just treating me as if I’d been here since the beginning of the year, I felt accepted.”

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