Blazers Insider Has Surprising Reaction to Season Schedule Announcement

Jan 11, 2025; Portland, Oregon, USA; Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija (8) high-fives forward Toumani Camara (33) during introductions before a game against the Miami Heat at Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images | Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

A Portland Trail Blazers insider has drawn a surprising conclusion about the club's impending 2025-26 season schedule.

This year's Trail Blazers figure to look different from the 2024-25 iteration in a few key aspects.

Portland has gotten rid of 26-year-old scoring guard Anfernee Simons and 27-year-old starting center Deandre Ayton, both on expiring deals.

The Trail Blazers prioritized bringing in some backcourt defense by flipping Simons for 35-year-old six-time All-Defensive Team guard Jrue Holiday. Portland clearly wants to improve at the center position, too, with its freshly emphasized focus on Donovan Clingan and rookie Yang Hansen going forward.

Nine-time All-Star point guard Damian Lillard is back where he belongs, with the team that drafted him via the No. 6 pick in 2012 out of Weber State. But he'll be recovering from an Achilles tendon tear, and seems unlikely to suit up this season.

On his podcast "The Brief Case," TrailBlazers.com's Casey Hodahl unpacked the beginning of Portland's schedule — and drew an intriguing conclusion.

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"It starts on October 22 by the Trail Blazers hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves at Moda Center, then a game versus the Warriors two nights later, also at Moda center," Hodahl said. "And then it's the first road trip of the season, a three-game trip, down to Los Angeles, facing the two Los Angeles teams, the Clippers and the Lakers, back-to-back nights, having a day off, and then heading to Utah to play the Jazz in Salt Lake City. That gets the Trail Blazers off to their first week-and-a-half, two weeks of the schedule."

"A fairly balanced schedule for the Trail Blazers this year, that would be my overall take on the schedule this year, is last season it seemed like it was really road-heavy to start, and then it kind of evened out as the season went on," Hodahl added.

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"This year, much more, it feels like, balanced from the start. I think in their first 40 games, I think they have 21 that are on the road and 19 at home, so that's as close as you can get it. Much shorter road trips this year too. Only two nine-day road trips," Hodahl noted. "But the reason for that is more back-to-backs. 15 back-to-backs for the Trail Blazers this season, that's an increase of I think two back-to-backs from last season."

Back-to-backs will be something of an inconvenience for the Trail Blazers, who as Hodahl observes are fairly isolated from a lot of other teams, and thus will have to travel further for many of these games.

For more news and notes on the Portland Trail Blazers, visit Portland Trail Blazers on SI.