Toumani Camara Sends Strong Message on Blazers' Progress During Transitional Season

Portland Trail Blazers forward Toumani Camara knows that his team has an uphill battle during the 2025-26 season. He just doesn't feel like the team should be down about any of it. Instead, Camara has optimism in his team because of what they've proven.

Not only did the Blazers win four of their last six games this past April to close out the 2024-25 campaign, but Portland is the lone blemish on the Oklahoma City Thunder's record this year after a 121-119 shocker at the Moda Center in early November. They've also twice defeated the Golden State Warriors and own a win over the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets. This is all with Tiago Splitter sitting in the interim head coaching seat after Chauncey Billups' connection to an illegal gambling scandal led to his ouster as head coach.

Camara spoke about the team's resilience during practice on Wednesday ahead of a clash with the New Orleans Pelicans in the Big Easy on Thursday night.

"We need to figure out a way to be more consistent," Camara said after practice on Tuesday, via The Rose Garden Report. "We've shown a lot of good things in certain games, and then in other games we just go completely away from it.

"I think mentally, we're in a good space. We're still very together and very connected. We have a lot of things going against us right now, so being able to fight through that and go through that adversity, that's what we need for the stage we're at right now.

"We know what we're capable of doing. We've beaten good teams. We're in these games most of the time. We've just got to be able to go out there and close games and not have bad quarters.

"You see it last year, we had some great runs towards the end of the year. This year, we also have a lot of injuries. That's promising to the way we're going to be playing in the future."

Toumani Camara Blossoming Into Key Rotation Piece For Portland

Camara's development appears to be right on time. Once the calendar year turned to 2025, Camara started racking up double-digit points per game totals every month. Camara has scored at least 17 points in three of his last five games.

Camara has not allowed the coaching change to affect his growth. In fact, he's shooting 43% on 28 three-point attempts in December. Camara is becoming a true 3-and-D rotation player and giving the team some leeway as it considers offloading high-priced players on the wing.

Amidst the chaos, Camara is offering a light for the Trail Blazers. Resiliency, like Camara's shown throughout two losing seasons before showing signs of a major leap in year three, is what will get Portland over their current hump and onto the other side as a contender.